Hustle. It seems to be le mot du jour. At the beginning of the year it popped up in every feed or motivational piece I saw and it ain't showing signs of abating yet. Then again, The New Year is always like that. Subscribe to my mailing list, take this course, you are guaranteed to succeed if you give me $140, etc, etc. It's everywhere. I'm a big ideas guy and the beginning of last year was huge on the accomplishment scale. I published a book, ran two ultra's (won one of them), organized a massive conference in London that was the culmination of seven months hard work, and plenty in between that. I thought, The more I tick off the list, the more valid my achievements are. By the end of summer I was burnt out. Physically exhausted from driving myself too hard and mentally exhausted from trying to always be on the cusp of the next big idea.
This year has so far been a very different story. I have no goals. Really! Actually I have but don't see them as goals. It's to read 25 books and be prolific in my journaling. Which is like saying “my goal for 2016 is to breathe.” I have written and read voraciously for almost two-and-a-half decades now. Yes, I do have professional commitments to honor and will do so with my usual self-imposed, exacting standards. In late February, I will be giving the keynote speech at a university in Minnesota for a Missions Fest. There are five talks ,so it obviously needs preparation, but I am not going out there to slay the crowd. I am going to deliver a message that is far greater than me or the students and faculty I am there to address.
The fundamental shift in my thinking this year is not to chase anything but to sit and let things come my way. It's through this thinking process that a slew of ideas, from scripts to a new book, dropped from out of nowhere. Ideas, I believe, that are good but have only been lightly sketched out to preserve the genesis of them, not ideas I will greatly act on until I am convinced they are not only right, but done for the right reasons. I've spent a lot of time writing about myself and it has become tiring. I aim to focus my next projects not only on others but to also work in collaboration with others. I believe this is where much joy lies, in sharing ideas and building relationships through creativity.