There was something different about New Years this year.
Early on, it felt as if it was going to be something different. The anxiousness, the fear of failure, the angst that every little detail and goal was yet to be laid out for the year, and the waiting for the slightest misstep that was going to throw it of course. Was not there.
Maybe it’s growing older. Although most would say 38 is not that old, and I’d agree. Maybe it’s the constant searching for ‘The One Thing’ that will pull it all together. Maybe it was Cousin Jake from Jocko’s Way of the Warrior Kid. Maybe it was working with a good friend who has been looking for a job, and in the interim created a business for himself, but frankly would knock anything he did out of the park… but nobody wanted to take a chance because ‘it’s risky time’… (What is being risked?)
Maybe it’s acknowledging the fact that fear of going bigtime is real. Maybe it’s vowing to drink more in an attempt to be more normal… to fit in. But seeing that the only one that you need to fit in with has been next to you for 10+ years. And ultimately the only one you really need to fit in with is yourself.
The Man in the Glass. Respect the man in the glass.
Having the courage to recognize that you’ve known the right things to do all along, and have not been doing them. And instead of saying ‘Fuck It’ and throwing it all away. Like the Patriots in Super Bowl 17, down by 25 you decide to take ½ time and reassess. Make the corrections that need to be made and come back with even more fire and eagerness to win that you had at the start of the game.
When is ½ time?? THAT is the quandary with life.
In sports the season is defined, the post season is defined, the championship is defined. The goal is defined. WIN.
But the real answer lies within the ‘WIN’
But first the goal must be clearly defined before you can do ‘WIN’
Without a clear goal and clear direction, the clear goal and clear direction becomes set for you. Life has a way of putting you in exactly where you want to be at exactly the right time. But if the Google Maps destination if life is not set, you’re wandering, stopping for the easy Wawa’s and Targets(Pun Intended), and Gamestop’s of life.
We work towards the easy goals and objectives that are preset for ourselves. Save energy, eat food, avoid danger.
We get lethargic. We get fat. We lose ourselves. We lose our purpose. You could say we lose our direction… but it is not really our direction. It is the preset direction that in this day in age leads to ruin.
Leads to fake friends, fake houses, fake cars, fake everything.
It leads to simultaneously being connected to the entire world, yet unconnected to anything.
To talking with our kids while constantly scrolling Facebook, and Instagram to ‘Stay Connected’ while the kid or person next to you feels totally unconnected because you have not looked them in the eye in days, weeks months.
But you’re totally ‘Connected’.
If our end goals are not predetermined, your end goals will revert to what is programmed. And the programming sucks.
Many would say that God has a plan for all of us. And I would agree.
But I’d also agree that the big plans take a ton of work. A ton of work not in just to fulfill the plan, but to discover what the plan is.
What is your plan? What is your destiny?
Perhaps that’s a heavy question to answer, and perhaps you’ll not find out. But. And this is a big But.
You probably know what it is not.
It’s not meaningless connections, meaningless goals, meaningless activities to go along with the masses. And it’s not easy.
It’s not waking up and doing whatever you feel like for the day. It’s not doing ‘Thing’s that have to get done’ when you’re really avoiding, suppressing, running from the ‘Thing you really should be doing’.
The things you would do if you only had 3 months to live. The things you would do if you won a sum of money that would not give you total wealth where you don’t have to work… but enough where you say, ‘I need a job to make a few dollars… I’d really love to do X every day. ‘
‘I’d love to work on bikes.’
‘I’d love to devote a ton of time to changing the lives of others somehow.’
‘I’d love to, in some way, make a difference.’
‘I’d really love if someone didn’t have to go through this thing I went through growing up’
‘I’d really like to save someone from the pain of X……’
Once you find that goal, that path, that destiny. The work is just beginning.
But the only way to get there is through a Process.
The great teams and organizations and great anything was not made with just huge ambitions. They were made with a process. And the dedication to the process was just as important as the big goal itself.
Perhaps it was just the fight against the misguided, profit driven principals of the competition. The competition that was no longer trying to be great. The competition that was trying to win the money game but not the inspire and change the world game.
But Competition leads to innovation. Yes, in the right setting. But it also stifles creativity, because competition leads to competing to win based on the rules that are set.
Creativity comes from breaking rules. ‘You are remembered for the rules you have broken’…
Laird Hamilton, great big wave surfer, never really competed. He talked with Rich Roll about how innovative surfing was. Tons of creativity and cool inventions and designs coming out… until competition started. There became less of a reward for making really cool crazy things, and the profit motive took over to drive competitors to win based on the rules someone else set.
The creativity was stifled because of the rules set to win a game that you never really wanted to play.
So Laird never really competed. He competed with himself and had fun. He went on to invent stand up paddleboarding, tow in surfing and lots of other things. But these were not invented to make money. These were invented out of necessity to have fun.
They were invented out of process. Not a meticulous process, but a principal of being true to oneself. True to one’s passion. True to one’s ideas. True to one’s desire.
Everything comes back to a process.
Thus, ‘There is no then’
Getting to the root of your goals, which may take a ton of work in and of itself and taking time to reevaluate those goals is step number one.
But along the way there’s a process. The actions that make you more effective during the day. The actions that let you go to sleep at night without angst. The feeling that ‘tomorrow we do it all again, and that’s OK.’
This year that’s what’s different. This year there is no ‘Then’.
There is only a process.
And now.. Heading out for a run. Activity, a big part of the process.
What are the Key activities that lead you to a better day? Spend some time developing those out.. and focus on doing ‘WIN’… ‘What’s Important Now’ for a few days and see how it goes.
But do not forget to focus on what’s really important. Which is a journey in of itself.