It’s the new year and everyone is talking about goal setting and what they are going to achieve for the year. It seems that everywhere I look someone is writing their unique take on the same thing.
VCs are giving their prediction for the year (which also comes with the prediction that they are going to be the best VC ever).
Founders are talking about the shit that 2021 threw at them and how they will smash this year.
Self-help gurus are telling you to lock yourself in a cabin without internet for 3 days. It’s important to religiously analyse your life and set ambitious goals to achieve 10x more than you ever have before (it will definitely work if you use their notepad).
Considering the self-obsessed nature of social media, it really gets worse right about now. There is genuinely extra pressure for everyone to get all self-obsessive:
How am I going to change?
What am I going to achieve this year?
What will I do to make this the best year ever?
The world is pressuring you to narrow your mind. To stop thinking about everything out there and think about yourself. To stop thinking about the infinite canvas of time the universe exists in and focus on one single year.
Whenever I sense the presence of a conforming box-like way of doing things I tend to panic, so this post will be me providing an out of the box view of things.
We’ve established many are grinding their gears on how they are going re-wire their personality into a kick-ass achiever this year. I want to think more holistically about change.
Places change
I remember going on holiday to Malta as a child. It was a lovely quaint island. Everything moved at such a slow pace. The roads were quiet. Every now and then one of these ancient busses chugged past.
They looked as if they had come out of a movie and they were slower than my nan. The locals would sit around passing the time. There was a vibe, and the vibe was chill.
15 years later it has lost its chilled vibe a little.
The towns have been built up with hotels and apartments. The old busses are replaced with new air-conditioned modern busses that actually work.
Every local owns their own car now and they are in a rush to get somewhere. This has made Malta one of the worst places for traffic in the world.
I still love Malta, it’s great, but it’s different.
Whatever Malta was that is in my head from 15 years ago is gone with the wind. It was a moment in time. Now it is a completely new thing. Whilst I ignored Malta being all in my own world, I came back to it expecting the same thing. Obviously, that thing no longer existed.
People change
Something similar happened with a friend.
There was a guy at my college who I didn’t get along with. I couldn’t really understand why anyone was friends with him. He seemed to constantly make up stories to make himself look good. I felt like he was both touchy and toxic to be around. He started to get into drugs which only made him worse and then I never really heard from him after going to uni.
I met him again this year. He is now one of the loveliest people I have the pleasure of knowing. Turns out he used to be full of anxiety issues and was a really torn soul. The drugs brought these things to a head and he went completely tee-total. Saw a therapist. Learned to understand his emotions and understand others.
I am now very pleased to call him a friend and feel really bad that I never thought to look out for him.
He’s not the only one that changed.
I had many opinions of my old friends which are all completely invalid now:
Friends who were obsessed with meat are now vegetarians.
Friends that were trying to bang the most chicks are now gay.
Friends that were the idiot of the group are now sensible doctors with a family.
Nothing stays the same
We’ve established that other people and places completely change. Whilst we concentrate on changing ourselves we often assume everything else will stay the same.
I’m not going to tell you what habit to take up this year.
I am lightly nudging you to open your mind to the possibility of change in everything you know about the world.
The faster that you can accept the reality of the world around you, the better your life will be.
If I expect Malta to be the same I will be disappointed, if I am open to an adventure with new things it will be fun.
If I expect someone who used to be an a-hole to still be an a-hole, I am going to miss out on friendships. If I am open and accepting then anything can happen.
New opportunities will arise this year that you can’t imagine. Professional opportunities, new hobbies, exciting adventures.
If you try and force a single life path for your future you’re trying to make decisions about things you have no clue about. Remember that everything in the future you plan for will be changing.
If you are closed off with rigid targets, you won’t be open to possibilities. You will be shut off from the change in yourself that you can’t possibly know you are seeking.
“When you are the boss of the ideas in your head, you’re always willing to revise them.
When there’s no amount of evidence that will change your mind about something, it means that idea is your boss.
Humility is the awareness that no idea is worthy of being your boss” - Tim Urban
When we try too hard to force something we can get churned up and tossed around by the waves of life. What we should be doing is learning to go with the flow and surf those waves.
Find the right balance
I have nothing against setting some goals for the year. I personally always try to push myself each year with a scary challenge in these areas: adventure, work, health and creativity.
I also like to reflect on how the world changes around us. So many of the best improvements to our lives can come from being open-minded. Truly bizarre yet amazing opportunities happen now and then, only those open to them seize them.
Personally, I have my feet firmly planted on both sides:
1 - You should plan and take responsibility for your life path and goals.
2 - You should be completely open to change and chance and abandon all your plans when it makes sense.
Being in the middle of this debate is kind of meh. I think being strongly weighted to both sides is best.
My own in-balances
Back to the initial subject of people repeating themselves. Anyone who actually knows me is telling me to settle down, work less and get a partner.
I seem to be using the aspirational strategy that if I had a partner I’d happily work-less and settle down.
Annoyingly reality works in the opposite order. Settle somewhere, establish a work-life balance, find a partner.
Reality is cruel.
Rejecting reality does me no favours.
Scary goals
I will quickly give some advice on potential goals. I can save you taking 3 days of over analysing your life. The answers are all within you already. Take one hour.
1 - Write out some things that scare you but would change your life for the better
2 - Do those
Okay, you might want to put some time in on the next three days working out how…
Finally
Remember everything and everyone is changing and so are you. Your life today is a new one whether you ask for it or not.
So this is me wishing you a merry Christmas and a happy new life.
Sam
Merry Christmas and a happy new life
Thank you Sam! This was heart warming and encouraging. I recently found your substack and have been reading through them from the latest one. So far, this one has hit close to home. I love your reading your thoughts in print, or screen I should say. I hope to meet you someday to finally get a book or two signed.
Warm wishes
Pavel N.