What does everyone do this time of the year? They look back on everything that happened during the year. I want to do something a little bit different, but I don’t want to spend tons of time on this. So, I am going to do what I am going to call, “The Three Headlines for my Year.
Let’s get started, here is the first headline:
The year started with me feeling very lost, lots of changes were happening all around me, and to be honest, I just wasn't sure how to react. Most of the changes that were happening were still unsettled. That left me in a position of feeling not only lost, but also unsure how to move forward. At the time, the only thing I could keep telling myself was that I needed to be patient. There is a time for action, but there is also a time to sit back and wait and see how things play out. Usually, the new year for me is a time of great optimism. My struggle was that 2024 didn't go like I wanted and so I wanted the new year to hurry up and get here, but I also knew that unlike past years, this year wouldn't come automatically with hope and optimism. My other struggle was that most of the time you know when things will finally get back to normal, but in this situation, I was pretty sure that all this would take around six months to get figured out. I was also concerned that some of the issues that led to the major changes solved certain issues but created other issues. That meant that I would start the year with uncertainty, and having no clue if and when things would get back to normal. That feeling right there was the beginning of me realizing that drifting had now completely taken over. There is a big difference between knowing things don’t feel right and knowing you are now completely lost. I was lost.
That leads us to headline number two!
There is something comforting when you realize you are lost. Most people can drift forever by convincing themselves that they aren't lost. You hold out hope that at any moment you will turn the corner and somehow you will know exactly where you are and what direction you need to go in. At that moment when you know you are lost; you have a different kind of clarity. It's the kind of clarity that screams, "I have to change something I am doing"! Depending on the situation, you may just have to ask for help. My situation felt different. I had plenty of people that I could ask for help, and I had many others willing to offer to give me advice. My feeling was more of a disconnect. Every time I was done talking to someone, I would walk away feeling like they didn't understand what I was saying. No matter how many times I said it, I felt like they heard a different question than I was asking. It wasn't that they said something wrong, it just wasn't ever what I needed. That could mean only one thing. I needed to sit down with myself and ask myself some really hard questions and then force myself to answer them. Most of the questions centered around the same things, was I doing what I wanted, and was I giving full effort?
Forcing myself to answer those questions led me to headline number three
The new year will be here in a few days, I don't have all the answers, but this year feels a lot different than last year. I feel like over the last few months a couple of things have become very clear to me. First, you don't realize right away that you have drifted and stopped being you want to be. You think everything is normal and the changes are actually someone else. You recognize that things have changed, but you think it's all on someone else, or at least most of it. Second, when you aren't happy, you need to sit down and ask yourself tough questions. For me, I felt like I had been dealt a few bad hands, which overall is true. But what I failed to recognize was that at some point my effort had changed. I will always believe that I have the ability to win and that I can overcome any challenge. But I can't do that if I'm not giving my best effort. It's easy for me to go to work, come home, get a few things done and then sleep. It's easy, but it's not what I want to do. When you do that, you start to drift. Drifting for me felt like I had no purpose. It felt like I had settled for a life I didn't want. I'm not saying that I am going to change the world, but I am going to change my world. I will not drift, I will not settle, in 2026, I am going to Live Driven!