It’s been a long time since I’ve last felt motivated to move forward towards any larger goals. About six months actually. Before that, I had many plans that I had started before one day in July when I woke up and thought “It wouldn’t be fair to anyone involved for me to start something and then die.” So I put almost every plan on pause.
Notice I said almost every plan. In the end I reduced my goals down to one: getting my S-ICD surgery completed. I was in no way willing to move forward with large plans when I wasn’t sure if I would wake up the next morning. (This is not a pleasant feeling, and I hope you never have to experience it.) This was one hell of a gatekeeper for me but I am happy to say that after six months of waiting I have crossed off this goal. My chances of sudden death have extraordinarily decreased and I can now move on to other things.
Which brings me to today. I had surgery last Wednesday and I’ve spent the last four days laying in bed recovering, which yielded plenty of time for me to think. But, since thoughts alone mean nothing, I spent this morning documenting the goals I have for 2023. They’re big goals but they aren’t huge. They’re all realistic and attainable if I apply myself. They’re also all SMART goals, so I can track them on a monthly basis. What is measured, improves. So now I have goals. ✅
Which brings me to my next topic. For the past year I’ve been thinking on what I want to do with my life as I am well aware that my long term goals end with me being a solopreneur again. To that end, I’ve been following quite a few folks talking about this on Twitter and yesterday I stumbled across Daniel Vassallo when someone linked to a very interesting Medium post he wrote, Only Intrinsic Motivation Lasts. Once I started reading it, I was immediately pulled in as I am far from intrinsically motivated to work for someone else. There’s nothing wrong with working for someone else, mind you. In fact it is likely the absolute best possible outcome for most people. It’s just not my happy spot.
Since I enjoyed the Medium post, I kept reading and found one thing that popped out at me: his idea of Small Bets. Instead of focusing on a single large idea, focus on many smaller ones. Multiple income streams is the path to antifragility, which is a long term goal of mine, and it allows you to experiment with new things.
After quite a bit of consideration, I’ve decided on two small bets I’m going to make this year.
First, I’m starting a home services business. This is one of the ideas that I put on pause back in July, which means it’s roughly 80% complete and waiting for a few more things to go live.
I’ve also decided to author and release my first information product; a non-fiction book around the technical portions of starting a business. I can do this from rote memory, but I’ve met many people who struggle with it. I’m hopeful that I can help a few people get their business off the ground a bit easier.
I can do both of these while maintaining my day job as well, which is a nice side benefit. Now I have small bets as well. ✅