Setting My Intentions for 2024

AI generated image via Chat GPT

I just wrote a post reflecting on 2023.

Now, I’m looking forward.

After this, hopefully, I’ll operate in the present for a moment.

I haven’t set any goals or resolutions. I’m not trying to be quirky like those annoying people who proclaim, proudly, that they “don’t do New Years goals”, in an effort to demonstrate how #unique and #counterculture they are. Traditional goal setting just hasn’t been working for me.

Instead of goals, I’ve been setting intentions. I’m also not suggesting that others should do this or that it’s ‘better’ than any other strategy.

It’s just what I’m doing.

Here are some of those intentions:

• I want to write every day for at least one hour. I’m doing pretty well so far and that feels good!
  

• I want to seek a healthy balance between showing myself compassion when I don’t write, and also not giving myself permission to skip a day just because I don’t feel like it or I get busy. Everyone is busy, there will always be an excuse. I just need to make it a priority.
  

• Less screen/scroll time and more grabbing a book for 20 minutes in between tasks. I want to get back to carrying a book everywhere with me.
  

• I want to read more fiction, comics and graphic novels just because I love to and not because I “should”, like I often tell myself I “should” certain read non-fiction books.
  

• More walks and more walks without headphones.
  

• I want to do one thing at a time and to get in flow. Less task switching and less giving into distractions.
  

• I want to watch great movies at home with my phone in another room. I just saw Poor Things in theatres. Wow. Wow. Wow,
  

• I’d like to leave the house without my phone more often.
  

• I want to do more cooking with & for my friends.
  

• I want to re-learn how to focus for extended periods of time. Two to three hours of uninterrupted work on your top priority, day after day, seems to be the recipe for creative career success (according to the seventy-zillion biographies and blogs and podcasts I’ve consumed, featuring high performers and accomplished artists/entrepreneurs).
  

• I want to emulate my friends Gavin, Graham, & Matt and the way I’ve seen each of them, over the past three years, get extremely clear about their priorities and then act on them with unwavering integrity. It’s been inspiring to see each of them set their minds and exercise total discipline, and to watch those actions manifest in the form of professional success, increased confidence, improved physical health, and better relationships of all kinds. That’s cool. I feel really lucky to have people so close to me modelling this behaviour.
  

• I want to practice spiritual warriorhood. I also want to write a blog post about this concept and to further hone my definition of what it means to me.
  

• I want to deal with issues head on and in the moment. I feel like every conflict and frustration that goes unaddressed, becomes poison that lives in our body and grows and festers the longer it goes unaddressed. So often, 5-15 minutes of discomfort/bravery/honesty in a tough conversation can save us a lot of unnecessary pain in the long run.
  

• I want to be more deliberate about how and when I use alcohol and drugs.

  I recently wrote about my relationship with booze, and then decided to do dry January to start the year.

  Mid-January, I listened to this podcast interview with Dr. Edward Slingerland, an expert on humanity’s history and relationship with alcohol, and I found it really interesting and helpful (the actual interview part with him, more so than the bit with younger folks at the start). For me, Slingerland’s framing and articulation of the actual benefits and positive use cases for alcohol - while still addressing its detriments - feel far more useful than the kind of oversimplified maxims I’d been using to assess my relationship with alcohol.
  
  “Alcohol is bad” <— too absolute
  “I don’t want to drink as much” <— too vague
  “I’m only going to drink on special occasions” <— too easy to justify anything as “special”
  

  After listening, I’m thinking the most useful question to ask, when deciding whether or not to drink alcohol, might be this:

  
  “Will having a drink (or a few) in this situation be a net positive or net negative for my life as a whole?”
  

  It’s obviously not a perfect system, but I’m trying it out and will let you know how it goes.

  
  **Admittedly, this new framework did actually convince me to break my dry January for one night and have a few drinks, but I am glad that I did, and in this instance (a chance to connect with someone new that I’d met and been interested in), holding back would have actually felt arbitrary and like a net loss in my life.

• I want to continue to spend less, earn more, and be more thoughtful with money.
  

• I want to continue my ‘gifting budget’, which arose when I realized I’d beat my budget target by $300 one month and decided to cook and deliver a bunch of chicken soup to some of my pals who were sick.

  The feeling of accomplishing a goal and celebrating it by sharing with my friends felt amazing, so I’ve started allocating $200/month to gifts and acts of service for friends.

  I’ll see a really cool item at a vintage shop that doesn’t quite fit/suit me, so I’ll buy it anyway and find a friend to give it to.

  It’s been a ton of fun and I feel like only good things can come from the feedback loop this practice creates.
  

• I want to focus on inputs rather than outputs.
  - Write every day > write “x” number of blog posts
  - Exercise 5 times per week > run “x” km’s or put on/lose “x” # of lbs
  - Send “x” # of outreach emails > hit sales target of “x”
  

• I want to continue to speak my mind and to talk to people I want to talk to.

  If I like someone’s work, clothes, energy, ideas, voice, freckles etc. I will tell them.

  If I see someone I want to talk to. I will talk to them.
  

• I want to be of service. To my friends. To my team. To my clients. To my community. To humanity.
  

• I want to read and write about how we can better define and advocate for positive forms of masculinity and masculine energy. I want to explore what “being a man” means to me and how I can be a better man. I’ll admit, I feel sheepish even saying this publicly because this conversation and topic is so fraught and stained by the Andrew Tates and Jordan Petersons, and extreme online “activists”, but I am a man and I want to be a good one and I don’t want to feel ashamed of that.
  

• I want to read more about feminism and more work by/about women (a big part of being a better man). bell hooks’ feminism makes a lot of sense to me and has been a really helpful and enlightening entry point. Right now I’m reading The Will To Change. Accepting reccommendations!
  

• I want to pay closer attention to my sleep and get 7-8 good hours of sleep each night.
  
  Gavin pointed out that I was kinda lying to myself and getting a ‘pretend’ 7 hours, where I was asleep around 10:30-11 and up at 5:30 or 6 (a 7ish hour period), but obviously not sleeping that entire time and probably getting more like 5-6 hours, leading to big crashes.
  

• I want to get out into nature more. Too much city time, not enough camping and hiking and laying in the grass. Need to touch dirt.
  

• I want to further explore meditation & buddhism. I’m considering finding a temple or teacher, but my life being split between Toronto and Halifax does make this a bit more challenging, I think.
  

• I want to keep up my yoga practice and eventually fix my broken body.
  

• I want to resist the way social media is warping my world view and making me anxious/paranoid. I want to ground myself in my own real values, my own day to day experiences in the real world, and great/timeless literature, rather than listening to and being influenced by the loudest, most polarizing voices of the day.
  

• I want to delegate responsibly, strategically, and aggressively, empowering the people I trust to flourish and grow, and giving myself space to think deeply and create meaningfully.
  

• I want to remember this poem (whose original author seems to be unknown according to wikipedia) and to live my life with a bit more of the author’s wisdom:

If I Had My Life to Live Over

I'd dare to make more mistakes next time.
I'd relax. I would limber up.
I would be sillier than I have been this trip.
I would take fewer things seriously.
I would take more chances.
I would take more trips.
I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers.
I would eat more ice cream and less beans.

I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I'd
have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly
and sanely hour after hour, day after day.

Oh, I've had my moments and if I had it to do over
again, I'd have more of them. In fact,
I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments.

One after another, instead of living so many
years ahead of each day.

I've been one of those people who never go anywhere
without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat
and a parachute.

If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot
earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.

If I had it to do again, I would travel lighter next time.
I would go to more dances.
I would ride more merry-go-rounds.
I would pick more daisies.

I’ve been hearing from a lot of people that they’re feeling optimistic and excited about 2024 and I love that.

I am feeling the same.