078 • One step after the other, no matter the time of year
Something that I fail to catch a lot of the time...
One idea that I keep coming back to is the damage that the emotional rise and fall of having a fresh start every single year can have - how this can negatively affect our progress through unnecessary highs and lows
The reason I keep touching on this idea is because I keep falling for the fallacy that a new year is going to change something, that it’s going to be a suitable fresh start…
For the last few days, I’ve been convinced that I needed to add a brand new short link + analytics combo to my business websites so that I could better make business decisions.
The start of the year gave me a fantastic excuse to set this up (or so I thought) because it’s a perfect arbitrary spot to have a clean slate and get on with doing things ‘the right way’.
In case you hadn’t spotted yet, this was never going to be a good idea (I’ll pay someone to do it properly in the future) and I’d have been better suited to writing and creating more content to help more people in the spent time that’s now unrecoverable.
But for a short while, in my head, I was sidetracked by this new, higher-stimulation idea rather than doing the fundamentals right. And this is a complete contradiction to what this newsletter is about.
Hopefully I’m past it again now - I’ve gone back to using the same tools that I had been using before, with the exception of a change of analytics platform. No more short links, no more comprehensive UTM parameter overhauls of all my past content. Instead I’m going to keep ploughing forward in creating the things that create value in other peoples’ lives.
Instead of wasting time, I’m going to use the new year for spending time with my family and setting intentions for 2025. These are the things that the end of the year is actually good for.
Don’t make the same mistake as me. Act now, don’t wait to put something over-ambitious into place just because the calendar’s going to say 01/01.
See you next week,
— Theo
Last week’s issue (extended cut)…
I’ve started to do these on YouTube again. They’re unlisted for now so you can only see them on this newsletter - the reason for this is because I’m not sure how to manage all the different videos and projects that I create online just yet but I think it’s likely I’ll start sharing them more widely in the future so it’s good preparation to upload them this way rather than locally on Substack.
What I’ve shared this week…
Another few images from my holidays over the summer, this time from the day or so that I spent in Porto, Portugal. I loved it in this city - the energy was great and it’s so charismatic, with the bridges and steep hills leading down to the river.
Spending time with family is #1, because our only guarantee is yesterday. Then, setting intentions for 2025 is a great idea. I see intentions as the ridder of the ship. Where do you want to go? You can then list them, decide what is most important, and take action.