Challenges for 2016

Oh yes, it’s that time of the year again. New year, new me and all that jazz 😐

Last year I set goals, but this year I’m setting challenges, with the idea to push myself to be happier, more interesting, less scared and over all a better person.

So let’s get stuck in…

  1. Share something everyday from my life and design process on Instagram – I’m a scaredy pants most of the time. I shy away from sharing my work or what I am up to because I worried how I will be judged. Well not this year. If I can get in the habit of sharing more often I have 100% faith that this fear will diminish over time, and who knows I might enjoy it.
  2. Create something with Anna and donate what we can from the profits to charity – This year Anna (my wife) and I are going to make something together. Be it a business, a non-profit or something in-between we are going to use both our skills, experiences and passions to create something that we can sell and give a portion of the profits to charity. It seems a good way to work on something creative together for once and to give at the same time. We have a few ideas what we could do but this is definitely a slow burner and a challenge we can both get our teeth into.
  3. Run at least 10k a week – I lift a lot and sprint at the track every now and then, but I want to add another sting to my bow and running seems to be the perfect fit as I can go whenever. So if I can use the marathon I have signed up for in April as a spring-board to get me into the habit of running at least 10k a week I’ll be a happy bunny.
  4. Do 3 things that REALLY scare me – Like I mentioned earlier I am a scaredy pants, so I want to force myself into situations that helps take this fear away for me. I have no idea what I am going to do just yet but I don’t particularly like making a fool of myself in public, the ocean or small spaces, so maybe I could audition for the X-Factor whilst confined to a small cage in the ocean with a shark for company? Who knows. This will take some thinking and I have a sneaking suspicion that this challenge could be the hardest for me.
  5. Go Vegan for a month – For the past 4 year Anna and I have gone vegetarian for January, but this year we are notching it up a tad and going vegan. My world generally revolves around protein in various forms so to strip this away and help the environment seems like a good challenge to me.
  6. Practice misfortune – I have been reading up on this a fair amount recently after reading ‘The Obstacle is the Way’ by Ryan Holiday. Enduring misfortune or poverty is a practice the Stoics used to perform on a monthly basis to allow themselves to prepare for less prosperous times and allow them appreciate the now and it’s a concept I found intriguing. I then heard comfort being described as ‘the worse kind of slavery because you’re always afraid that something or someone will take it away’, and I instantly added this challenge to my list.

… Again, like last year I will be updating this as I go with when I have completed the challenge and what I learnt from them. So let’s go.

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