Too much intention

At the beginning of the year I promised myself I would “live 2026 with intention”. Now, as we approach the near-mid-year mark, I realise that “intention” is a ridiculous term. Living with intention is literally the opposite of what I want to be doing. “Living with intention” implies I will live my days intending to do something, while presumably not doing it at all. (To this end, I must say, I have managed to hold up my end of the bargain rather well.)

I intended to: write regularly, take daily photos, get active on social media, read a fiction book a week, meet new people every day. I’ve been adding to the list of intention with much confidence: get 1,000 rejections, get fit, lose weight, renovate at least part of my house, meet 100 new people, on and on. I’ve done almost none of these things, although I intend to do them daily.

I used to be a do-er. I set out to do something, and then I did it. No fail. Now, this diddly-dallying is exhausting. It’s also overwhelming and discouraging. Literally everyday I am reminded a dozen times of all the things I *want* to be doing, but am choosing not to do. And that’s the sting: my inaction is a choice. It’s not lack of money, or lack of time, or lack of other tangible resources. It’s a simple lack of commitment, a lack of follow-through. (But not, to be clear, a lack of intention).

So, what to do about this? Wipe the slate clean, write a new set of intentions, and hold myself accountable? Take some time to figure out why I am not following through (is it fear? maybe it’s just a lack of genuine interest? maybe I am trying to mimick the lives of other random people?).

It gets worse (sort of): all this failure-to-do and the guilt which it brings masks the fact that actually, hold on a second!, I absolutely do do things. Just maybe not the things I originally intended to do, or not to the scale I envisioned. Example: No, I have not read a book a week. But I have read 15+books this year. Or: No, I have not built a social media presence, but I have taped a pilot podcast and am scheduling to tape many more this year (watch this space!). Or: No, I have not lost weight but I have been going to the gym and training for a multi-day hike I am walking in June.

So let me review the intentions that are still chasing me:

• Take a photo a day? Yes. I do want to do this. It’s like planting a seed. The real benefit is seen many years down the line, when Google surfaces photos that make me go ‘awwww!” and remind me of good times, a well lived life. I want a never-ending supply of that.
• Write in public daily? Yes! I am going to write much more than a sane person ever would. And although I am clearly struggling with this, I do believe it’s my secret to feeling calm and grounded. My mind feels dangerously chaotic, as I ponder a dozen ideas at a time and believe I should have things figured out more. Writing about just one thing a day, accepting that it won’t be a perfect reasoning but committing to it nevertheless, will free up mental space. It will also, of course, help me think deeper on topics, and learn from myself. Always a pleasure to experience this!
• Get 1,000 rejections? Yes. I wrote about this in my newsletter. Going out of my way to get rejected (in business and in social life) will offer a dual positive: I’ll grow a thick(er) skin, and I will increase my surface area of luck. Because you know that as 1,000 rejections are pursued, many of those will become unexpected accepted opportunities.
• Read a book a week? No. Just read, to no schedule. But focus on fiction.
• Meet 100 new people? Strong yes. I am making it 227 people, one for every day left of the year going forward. A “meet” needs to be intentional (oops), productive, appreciated by both sides and leave both parties with a feeling that we can get in touch with each other should an opportunity arise.
• Start speaking on stage? Yes and No. Yes, I will do a pecha kucha this year, no I am not doing or planning to do more than that.
• Finish writing my book? I don’t know. Probably no? Maybe yes? I am going to have to think about what finishing-the-book would look like.
• Renovate my house? Yes. This will be done in the tiniest, smallest, atomic chunks you can imagine. Like, clean-out-a-drawer at a time kind of stuff. But this compounds.

Haven’t discarded much, to be honest. But I have at least spent some time thinking about why I wanted to do some of these things in the first place. And I have realised that the word of the year needs to be much stronger than “intention”. So I am upgrading it to “deliberateness”. It will be easier to do things if there is a deliberate allocation of time and effort to specific tasks, supported by a strong reason for those tasks to be done. Maybe it will (finally) make all the difference?

Thanks for reading

Find someone you can be unhappy with

I watched “Is this thing on” with Will Arnett and Laura Dern, and a) it’s a superbly titled movie b) I loved it and c) it’s exactly the kind of palette-cleanser we all need right now. It’s about a couple who are going through a separation, and how they reconnect with who they are as individuals, outside of the marriage. It’s light, poignant and very highly recommended. Bonus: It’s based on a true story.

Lots of great quotes in the movie, but I won’t spoil anything by including them. Except to simply mention that the movie made me realise that finding a life parter you can be unhappy with is just as important as the being happy part. It’s obviously great to have someone in your life with whom you can have a great time, and who makes you laugh etc etc…but it’s so important to figure out what happens when you have reason to be unhappy (with each other, with life). Can you handle it? And what does “handle it” even mean? What happens when your partner has different coping mechanisms, and you conflict on this as well?

I don’t think this is something that just clicks into place, and it should be discussed with your significant other while you are in a happy phase. Once one of you starts feeling unhappy or resentful, it’s difficult to carve a path forward if there are no directions.

April Fool’s

I wasn’t caught out (the media doesn’t really try any more; it’s difficult to compete with the real shit that’s happening), but I did catch Zac out by making him believe he has to work at a market this Saturday (he hates markets).

Training:

I walked a new route today (5.5km), and from tomorrow I think I will double it up, so I walk 11Km/day. Not quite the 22km I will have to walk of the Leopards trail on Day Three, but it’s a good start.

Thanks for reading

Redesigning my online home

I spent the day…redesigning this blog. For the umpteenth time, of course. Maybe this time the process will encourage me to actually write on here. I am beyond the point of making such promises, but can remain hopeful despite historical evidence. Also…it’s time to tackle the “about me” page update, which is always a very harrowing process. It’s three years out of date and although not much has changed, everything has.

It’s a short week this week and next week, due to the Easter weekend and it feels like nobody is actually going to be doing any work, or making any decisions. I woke up today in a gatvol mood, and immediately gave myself permission to take this week and next week “off”. The “off” is in inverted commas, because it’s just a mindshift: I will still be working, but at my own pace, with little agenda other than to “check items off list”. One item was this blog, and it gave me tremendous joy to spend the whole day tinkering with it.

Zac went to see Project Hail Mary with friends. He rated it a 10/10 and he managed to sit focussed in one place for 2h40 minutes, hallelujah. While he was doing that, I was …redesigning the blog, and then catching up over a quick coffee with Laura. That was much needed.

4 Things worth sharing:

1.

I love this idea! I have hundreds of earings, but no clever way of displaying them. This is a quick hack, and I could actually have different hangers for different moods, or different colours. I am not quite sure what the grid is, but feel like it can be sourced at a good hardware shop?

Source: Pinterest

2.

Joel Snape, in his newsletter, advises me to do things before I have to. Ha ha ha! How I wish I did things before I have to! I am literally quite incapable of this. I had a meeting Monday morning at 11am that I needed to prepare for, and I should have done this on Friday. But I didn’t. I then carved out time on Sunday morning to do it, but when I showed up, I simply sat staring at my open laptop completely unmotivated to do a thing. And then (of course) I scrambled to finish on Monday morning. The unfortunate problem with all this is that the meeting went great, I was sufficiently prepared and thus I have little reason to change my ways. But I do wonder sometimes how life would feel if I got my shit done before I started stressing about it?

3.

Literally my dream. Like…literally. I want that big armchair so I can sit crosslegged and balance laptop on my lap, and sit quietly and work. If the Universe delivers this for me, I pinky-swear I will write more and read more.

Source: Pinterest

4.

I reminded myself today that when my favourite people in the world do things that upset me, or disappoint me, that this is just a glitch in the matrix. They are still my favourite people, who just do silly things (sometimes). Also, we are all struggling, if not at everything, then at something. And we must be grateful that our humans are…human? ie make mistkaes. (I didn’t fix that typing error, just to prove my point… worth remembering: we are not perfect either).

Thanks for reading