2020

Ah the new year.

In what seems like a normal occurrence now each year gets shorter and our lives go faster and faster.

By my own standards, I don’t think that I achieved as much as I would have liked in 2019. I didn’t have an unsuccessful year by any means but I feel like my focus slipped regularly and I didn’t have as much commitment to my pursuits as usual.

I did do some really cool things though and I am proud of them. I worked hard on my character and how I want to present myself to the world. I have a long way to go but I feel like that was a large recurring theme of my year. I trained and competed in my first strongman competition and had an absolute blast. Amy and I fell pregnant with our second child and are expecting in the coming weeks! And I had the pleasure of celebrating many wins and amazing moments with friends and family. So many great things to be grateful for.

But, I also came to realise that I thrive on regular challenges and I let myself become a little bit comfortable and stagnant this year.

I am making a few promises to myself for the coming year.

For one, I’m going to write more. I come alive when I write, in a way that is hard to replicate in other pursuits. I know that it is one of my largest passions because no matter how much resistance I seem to get, I’m always drawn so heavily back to my books and the keyboard. Writing is my craft and I want to build my craft. I feel brave and confident when I write and I love the notion of my thoughts being transferred through my pen, onto paper, and there for potentially the rest of time. Between this project and Leaving a Lighthouse I am going to commit more of my energy to creating quality written content.

Second, I am going to ask more questions.

I fall into the trap of learning something and deciding that it is a complete truth for myself and everyone around me. After that I find myself rudely, albeit from a place of goodness, telling people what I think they should do instead of listening. My context and perspective of a situation is not that of other people and I don’t have the right to assume I know it. So my goal is to spend much more time asking questions and listening ferociously, not just with the intent to reply but with the intent to understand.

Thirdly, and one that I am very excited about, I am going to commit myself to 12 months of challenges. Thanks in large part to an itch being scratched by Scott at The Sisu Way, I remembered how much I love participating in challenges that push the edges of my bubble. During December I participated in a mile a day running challenge aptly named “The Character Mile“.

Anyone who knows me knows that I regularly avoid running so I knew when I saw this challenge that it was one I needed to take. The goal of the challenge was much deeper then just accumulating 31 miles. It was about being grateful and appreciative of being able to run. It was about celebrating the gift of movement and sharing that celebration with as many as possible.

I didn’t challenge myself enough in 2019 so I am extremely excited about what I can learn about myself during 2020.

I’ve had a large physical challenge on my mind for a little while and while completing The Character Mile I realised that I needed to go straight into a new one. This thought quickly evolved into a challenge each month with smaller weekly and daily focuses and obviously ideas around sharing the journey and compiling thoughts and lessons along the way. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t already see some pretty cool outcomes from this year but another little focus of mine this year is to be a lot more concerned with the “here and now” rather than getting so caught up with the future.

So….each month I going to complete a larger challenge with some daily and weekly focuses added in.

The one I’ve had in my mind for awhile comes from Brian Chontosh who posted a video on YouTube a while ago called The Hard Way and it is a mini documentary about Brian and his efforts to chop down and cut up a tree with just an axe for the purpose of doing something hard. To learn things about himself and his inner voice and figure out ways to mitigate these thoughts.

I’d recommend a watch as something primal stirred inside me while I did. I’ve never cut down a tree before and to do it solely with my hands and my physical strength is very appealing to me.

Brian picked a tree that took him over 24 hours to complete which was quite astounding and not something I’m ready to replicate so I will aim for something in the 6-8 hour range for my first one. I thought it was rather fitting as my wife will most likely be going into labour for an extended period of time this month as well.

Alongside this challenge I will have cold showers everyday for the month in the 2-3min range. This will give me lots of practice of fighting the negative thoughts off that I know I will face while cutting down the tree.

I’d love to share this year of challenges with anyone else who is drawn to the pursuit of potential so if that’s you, then send through a message and we can trade stories. It doesn’t have to be a tree as the physical challenge. It just has to be something that is a grinding physical challenge for you. That might be a swim or a hike or a tough work out etc. Let me know if you’re interested and we can set up some goals.

I won’t say that I hope you have a wonderful 2020 because without purposeful action you will be fighting an uphill battle. Choose your actions, commit to them, and pursue your potential.

Start small, not crazy large ones, but with little focuses. Pick a few themes or values that you would like to think about daily and start to live by these.

My thoughts this year will center around these themes:

Questions – Of myself and the people I interact with.

Areté – A Greek word that means multiple things but is regularly translated as “The act of living up to one’s full potential” and “Excellence in every moment”.

Building my craft – My writing.

Challenge – 12 months of challenges.

Don’t just say this year will be your best, make it so!

Pursue your potential.

Dice