Last week I found an old notebook from 10 years ago where I noted down the accomplishments I wanted to achieve.
I’ll admit I was nervous.
Did I make it? Would younger me be proud?
Let’s rewind. In May 2016 I was in a little bit of a precarious situation. I just realized that the master degree I started a few months before was not the right one for me and called my parents in tears telling them about why I wanted to quit without a plan B.
I was purposeless, had no income and a lot of free time on my hands. I built my first website, revolution of the small, to talk about how nanotechnology will impact healthcare while I was applying for jobs at Hollister.
But both projects failed; I never launched the blog and I didn’t have the required bikini body (I am joking, the real reason was my terrible fashion sense).
In my desperation, I joined a challenge to imagine a better future for myself. It consisted in writing down 10 things you are currently thinking about (and not taking action) like you already achieved them. You do this exercise for thirty days straight. And see what sticks (= what you REALLY want and SHOULD pursue).
I hung in there an entire 2 days before deciding it was complete BS.
10 years later, I look at my list with different eyes. I achieved most of the items on that list, proving myself that I was completely wrong about not writing down my goals with more urgency.
You may think that was some kind of woo-hoo manifestation gibberish. But hold your horses because for one, very significant one, I failed.
The one that got away
I keep asking myself the real reason. And the closest I’ve gotten to an answer may sound strange: I was drunk driving my most important goal.
There are studies that show that talking on the phone while driving can have the same negative impact on our focus as being legally drunk. Researchers call this the “distracted driver” phenomenon. And the culprit of it all: our shameless attempts to multitask.
The truth is we are not biologically designed to multitask, let alone do a great job at it. But we still live daily with the illusion that we can.
Think about this, distracted drivers don’t feel impaired, even though they severely are.
I can’t help but wonder: distracted creators don’t feel impaired either, we just got really good at making excuses to half-ass things and feel busy. New project launched, course bought, plan refined…it all reads as movement. Meanwhile the one audacious goal that actually mattered sat in a drawer for years.
And wouldn’t you know, my own distractions held on for 10 years (YEARS!!).
The one goal I failed at: writing a book.
(technically I wrote a book 6 years later aka my PhD thesis but that doesn’t count 🤐).
What was different about that goal and the goals I did achieve?
I bought accountability: I dreamed of learning Italian since I was 6, but despite buying several self-learning courses it didn’t work. Things changed when I actually started going to language lessons. Andiamo!
I framed it like an experiment. At the time I wrote my achievement list, I was reading a lot of business books to one day build my own tech startup. Turns out, self-employment is a much better fit for me! Instead of seeing this as a permanent choice, I gave myself a 6-months timeline to try it out. I am now 20 months in. Framing my life as one fat experiment suits me.
I tried and failed: I owned 3 domains, 2 newsletters and 1 medium account before writing this newsletter more consistently. Never fail, never know.
I stepped out of my circle: going on virtual coffee chats is the best thing you can do for your entrepreneurial journey. And even though I don’t do it weekly as my list suggested, I am grateful for the people that are completely out of my field but working for a similar dream. We wrote about this in more depth in last week's issue about engineering your luck surface area.
Why am I procrastinating on this book project you ask?
FEAR. That the book will suck, that it will damage instead of improve my reputation, that people will hate it or worse that it's boring and left unfinished.
Putting an insane amount of hours into a project without guaranteed ROI
The moment I really finish this and it's out there, what will I do next? I am holding on to this dream because I am scared to dream even bigger?
So this time, this book gets the special treatment that everything else on that list got. An accountability check-in on the number of words I wrote per week. A six-month window. Permission to write a genuinely bad first draft (three failed domains taught me you don't land on the right thing without going through the wrong ones first). And I am going to talk more about books and writing.
Just as you don't fix a distracted driver by telling them to focus harder while still holding the phone, it’s not about looking for more information, permission, and shortcuts.
You fix it by putting the phone down.
I put the notebook back in my drawer, but not before taking a picture first as a reminder. Next time I look at it, I hope to be freakin proud.
This story exists because I have a whole bunch of notes that I record and later expand into newsletters. And you can do it too! Every great newsletter I read starts with a story. But writers don’t usually come up with them on the fly. They trap the idea as soon as it comes to mind.
I am working on a short guide about different techniques to keeping ideas, and the exact one that helps me come up with new newsletter editions every week.
Would you be interested to hear about it when I finish it? Hit the link below so you don’t miss it.
Keep up the audacity,
Laura
