chasing answers newsletter #34
“What the new year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to the new year.” - Vern Mclellan
Happy Sunday and Happy New Year!
It's hard to believe it's all over, but everything is back to normal at our house. The tree is down. Christmas decorations are put away. Buttercup is looking for his next victims. And my daughter is already asking if Toffee Candy Snowflake will be back next year (I still can't tell if she is playing dumb for our benefit or if she truly doesn't know.)
Anyhow, it's great to be back in your inbox.
2023 Goals
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and are pumped to tackle the new year and make your wildest dreams come true. Or maybe you're thinking what I am right now, "Fuck, I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. I just need another day or two of playing games with my daughter."
Sound familiar? Welcome to real life.
If you're on social media and Twitter specifically, you may feel left out if you don't have a strategy to conquer the world in 2023. It's hard to miss all the 2023 plans and 2022 annual reviews. All these lists showcase what people accomplished this year and what they plan to do next year. It can be overwhelming, and if you're not careful, it can get in your head a little.
If you're like me, 2023 probably isn't going to be the year you read 100 books, grow your followers to 50,000, 10x your income, or, my favorite, spend more time doing nothing because "that's where the real productivity is."
What the fuck? I can't keep up with the latest trends.
My goals for 2023?
Have my family be alive and healthy when we get to 2024.
That's it. That's the fucking list.
Are there other things I will work hard on this year and attempt to accomplish?
Definitely.
Will my success in doing so define how good or bad my year was 365 days from now?
I doubt it.
Does this make me a slacker?
Who cares.
At 44, I've learned life will happen, and at the end of the day if my family is here and healthy, it's a win. A lot will happen between now and next January 1st. Some of it's going to be planned. A lot of it isn't.
And as Baz Luhrmann once said (actually, Mary Schmich said it first)
The real troubles in your life
Are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind
The kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday
I'm convinced there is a direct correlation between how many of these Tuesdays you can avoid and how happy you are.
Best of luck if you're setting out to crush it so you can write a killer 2023 review 11 months and 3 weeks from now. I really do hope you nail it. However, if December rolls around and you didn't, but the people most important to you are healthy, and you're still here to give it another shot in 2024, be happy.
Best of Twitter
This was really my first year on social media. So it was also my first year-end on social media. And it almost pushed me over the edge. But then, this little beauty stumbled into my life.
I didn't know I could block individual tweets based on their content. This is a GAME CHANGER. There are a lot of accounts that I think offer incredible value. But even though the accounts aren't necessarily "productivity" accounts, they still feel the need to tell me how they spend their mornings. I've unfollowed some decent accounts for no reason other than I get sick of hearing about their shower and water consumption routines.
This tweet may have saved Twitter for me. Here are detailed instructions for the advanced muting options on Twitter if you are interested.
I hope you all have a great week!
As always, I would love to hear from you.
If you read something here that resonates with you, leave a comment.
If you would like to discuss something further, shoot me an email.
If there was something you absolutely hated, @ me on Twitter.
And if there is something you think I should be writing about, please let me know.
If you want to see more of my work, visit chasinganswers.co.
Thank you for reading, and if you liked what you read, please share.
randy
"Buttercup is looking for his next victims. And my daughter is already asking if Toffee Candy Snowflake will be back next year (I still can't tell if she is playing dumb for our benefit or if she truly doesn't know.)" 😂
Toffee Candy Snowflake must be back next year, your fans (me) will be waiting for those updates.
Also, "life will happen." This seems like a good motto to carry.
I think watching your growing frustration with "productivity" twitter was the highlight of *my* twitter week
Here's to more muted key words in 2023!