T-minus 4 days until 2024 ends…

I’ve cooked my butt off for the past few days, and I’m just about out of butter, salt, sugar, and energy.

It’s been a fun few days, but it’s always the last push for a kiddy resort manager to get all the presents and wrappings sorted.

Now, all I want to do is pass out in a heap of leftovers as my kids enjoy their spoils from a year of good behavior…

but writing calls. Ambitions rears its bulbous, annoying head and beckons me to this screen again.

Time to figure out what I want to do in year 3 of writing, year 6 of content creation…

So let’s go through a few things that I hope will help you (if you haven’t already started your own process).

Let’s make sure you don’t end up like the vast majority of the world and end up quitting your New Year’s Resolutions (NYR) after the January shine wears off like that cheap Temu product your friend got you as a gag gift.

One Rule to Follow

There are a multitude of hacks and mindset tips that I’ve come across in the past few decades…most of them last about as long as NYR because, ironically, they constitute one themselves!

I’ve followed one rule for myself over the past 6 years…

• It’s how I’ve managed to make over 250 long form videos in my previous life as a YouTuber.

• It’s how I’ve written over 23k posts on the now inactive TwiX account that I abandoned for personal reasons.

• It’s how I’ve published over 160 articles on Medium, vlogged over 400 times, and continue to do 100 push ups a day for over a year now…

It’s stupidly simple, but it’s also something that I realize takes time to cultivate:

Decouple your mental and emotional state from the daily execution.

That’s it.

No. Really. That’s the secret to how I’ve managed to pull this off.

With a 9-5 career that I don’t plan on quitting anytime soon along with two dogs, four cats, and two kids to manage with my wife, this is all that keeps me from imploding into a puddle of sludgy, pudgy, dad-bodded mess.

The old saying holds true: how you do anything is how you do everything.

I’m not perfect by any measure, but regardless of what happened during the day, I made sure to put aside a little time to write something, anything, in a notebook or a phone or on my platform of choice.

It didn’t matter when or where, just that I did it.

If a crazy, mal-adjusted, middle-aged family guy who is overwhelmed on a regular basis can do this, then you’ve got every fighting chance of carving out your own little time slot.

You can do this.

Start now.

You’ll reach milestones.

I can’t guarantee that you’ll reach your goals (and those aren’t the best way to see things anyway), but I can promise that you’ll be farther along than if you start and quit a month in like you’ve been doing for the past X amount of years on your NYR’s.

Design your own systems around this rule. It’s meant to be a seed that orients you towards action.

My Goals for 2025…

Now that I’ve just told you that goals are a dumb way to look at things, allow me to be hypocritical and share a few of mine.

Before you crap on me for this, remember that I’ve got my systems in place (but don’t touch anything cuz it’s all held together with duct tape and fishing line that I stole from the guy down the street).

Disclaimer: I hold all editing rights to this list as I know there’s no guarantee that I’ll get even a fraction of them done.

Here’s my list:

1. Publish my first eBook.

2. Read and review a book a month.

3. Shift body fat percentage down by 3%.

4. Lose and maintain my target weight of 130 lbs.

5. Publish at least twice a week to this newsletter.

6. Continue to do my daily vlogging and journaling.

7. Set up a well-oiled content distribution system based on my work.

There, that oughta be more than enough for anyone in this season of life.

Come to think of it, I have written more than a few 7-day series in this newsletter since its inception to obliterate the first bullet.

I’ve got enough books in my backlog for the second one.

The next two bullets are within striking distance, but the third one will be the hardest to do by far.

Notice that I didn’t mention any platform on this list.

Sure, I have Beehiiv, Substack, BlueSky, and Medium that I want to stitch together, but these platforms are bundled up in the last two bullets.

So yeah, these are my goals.

Now, go get your own!

P.S. Keep This In Mind…

No matter what happens in the next year, face everything with gratitude.

I’m saying this just as much for myself as I am for you.

I’ve always been grateful for the ebbs and flows of life.

Yes, it sucks sometimes.

Yes, there are challenges and problems we all face.

But the funny part is that they’re all similar. We’re bound together by the commonality of our struggles.

It’s why we communicate and share our experiences.

Thanks for being here.