Optimising variables in the equation of my life

Life is basically a math equation. Here are the variables I've been optimising.

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Consider a math equation with different variables.

In order to balance the equation, I can only optimise a few variables at a time. Once those variables are optimised, only then I can optimise other variables, while trying not to change the first variables too much.

Life is kind of the same way.

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I can only optimise a few variables of life at a time.

In 2022, I was largely focused on work — my day job, growing my online presence/YouTube, meeting and networking with people, thinking of new ideas, trying new things.

Being a creator

YouTube was basically a second job the entire year. I was posting weekly almost consistently while learning to push myself to try new things. I learnt how to negotiate sponsorships. I learnt how to deal with a video blowing up to 1M+ views, and how to leverage the attention to grow my channel instead of wasting it.

I launched a digital product, and learnt how to sell it. I learnt how to price it, how to build a landing page, how to run a marketing campaign to sell it. I learnt what to do when I realised I chose the wrong price.

I started helping people with their business school essays. I learnt how to sell myself, how to price myself, how to build processes and structures, and when to say no.

I started a creator community in Paris called creators.paris and this helped me meet a bunch of new people too. Even when I was traveling in New York, I spent an entire day trying to meet with different YouTubers.

I learnt how to do all these things from scratch, since it was my first time doing them.

Starting a career

I also chose to take a few risks while starting my career, which added a bit of stress to my life. I learnt how to quit a job that wasn’t working out for me.

Living, alone

I was also focused on learning to manage myself living alone. This included setting up and taking care of my apartment, figuring out where and how I’m going to eat, building routines, managing things around the house (like for example: figuring out how to clean mould from the ceiling of my bathroom while standing on a ladder with a bucket in one hand and a sponge in another), and generally learning to live and work full time, away from the safe and easy community of a school/uni system.

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Finances

It was also my first full year of earning a proper salary on my own. And so, I was also learning how to manage my finances.

How much should I save? How much can I spend on food? What if I really really enjoy eating food and I’m not being unhealthy – does the answer change? Is it okay to spend a crazy amount of money on a new camera? Is it stupid to buy something just because I really really want it and don’t know what I’ll do with it yet? How often can I do that?

I had to figure out the answers to all these questions.

Doing all of this, but on expert mode

To add to it, I was managing all of this while building a life in an entirely new country. This is the part I very often forget. Doing these things at home, near family and close/old friends, in a familiar environment and language, is already hard. Doing these things in a new country, language, social group, micro and macro environment, just adds a whole new level of complexity.

This meant, however, that other aspects of life had to take a bit of a backseat. I know that I could definitely have focused more on my health and diet. I could have focused on fitness. I could have focused on traveling more, or on cooking more. I could have focused more on building more hobbies, or on my mental health.

There are so many things I could have done, but I didn’t.

My 2023 variables

In 2023, there are other variables I’ll be focusing on. I’ll write about them in a future issue, shortly. :)

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What I realised

The reality is that it’s tough to focus on everything at once. And I was already having to focus on a lot things already.

I understood that in any transitory phase of life, there are new things to focus on learning, and this often comes at the cost of other things. This isn’t even my first transitory phase. It’s happened before.

And it’s easy to look at other people being able to focus on those other things, but it’s important to remind myself what are the things I need to focus on at this moment.

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How I can help you —

1. My B-School Application Essay Guide. If you’re applying to business schools, this guide can help you write your essays in the best, most impactful way possible.

2. My YouTube channel. Information about living in and moving to France.

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It’s been a while since I’ve written this newsletter, but I’m still glad to see a bunch of new people subscribing to it. I’ll be writing way more often from now on. I promise.

See you next week!

— Mayank