Radical honesty, polarising insight and lots of swearing upcoming, so if this bothers you, please skip this post.
Honestly.
The world doesn’t give a shit about your NY resolutions. I don’t either. The marketplace? Doesn’t give a crap. Your excess body fat? Zero fucks given. Your freelancing for 3k/mo “business”? Doesn’t give a fuck.
Everyone is going to kill it in 2019. It’s going to be the best year for everyone. Right?
You know it’s a bunch of BS, yet you still do that. Why?
It makes you feel better.
It’s kinda like a messed up version of visualization. You are basically projecting yourself in the future, and giving yourself the feeling of success without actually getting it. And this kills the Tension.
The Tension is what gets you results. Remember when you were too poor to grab a dinner outside? And you made excuses to your date as to why it’s better to cook at home anyway?
Remember not buying the jacket for $150, but the cheaper alternative that didn’t fit half as well? And not just materialistic stuff btw, it’s just easier to relate to that.
What about when you saw your belly flab being a bit bigger every day in the mirror? Or when you wanted to ask for that raise for 2 months straight, but you bailed out each time just before the moment of truth…
Those moments SUCK. They are terrible and hard to stomach.
However, they create a lot of Tension. The Tension between where you are, and where you want to be. And what did you do, looking back, with that Tension?
You took it, you hated the shit out of it, and you squeezed the bitch till you got what you wanted.
It wasn’t easy. Might have required lots of grinding, or making really tough decisions. But you did it, you got what you wanted, and the Tension was gone. Or later on, as you got more experienced, you just hated less and smiled more. Yet you still leveraged the Tension and got it done anyway.
This whole “2019 will be the best year ever” BS is really messing everyone up. I mean think about it. You go and do these NY resolutions, and project yourself into the future where you already have everything that you want.
What a great feeling. “Let’s grab a beer to celebrate how awesome 2019 will really be.” You see what I mean? Just thinking about it makes you feel like a champ, and like you can celebrate already.
Put that drink down. Coffee is for closers only.
Here’s another lie about why “2019 WON’T be the best year ever.” Because you can’t define a “best year ever”. This is the classic misconception between goals and results.
- “I will make a lot of money this year” vs “I’ll make $100,000 this year”.
- “I will get in shape this year” vs “I’ll have a clearly defined 6-pack and will be under 75kg”
- “I will get good with girls this year” vs “I’ll go on 10 dates with 10 different girls.”
Do you see the difference? The stuff on the left will be hard to accomplish. And even if you do, and if you’re too perfectionistic (welcome to the club), you still won’t feel good enough even though you might have crushed it.
The stuff on the right is pretty clear. You either do it (good job) or not (keep trying).
Define your results carefully, and make sure they are relevant for YOU, not somebody else. Not everyone needs a sports car.
And once you have those results written down, look at them every day. Look at them till your eyes bleed. Cultivate that Tension, pour oil on it every day. Add wood, and blow air into the Tension till it becomes a raging inferno that stops only when the result is there.
Obviously, it doesn’t just “magically happen” after that. There’s no rainbow unicorn that poops law of attraction and manifests your results for you. You need a game plan. You need to break it down into bits and pieces. And you need to take action according to the game plan every single day.
Every. Single. Day. And you need course correction too.
The faster you implement, the faster you move, the more you learn. Every now and then, ideally on regular intervals, you need to check if you’re still climbing the right mountain. If not, course correct, tweak the game plan and keep taking action.
You need to keep balance along the way too.
It’s easy to get sucked into the dark side. All work no play. That’s not fun either. I mean, even Michael Phelps got a little high in between winning 28 Olympic medals…
Anyway, rant ending.
Btw, I’m all-in for creating plans, and for retrospective and positive outlook on future and all that good stuff. I just get angry when I hear BS. I don’t always call it out, because it takes too much effort, but sometimes I do. Hope it helps.
Here’s to 2019. The best year ever. Lol.
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