Happy Sunday Friend!

Here is 1 quote I’m musing, 2 Ideas, 3 of my favorite things from the week, and 1 question. If you find it useful or interesting, please feel free to forward this along to some friends or others!

We’ve come to the end of another year! How do you feel about 2023? What was your favorite thing (if you had to pick just one)? What could use a bit more effort?

I’ve had some opportunities to chat with quite a few individuals and groups regarding what to do in the future and how to start.

Well… I don’t know exactly what I’m going to be doing. I’m at a fortunate point where I have many great, good, and viable paths. So how can I give advice on what anyone else should be doing?

Systems. Goals. Vision. DOCUMENT. COMMUNICATE.

These are foundational concepts for what I’m really going to do; and what I’m going to do with a few others. I’m going to break down my plan on dominating 2024 today. Take a look, if you like it steal it. If you want a buddy system, drop me a line (eric@erichaupt.com) and I’ll help.

Be forewarned. This stuff is rough to work through. It’s deep reflection, honest introspection, and that’s why I’m writing it here. You all can see it; I can’t hide from it. It’s written down (documented). But then, what is the point of introspection if not to identify our shortcomings so we can overcome them to live a great life.

Which brings me to our quote, the process will follow.

One Quote I’m Musing

“When the light has been removed and my wife has fallen silent, aware of this habit that is now mine, I examine my entire day and go back over what I’ve done and said, hiding nothing from myself, passing nothing by.”

-Seneca

Here. We. Go!

First, up, we have to have a system to, like Seneca says, put ourselves up for review. In this case, our 2023 self. Don’t worry, 2023 you is already gone. You can’t offend them, hurt them, or even make them happy. So, dig in. This should feel like deep tissue massage. It hurts, it’s finding those hidden areas of tension and kneading out the problems; if you’re like me, there might be tears.

The system I’m going to use here is Wheel of Life reflection tool. It’s a pretty powerful tool because it gives us a visual report card on how we feel about our life in juxtaposition to our ideal.

Start by drawing a circle. Yes, just draw a circle.

Now, you’re going to split that circle into the various areas of your life you need to reflect on. For me that will fall into three rough bins. Health, Career, Relationships

Next, we’ll break those down into specific areas those bins are comprised of. So, for me it looks something like this:

Ok, now we’ve broken up life into its various components.

Next is to rate on a scale from zero to ten how aligned we feel those areas are with our vision or goals in life. Meaning, are we taking the appropriate actions necessary to get where we want to be? This is the introspection part.

This is us taking an inventory of our life. We want to set goals, we may know we need to set goals. But, as I said last week, if we don’t know where we are we can’t make the necessary decisions to move (or keep moving) in the appropriate direction.

The point isn’t to beat ourselves up, it’s to take an inventory of ourselves at a snapshot in time and then give yourself courses of action to remedy areas you’re concerned about.

Take a look at where you’re at in the various areas and decide where you’re out of alignment and what’s important to revector.

Mind tools has a pretty great template if you want to create it that way.

Next! We have our retrospective. You’re through the worst of it! We have to set some goals.

How do we do that? Setting goals is tough. Something I found that is immensely enjoyable is visualizing what we look like after a successful year of progress with the goal from our previous process.

Imagine you’re reflecting a year from today and seeing that you’ve accomplished so much! What does that look like? Sound like? Feel like?

Alright! You’ve done the dirty work. Now it’s time to put some time-management practices into play for how you want to navigate the next year. I’m employing the “Ideal Week” model.

We create a brand-new calendar. Block off the essentials in our lives:

When are we waking up?
Morning routine?
When’s lunch?
Workouts/Gym Time/Running/etc.
Family Time?
Social Engagements?
When do we want to be in bed?

You get the point. Block all that off first. Now we know where we fit in the rest of the daily requirements.

Once we understand that, where can we find trade space or (hopefully) open space to ensure we’re taking action on those items we identified previously.

You’ll see I’ve got time in to get back to 2-a-day workouts, family time, a lunch social hour weekly, nightly study time, and a writing block…. I should probably allocate 2-3 hours for that social time. And I’ve intentionally left out most of the business stuff.

Careers and life will impact this. We may find we don’t have enough time to tackle everything, everywhere, all at once.

That’s OK

We adjust our plan and our annual vision. Then we take another snapshot of where we’re at the 90-180-270 day marks and reassess.

The important thing is to gain a clear understanding of how much time we actually have day to day and begin to prioritize from an informed posture.

Two Ideas From Me

It’s only work if you don’t want to do it. Find something you love to do and do that, with over 8 billion other people there will be others who value what you do.
There is explicit value in doing hard things and making it seem simple. There is no value to be had in making simple things hard.

Three Favorite Things From Others

Bambu Lab P1S 3D Printer | Bambu Lab US - I’ve recently acquired this and it’s very much the best 3D printer I’ve ever had. Fast, reliable, and (fairly) quiet.
“At the end of each year, I ask myself two questions:
1) What do I want to create in this New Year?
And, perhaps even more importantly,
2) What do I want to let go of?” - Patricia Digh | Excerpt from Life is a Verb | More
“Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s a day you’ve had everything to do and you’ve done it.” - Margaret Thatcher

One Question

Think of the best and worst leaders you’ve ever experienced. What did you learn from them?

Shoot Me Your Feedback!

Which is your favorite? What else do you want to see or what should I eliminate? Any other suggestions? Just send a tweet to @erichaupt on Twitter and put #SundayMusings at the end so I can find it. Or, eric@erichaupt.com for long form email.

Have a wonderful week, Happy Christmas and Holidays!

I’ll see you Sunday.
-e