December 30, 2017

Hey everybody! We’re going to get signed!

I’m not big into New Year’s resolutions. It’s probably been close to three decades since I made one.

It’s not that I’m against the idea in general... they just didn’t work for me so I stopped doing them.

Actually, saying they didn’t work for me is an understatement. It’s not that they were ineffective... it’s worse than that. They had a demonstrably negative impact on me psychologically.

I used to make these grandiose promises to myself like, “This is the year I get a record deal!”

ASIDE: For the under-forty crowd a “record deal” was like a bank loan given to a rock band by something called a “record company”. Also... a “record” was a round piece of plastic that contained audio information encoded in a spiral groove that was physically carved into it. The decoder was called a “record player” which had a needle that was dragged through the groove by the rotation of the oh my god I’m so old please send help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!

Anyhoo... 😉

The excitement of making a grandiose promise to myself on New Year’s Eve always - ALWAYS - turned to despair relatively quickly. It felt like breaking a promise to myself.

Which lead to a feeling of not trusting myself.

Which is a scary feeling.

I think my problem was that I was setting unrealistic goals.

But dig this...

My goals were not unrealistic because they were objectively unobtainable - after all, plenty of people had record deals at the time - they were unrealistic because I had no plan for achieving them.

So.

If you are thinking about making a grandiose New Years resolution this year, first ask yourself this:

“What are the steps I will take to achieve this outcome?”

If you have a plan in mind - even a very rough one - I say go for it!

If not, then ask yourself, “Self, are you bullshitting me?”

Life is too short to lie to yourself.

Yours,

—J