I’m coming into 2024 with a renewed sense of vigor. Through some pain and reflection, I’ve re-learned some valuable lessons. And now I’m ready to put my realizations into action!
2023’s Lesson
As I reflected on the year that was 2023, something struck me. By all accounts it was an amazing year for me and my family. Multiple milestone birthdays. Several great trips with time spent together. And plenty of noteworthy achievements. Not to mention I transitioned to working almost exclusively on projects of my own creation.
But when I read back over my journal entries, especially those of the last six months or so, I found a fairly pervasive and dark cloud resting there. Some days I was writing from what appeared to be the depths of despair. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt manifested as stress, anxiety, and frustration.
So, what gives? How could one of the best years of my life have felt so hard? And more importantly, how do I fix it?
My Realization
As I noted in my reflection, some of this boils down to my age old weakness; patience. But I think it’s more nuanced than that. At the same time more obvious and more profound. I forgot to enjoy the journey.
There’s a bunch of quotes and cliche’s that apply here…
- “It’s the not the Destination, It’s the journey.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson (also Aerosmith)
- “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” ~Lao Tzu
- “Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.” ~Eckhart Tolle
- “Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.” ~Greg Anderson
- “…the best preparation for the future is to live as if there was none.” ~Albert Einstein
- “Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” ~Matsuo Basho
- “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” ~Eleanor Roosevelt
- “Happiness, not in another place but this place…not for another hour, but this hour.” ~Walt Whitman
And finally, one that cuts closest to my realization of my own mistake:
“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”
~Groucho Marx
“Yeah, I’ve heard all that before, Chris, but what are you trying to say?” I’m so glad you asked…
Questing, for Happiness
The comma matters. I’m not looking for happiness. I’m happy because I’m looking. This is something I know, that I somehow forgot. We don’t set goals because we need to achieve them. We set goals to provide guidance and structure to our quest.
My uncle, the one who shuffled off this mortal coil last year, he once told me that he was enlightened. While I didn’t challenge him on this point, in my mind I rejected it. It didn’t “feel” right. I think I know why that is. It’s not that he wasn’t wise or caring. It actually had nothing to do with him specifically. The reason I rejected the statement is because I don’t believe it is one that can ever be true, no matter who utters it.
Once upon a time, when I was a child, I believed that if a living person ever truly became enlightened – if someone really figured it all out and understood it all – they would cease to exist. Rather, they would transcend to another plane of existence. Since then my views of the universe and of this life have expanded and matured. Today I know that there are various levels of enlightenment, and that many (if not all) are available to us right here on Earth.
More importantly, I know that enlightenment isn’t a state we can enter and then passively reside within. Enlightenment of any kind is fleeting, and requires constant effort to maintain, let alone to expand. Too philosophical? Let’s get more pragmatic.
Being kind once doesn’t make you a kind person. Being happy once doesn’t make for you a happy life. Just like eating a single meal can’t satiate you forever, all positive realization requires repetition. Zig Ziglar said that “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
Progress is what matters. Learning. Questing, for happiness’ sake. Every damn day, forever.
Taking Accountability, and Responsibility
Beyond remembering to keep smelling the roses – reveling in their scent – I’ve realized that I abdicated my duty to myself somewhere over the past 12 months.
I think I know how it happened. There are some factors here around shifting from consulting to more true or complete entrepreneurship. And some others relating to allowing the way that projects start to frame or anchor my perception of how they go. But honestly, reasons and excuses are too similar for me to ruminate here long.
Instead, I’d like to expose more directly the mistakes that I made:
- Instead of seeing my work as an opportunity, or a collection of opportunities, I got sucked into seeing much of my work as an obligation.
- Worse than that, I got hung up on outcomes. I created these ideas in my head. These visions of what the end results would be. And then I immediately started waiting, impatiently, for them to become reality.
- The most pernicious mistake was a combination of those two; I started expecting things to happen (and being frustrated when they didn’t) rather than figuring out how to make them happen (which, ironically, is the part I actually enjoy).
The Lesson, Realized
My realization, then, is that I must take full accountability and complete responsibility to create the future I want while thoroughly enjoying the process of doing so. It is my job to make the things I want to happen, happen. And it is also my job to ensure that actually making those things happen is fun – for me and for everyone around me. I knew this, I remember this, and I will act on this, consistently. Starting (again) in 2024.
My Three Words: 2024 Edition
This realization has lead me to refocus on some core tenets that I had started to neglect. This year I intend to reinvigorate these principles in myself through the following three words: Control, Communication, and Curiosity. Let’s dig into each.
Control
As I am fond of doing, this word is intentionally overloaded. For me for this year, control will remind me of how limited my control is and also how important it is to exercise what little control I do possess.
When it comes to control, I tend to agree with the stoic perspective. Marcus Aurelius explains that “our control and power are limited to our own thoughts” and that “the happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts,” so you should “take control of what you think about.”
“The more you seek to control external events, the less control you will have over your own life” Epicetus warns us. “The key to control” he says, “is not in controlling external events, but in controlling your own mind.” And therefor, “when you control your thoughts, you control your destiny.”
Seneca goes on to tell us that “we have the power to control our own lives, to determine our own happiness and success” because “the things you really need are always within your control.”
I choose to enjoy the process this year, by taking greater responsibility for the welfare of my heart and my mind, and by taking greater accountability for the process itself.
Communication
Coordination happens through communication. I’ve already seen some new year posts about eliminating meetings, and eliminating email. In many ways I support the spirit. Tools and technologies can atrophy over time. They can become unnecessary crutches that hinder, rather than promote progress. Control over our time and our attention is paramount.
That said, nothing works without communication. So, maybe be sure you have that solved before you start turning things off.
But why did I choose this word, this year? Well, a lot of my frustration in 2023 came from expectation. And in some important ways, expectation is the opposite of communication. I’ll explain. Expectation is a belief that something will happen or will be true, in the future. And just like any hope or dream, expectations don’t just come true on their own. They require action to make them a reality.
When we forget this, and we expect things to happen on their own, the result is often that we fail to communicate our desires. Let me rephrase. If you expect me to give you the $20 you need for lunch today, and you take that expectation as a given – as something that is simply going to happen; then you have no reason to ask me for the $20 that you need. The result? You go hungry today, and you may even wind up pissed off at me.
This year I will forget expectation and focus on communication. I will:
- Endeavor to leave no assumptions untested.
- Continue to listen more often and more deeply.
- Ask clarifying questions and push to understand.
And I will think through my own message and how best to share it or demonstrate it, with a focus on clarity. When I find opposition, I will seek to determine if it’s due to misunderstanding or to disagreement (and stop assuming the former).
In 2024 I intend to communicate early and often. I’ll remember the curse of knowledge – that mental bias that encourages us to assume the other person already knows what we know, even when that’s impossible. I’m going to repeat myself, and tell my colleagues what I expect of them, and what they can expect of me, repeatedly. We’re going to collectively replace expectation with communication so that we don’t have to rely on our beliefs about the future – we’ll know.
Of course, as mentioned, I’m no fan of unnecessary meetings and emails either. So, in 2024 I will work to embed communication into systems. If you and I always know where to find the information we need, we can stop interrupting each other to ask for it. Let’s build reports and dashboards. Let’s update our tickets and our documentation and our CRM and our project management tools, etc. I will, and if we work together, I’ll be asking you to as well.
Curiosity
One of my biggest takeaways from my 2023 reflection was to remember why I’m doing any of this at all. Why did I go out on my own? Why did I start these projects, organizations, and companies? Why did I get into tech in the first place? The undeniable answer, for me, is curiosity. The joy of uncovering some new truth, or trick. The fun of learning. The immense pleasure of figuring it out.
I intend to get back to that basic pleasure. To take an interest in what I am doing. Down to the nitty gritty. If it’s not interesting enough to keep me fully engaged – maybe I don’t need to be doing it at all. That’s not an out though. One of the traps I’m clawing my way out of is one of delegating the wrong things. Maybe more accurately, delegating things at the wrong time.
My curiosity is my strength. It leads me to peel back the layers, to dig into the details, and ultimately to understand at a level that is beyond casual observation. And that deep understanding is what allows me to build better systems. The systems that ultimately lead to improvement, achievement, and success.
In 2024 I will follow my curiosity into the depths of everything I do – even when that slows me down – and I will only delegate once my curiosity is satiated. Because only then do I know enough to delegate effectively. I must build the systems, embed the knowledge, and then turn the tools over to a capable team though effective communication. And I must do it all for fun, by controlling my thoughts about it.
2024 Goals
I am driven by intensity. I’m an intense person. It leads to that weakness with patience that I mentioned. It also leads me to achievement. In 2024 I will focus that intensity back to today, to now, and to the process and details of creating my dreams. I will do this by remembering control, communication, and curiosity. And while I focus on the journey, I will guide my travels with the following goals:
Staying On My Game
Alignment of mind, body, heart, and soul remains my top priority. I ensure this with my 6 “R’s:”
- Run:
- over 2,000 km
- And at least 20,000 meters vertical
- Read:
- at least 50 books
- Including at least 24 physical books
- Rest:
- Meditate every day
- wRite:
- Publish at least 100 works (blogs, podcasts, papers, webinars, etc)
- Write at least 6 new chapters for my “Credo” book as blog posts
- Start and execute a monthly column or newsletter
- Relax (creatively):
- Build at least 2 3,000+ piece “puzzles”
- Reflect:
- in my gratitude journal every day
Advancing my Projects
I have lists of OKRs for each of these projects, in hopes of providing as much value to as many others as I can. But I’ll spare you the mundane details of my efforts and here focus on the highest level objectives for the year:
- FullCtl
- Have our first truly profitable year. This means my partner and I must pay ourselves a reasonable wage for the work we put into the company, in addition to paying everyone else.
- NAF
- Successfully hold AutoCon 1 in Europe in May
- Successfully hold AutoCon 2 in the US in November
- ISN
- Figure out next steps… (aka TBD)
Remaining Solvent
With my shift in focus, from consulting to building and innovating with projects of my own creation, I need a corresponding shift in my financial goals. While the financial health priorities remain stable, the specific metrics are adjusted considerably:
- Collect at least $X in gross profit (this year it’s just enough to cover lifestyle plus moderate savings)
- Invest $Y in retirement brokerage accounts (keep this going, while focusing more on building businesses for the future)
- Maintain $Z in “cash” savings (a lower bar during this year of establishing new projects; as long as we don’t dip further into savings, we win)
Back to Basics
For me, 2024 will be a year of fundamentals. A year for building new foundations. A year of finding joy in the journey.
I’d love to hear about your 2024 intentions – drop me a line wherever is most convenient for you!
