If you don’t, you care more about where you are than where you want to go.
“There is nothing more important than clearly assessing where you are, where you want to go, & what you need to do to get there.
On your own, or from the help of others, develop an action-oriented blueprint & follow it.
No when you feel like it, but especially when you don’t.”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
I don’t get into this ‘best year ever!’ nonsense.
I view life in the context of a process full of highs, lows, successes, and failures.
More important than the good or bad is the learning opportunities living provides.
Most will tell you to learn from your failures and while I agree, there is a hell of a lot to be learned from your successes as well.
Towards the tail end of 2021, I began comprising a list of objectives for 2022. I don’t use the word “goals” because a lot of what I comprised was stuff I was already doing, but wanted to get better at.
My favorite quote of all time is: “If it’s important, do it every day.”
Simple? Yes.
Profound? Hell yes.
My initial objectives list was highly detailed and pages long.
I knew I needed to trim the fat.
I whittled it down to 5 simple daily objectives.
1. Read & Reflect on a Bible Study (Wisdom Hunters)
2. Read & Reflect on Wisdom Passages (The Daily Stoic)
3. Write a minimum of 500 words.
4. Read a minimum of 30 minutes.
5. Train.
That’s it, I set out to do those 5 things every single day of 2022.
I pulled out a trusty old white board and at the top I simply wrote ‘stack days’.
After January 1st, 2022 I put a Green ‘X’ on my white board.
After January 2nd, I put a second Green ‘X’ on the board.
It was a very simple concept, I either did what I committed to doing and earned my ‘X’ or I didn’t and didn’t earn my ‘X’.
Yesterday on December 31, 2022, I put my 365th ‘X’ on my board.
I went 365 for 365.
I don’t tell you this because I hope you’ll clap for me, after all, I did this for myself (and hopefully to encourage some of you).
These objectives took me a little over 2 hours/day to complete, so just over 15 hours a week.
How did I do it?
First and foremost I removed the option of not doing them. I took emotion (sick, well, happy, sad, busy, etc.) out of the equation.
Then, I simply refused to lie to myself & just did it.
“If it’s important, do it every day.”
Seriously, do it. It pays.
