Since 2016, I had been using the 8 forms of capital framework by Ethan Roland & Gregory Landua, to think ahead for what I would like to achieve for the year. I did one last year which I shared on 200wad. For the uninitiated, the 8 forms are: 

? Financial capital: money, financial instruments, investments

⚒️ Material capital: possessions, natural resources, tools, infrastructure

? Living capital: nature, land, ecosystems, animals, health (my own addition)

? Intellectual capital: ideas, knowledge, words, images, intellectual property

? Experiential capital: action, embodied experienced, worldly wisdom

? Social capital: connections, relationships, influence

? Cultural capital: song, story, ritual, art, theatre, community customs

⛩️ Spiritual capital: prayer, faith, beliefs, spiritual attainment

I love how it nudges me to think holistically, beyond the usual career, wealth, health categories of life goals. The main idea is that capital isn’t just financial; it is also all these other 7 of them, which can be transformed into financial capital and vice versa. 

But after 4 cycles, I realised I don’t stick to one-third to half the goals I set at the beginning of the year for these 8 forms of capital. That’s because:

• It’s hard to plan S.M.A.R.T goals for a whole year ahead. Things happen during the year, and the goals need to evolve, or get dropped. 
• I add in goals anyway to areas I don’t feel much for, hence it doesn’t get much love. Downsides of using a fill-in-the-blanks framework.
• My monthly goals are now a more realtime measure of my progress, and that’s taking up a lot of effort, so I forget/don’t align and track my monthly goals to the 8 forms of capital yearly ones. Tracking fatigue.

But there’s still some value in doing this for the year ahead, so I decided that I can use this framework for setting broader intentions in these 8 areas of life. The broader intentions can then be the North Star to softly guide the monthly goals/experiments I set. Kind of like a funnel, what I said about tracking time, energy and direction. 

OK, so my intentions for 2020 are: 

“I want to see if I can…

? Financial: Be audacious and earn $1mil ARR by 1 Jan 2021 

⚒️ Material: Via negativa - remove more, tidy often.

? Living: Stabilize my health on ketofast, get into more biohacking.

? Intellectual: Continue reading everyday - money, coding, biohacking, growth. Whatever sparks my curiosity.

? Experiential: Consistency is key. Practice makes perfect. Remember that for career, coding and health.

? Social: Less real-life interactions, less local, more online connections, more global.

? Cultural: Enjoy what fascinates me, embrace the weird - space, alternative history, Japan.

⛩️ Spiritual: Trial by fire of fatherhood. Surprise me baby.

All these probably sound like bullshit now, because I’m experimenting with the 8 forms of capital in a new way, so efficacy is uncertain. Work-in-progress, for sure. Will report back.