Going All In On Change

Gambling it all for a different life and the price you pay

Hey Friends, 

Last week, a friend told me, “you’re so different to who you were a year ago.” 

Excuse my french but thank fuck. 

Despite it only being a year ago, everything that happened in 2021 feels like a distant memory. And as I begin to reflect on 2022, I can’t believe how much everything has changed either. 

I vividly remember how I welcomed in the new year. It wasn’t the typical affair of fireworks and champagne parties but one that was calm, quiet and of intentional reflection. When the clock struck midnight on Jan 1st 2022, I promised myself I had to let go of the past and move forward. I had to change. I had to take action. I had to wake up every and commit to taking action towards the life I wanted. 

To actively put in the effort every day for the past year and have people notice gives me a sense of relief that I’m doing something right. We forget to zoom out when we are too busy living our lives. We mistake the forest for the trees. So to hear someone essentially say, “hey, I see what you’re doing, and it’s working”, gives me the comfort that I’m doing better than I thought. 

So how did I change? By designing my environment. As James Clear writes in Atomic Habits, “Environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behaviour.” If you design your environment, it will design you back. 

Your environment includes the friends you surround yourself with, the job you take, the communities you join, the content you consume and the place you live in. All of this influences how you think, feel and act. Your environment either hinders or unlocks what you're capable of. 

It seems obvious when pointed out, but if I didn’t want to drink anymore, I shouldn’t hang out with people who drank. If I want to be fit and healthy, I should hang out with people who work out regularly. If I want a slower pace and intentional life, I should live where people are not hurrying around at 100 mph. If I want to become a decent climber, I should go to the climbing centre more. If I want to be a better writer, I should write more and get feedback from better writers. Sounds simple and obvious, but often the simplest things are the hardest to do. 

See, before, I made the mistake of thinking I could do anything so long as I willpower my way through things. But willpower requires a lot of effort and is also very fleeting. So whenever I did try to commit to a new routine, habit or skill and fail, it’d leave me feeling baffled as to why I couldn’t change. Yes, putting in the effort is crucial, but environment is much more important – more so than you realise. 

When I played poker, I hardly exercised. I was either at the casino or at my laptop. My life began to change when I stopped hanging out with my poker friends and more with people who exercised. I went from couch potato to half marathon to triathlon to climbing four times a week. 

When I lived in London, I hardly wrote. Life always felt like it was go go go. It was an endless list of meeting people for brunch, dinner, drinks or events. Then I moved back to Birmingham, embraced slow living and joined in more with my online writing community, Foster.co, and I now write at least 500 words a day. 

When I left poker, I didn’t know how to start a business. I then started reading books, listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos on entrepreneurship and business. I followed and made friends with other entrepreneurs on Twitter, and now here I am, juggling two businesses: coffee and copywriting. 

Nothing about changing has been easy. There were many moments this year when sheer terror punctured my life. I had no clue (I still don’t) what I was doing or whether I was good enough. But I told myself to turn up and take it one day at a time.

2023 is quickly approaching, and it’s typical for people to set new years resolutions, or in other words, wish lists of their dream life. I get it, you want to change, but if you really want to change your life, you have to change your environment. If you want to build a habit that lasts, you need to find a group of people where your desired behaviour is the norm. The normal behaviour in my poker group was to grind, make money and party. The normal behaviour in my climbing group is to climb, stay healthy and do wholesome activities together. The price of a new life is the cost of your old life. 

It was not so long ago that I thought my poker friends were the ones I’d stick with for life. But when I looked at my poker life and thought about whether I was moving towards the life I wanted, the brutal truth was no. So I walked away from it all. I gave up a high hourly to start again from scratch, determined never to turn back. 

I often felt guilty for letting go of my old relationships. But taking a step back and seeing how my life has gone through changes and cycles, it’s helped me accept that friendships have seasons too. In some relationships, you stop growing together. You move on. It’s not to say those people are beneath me, but as Tupac Shakur puts it, “Just because you lost me as a friend, doesn't mean you gained me as an enemy. I'm bigger then that, I still wanna see you eat, just not at my table.”

As I sit at my desk and write these words, I think of the different relationships I have let go of. No longer do I feel guilty, but a deep sense of gratitude for them. I’m grateful for the time we spent time together. I’ll always cherish the memories we created together. And I know we no longer talk. I know we no longer show up the same way as we used to, but change is a natural part of life. We spent a season crossing over the bridge together, but those values and beliefs we shared together no longer speak to me. I’ve got to do me and keep moving forward to the life I want. I hope the same for you. I wish you all the best, I hope you make it, and godspeed.

– Jason Vu Nguyen