2019 Goals, Contradictory Aims, Newbie Lays and Notch-Hunger

I had two goals for 2018:

• 24 lays
• 50:1 approach to lay ratio

As you can read here, I’m an abject failure. Boo hoo, woe is me! Just kidding, I’m awesome.

The only time you lose is when you fail to learn. The problems I built into my 2018 goals were twofold:

• Contradictory aims
• Compliance based

The latter has been talked about already so let’s look at the first. Aiming for an absolute number of lays while simultaneously trying to become more efficient is a fool’s errand. Just like an investment fund which tries to set risk and reward targets: there can be only one!

Throughout the first quarter of 2018 I had my “two lays a month” goal always in the back of my head. I got the two in January but then in February I felt as if I was playing catch-up. When I tried to up my workrate I found that the same zest I had felt the last year wasn’t there: I wasn’t willing to throw myself into sets just to hit ten that day. That lead to a vicious spiral and it’s something I’ll be avoiding this year. I want to feel the warm glow of achievement as I go about my work.

Disclaimer: just like newbie gains in the gym there are newbie lays in Game. Someone can start Daygame with a tonne of energy, a bright and joyous vibe, and improve their technique and it leads to them doing lots of sets and getting better at it in the process. That process finished for me about five months after beginning Daygame: my technique carried on improving but my vibe normalised. I can imagine for someone coming into Daygame with more issues that his happy-clappy period would start sometime after he began Daygame.

So this year I’ve settled on one simple goal:

• 15 sets a week

“Oh so you’re quitting Daygame then?”

On first inspection that doesn’t sound like a lot, but I will explain that figure: I feel notch-hunger roughly every three weeks. It might sound odd but I’ve observed it for two years that two weeks after my last new lay I start to feel hungry again, no matter the amount of sex I’m having. My ego turns up and knocks on the door and wants to be satisfied.

Then I did some calculations:

• You need to have at least 12 lays a year to be considered an intermediate Daygamer.
• 12 lays at a rate of one lay every three weeks, on average, is 36 weeks. 36/4 is 9 months and that sounds like a very reasonable number of months of the year to be Daygaming for.
• My A:L improved by 29% so let’s apply that same improvement again: 41:1 is the projected ratio.
• 41/3 + some leeway = 15 sets a week

Obviously (obviously!) I know that life is not that simple, but it’s the best I can do. 15 well chosen and well executed sets each week is an incredibly reasonable aim and is completely within my control. If I feel like doing more, I can, and if not, it won’t make me feel guilty.

What about outside of my Daygame: I’ve just finished 20 weeks of Stronglifts 5*5 and I’ll move onto Madcow; I’ll be writing my second book; I’ll be doing a very small amount of coaching on the cheap to teach myself how to do it; and I want to go on some holidays.

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown

P.S. any comments quoting “… land amongst the stars” will be edited 😉