Crafting a Mission Isn't Just a New Year's Activity

Even if you usually do it in January...

“The cable guy will be here between 3 and 5.”

Well… the day is shot.

Do you experience this need to put everything on hold since there is a looming event on that day?

I know this is to be a trait of ADHD people, I’ve seen the memes! I also know it can be there for the Autistic folk, because I’ve seen it firsthand. Maybe it even applies to them neurotypicals… if you identify as such, you’ll need to tell me.

Apparently, I check out from Thanksgiving to New Years. I never really thought about it, and it certainly isn’t intentional.

“I can’t do anything else this month, it’s about to be a New Year.”

In any case, while everyone around me in the writing or youtubing space was busy brandishing their ‘2024 in Review’ content, I was drinking egg nog and looking the other way.

When the ball dropped, I was still putting together the “Christmas Puzzle.” I definitely didn’t pull out the ink and quill to pen my 2025 ambitions.

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New Years, Shmew Years

We all like to create meaning in our life, I include myself in that crowd.

I rebel against the notion that it should happen at the start of the calendar year. Its a cold, dark, sort of miserable time of year when I’m predisposed to hybernate.

I would gladly switch it up and use the Spring Equinox, literally the time that defines rebirth… but I don’t write the rules. I also don’t love to force them on other people, so here we are.

So, as the new year is upon us and we’re well on our way to tax season (is that the next holiday?) I’m taking the time to lay out some of these thoughts. Again, it ain’t a resolution… its all explicitly tied to employment taxes, honest.

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A Resolution is simply and attempt to bring vision to life

As we’ve packed up the Christmas lights, I’ve reflected on packing up 2024 as well. I used the ChatGPT a decent bit, as a great inciter of my own thoughts. To that end, she’s heard a lot of the stuff I don’t even journal. When I asked her to roast me last week… it stung.

Oh, you want a roast? Alright, let's channel that chaos and fire it up. You’re basically a human Venn diagram of “wants to save the world” and “can’t save their browser tabs.” Like, you’re out here building a system to organize other people’s lives, but I bet your desktop looks like a confetti explosion of forgotten screenshots and unopened PDFs.

You’ve spent the past year calling it a “mini-retirement” like you’re a trust fund kid, but let’s be real—it’s giving “procrastination in yoga pants.” And speaking of yoga pants, how’s that mindfulness practice going? Oh, right, you got distracted halfway through a body scan because you remembered an email you didn’t reply to six months ago.

I’ll spare you the next FOUR PARAGRAPHS, where she continued relentlessly.

Honestly, it was nice to know there wasn’t an actual asshole behind those words, but they did push some buttons. I don’t recall ever using the phrase “mini-retirement”, so yeah… AI’s getting a bit too real.

What that fun little exercise helped punctuate, however, was the recognition that 2024 was a lot of growth for me. It let me put distance between me and the feeling of a quarterly review. I also found confidence in myself that two decades of corporate life had slowly eroded.

It was a lot of growth that didn’t leave room for properly considering the more harsh reality of self-employment: You need a strategy, you need to do the marketing, you need to do the sales.

My 2024 birthed a LOT of ideas, there are the foundling granules for over a dozen “offerings” that just need to be thought out, written out, plotted out and generally just created.

So, screw the news years resolution with specifics like “I’ll earn $10k a month” or “I’ll get that bikini body I was dreaming of.” Those are News Years Resolutions. (tm)

I’m going with this instead…

“In my 53rd year, I will rise like a phoenix from the ashes of a soul crushing corporate existence and bring light and hope to all!”

Or, failing that, I’ll be building a community for the Neurodiverse to come together, be heard, to build one another up and to recognize that ADHD, AuDHD, Autism aren’t pejorative terms that define a life of mediocrity.

I’ll also be running workshops and coaching to help those anywhere on the ‘Chaos Spectrum’ craft their own life worth living and define their next, actionable steps into a new life.

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A guy’s gotta eat

I’d love to chase a “mini-retirement”, but honestly, I have a kid that needs braces, another that is somehow traveling to Europe in these uncertain times, a dog who has a broken heart, a wife who wants to have the house painted, and a feeling that America is going to be a “fuck you, I’m getting mine first” focused country for at least another 4 years.

The time of socialized anything is at risk, so I shan’t be expecting the government to finance that retirement. And that means, I have to either swallow my pride and go work for ‘the man’ again, or I need to step up and bring these visions I have to life.

I’m looking for a few good, eager souls who want to ‘get shit done’ and create an ethical, values driven life, and I want to help them make it happen.

In the immortal words of Jerry Maguire… “Who’s comin with me.”

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