Hey there,
Happy holidays, new years, valentines day and St. Thomas’ Cathedral appreciation week. Hope you’re
cozy and having fun…
…oh, and not too fat.
Yes, it’s that time of year again, time to make all sorts of grandiose promises to yourself and then
inevitably fail to live up to your own expectations. Here, have a bag of girl scout cookies. You’ll feel better
about the futility of life, the universe and everything.
(I’m not usually this cynical, I promise…)
(Or sarcastic, either…)
(Or obnoxious in my use of parentheses…)
(Anyway, where was I?)
Here’s the thing: If you’re going to change, you don’t need an arbitrary 24-hour period to denote when
and how exactly you’re going to change. If you want it, you don’t need a special day to justify it, you don’t need to
write down any major goals, you don’t need to make any grand declarations.
As my good friend the Nike Corporation always says, “Just do it.”
Now, as a professional blogger and self development person-of-interest, I believe this is where I’m supposed to
step in and offer some profound and failproof advice about goal setting and achieving and motivation and yada yada yada.
But I didn’t. Guess why:
A) I’m too busy working on my upcoming book
B) If I write any more than I already am, I’ll start bleeding from my eyeballs
C) I think it’s a totally overblown topic that receives too much attention and is then quickly forgotten
D) All of the above.
Instead of writing said inspirational post this year, I’ve decided to simply link to a few older articles that would tell you
anything I would have written anyway.
The Do Something Principle – aka, the most under-read and under-appreciated thing that has ever been written, by
anybody, anywhere. End procrastination within seconds. Destroy anxiety. Rid yourself of any toxic habits you may have.
OK, I’m totally lying, but over the years, this little article from 2011 continues to be one of the most important concepts
I’ve discovered to accomplishing anything in my life.
Self Discipline – This one’s a bit long, but it’s comprehensive. The TL;DR version is as follows: will power is finite. Therefore
it’s more valuable to expend will power on habits and not single actions.
The Life Purpose Guide – For those of you who struggle with what you want to do or what you want to pursue in the
new year.
Finally, I wrote up a little recap and some of my thoughts on what I felt were the best articles of 2013. You can
check it out here:
Read: The Best Articles of 2013
I have a lot of plans for us this coming year. There will be a new book, a whole revamped courses section,
professional produced videos, a TEDx talk, circus clowns, an on-the-couch interview with Oprah,
and, of course, the inevitable domination of the world.
Shaping up to be a big year. Stay tuned. And as always, for better or worse, you can always reply to this and
get at me directly.
Best,
Mark Manson
MarkManson.net
Hitchhiker 