Here are some of my goals. What are yours?

As I sit in what used to be my office and studio, I find myself reflecting on intentionality.

The other day, when I heard Michael Bublé’s version of It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas on the radio yet again, the final line stuck with me.

“It’s Christmas once more”

A year ago, the room I’m in looked very similar to how it does now. Here’s the picture as I write:

A year ago, I was excited to have a dedicated office that would double as a recording studio. It would help me produce better videos with less effort. I asked you all for inspiration on what your home offices looked like and I ended up building a space that I really love.

So in the past few days, I got a bit emotional when disassembling my office and studio. Even though I’ve only lived in this apartment for a year, and used the studio for less than that, it was the first time I really built my own physical workspace.

So why did I tear the studio down?

Earlier this year, my girlfriend and I got news from our landlord: we’d have to move out. He would not be renewing our rental contract.

Ugh.

Frustrating.

We put a lot of effort into furnishing this apartment. Effort we’d have to spend again for a new place. I was tempted to curse, but held it together and accept the news surprisingly quickly. We also made a plan to not face this situation again: we’d just buy a house instead of renting. Easy. We’d have our own place, without a landlord to deal with.

Except buying a house turned out to be a tad more expensive than we were comfortable with for now. So instead, we searched for another place to rent. A place we could stay for more than a year. But no apartments we viewed excited us.

Then, one evening, we sat on the couch and asked ourselves, “why don’t we just travel for a while?” After all, we had planned to do that in 2020: just pack up our stuff, go wherever we feel like going, and work from anywhere. Needless to say, the pandemic threw a wrench in that plan.

But it took only about an hour of conversation on the couch to decide that this time, we’d go for it. We wouldn’t rent another apartment. We certainly wouldn’t buy a house. No, we’d do the opposite: become full time travelers. You might say we will be digital nomads, although we don’t love some of the connotations that come with that phrase.

I’m sharing our story because it’s almost the new year. And the coming of a new year might have you thinking about your plan for the year. As you think about your New Year’s resolutions, I encourage you to be intentional. Incredibly intentional. Outrageously intentional, even.

Ask yourself:

What do I want to achieve in 2023?

Then ask yourself an even more important question:

How will I achieve that?

For me, traveling fits very well with my goals. Some of my current goals include:

• Become more in tune with people in the real world, rather than the online world
• Build a business where I offer vision, where I manage, and where I am in front of people—but delegate the rest
• Increase my surface area for meeting new people and having new ideas
• Become as polished and composed in social situations as the politician I admire most at the moment, Istanbul’s embattled mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu
• Get as good at telling stories (in private or in public) as my close friend Saby

These things are difficult to achieve when sitting at home, churning out YouTube videos by myself. Traveling and meeting new people is a much better fit. It’s a big lifestyle change, but it’s so aligned with my goals that it just makes sense. I’ll meet many new people, get lots of inspiration, and get plenty of opportunities to practice the skills I want to develop.

And so the fact that our landlord is kicking my girlfriend and me out turned into a blessing. We are now very excited to start our travels. We’ll travel together most of the time, but also travel solo at times. Our first stops: Berlin and Istanbul. I’ll then head over to Israel for a bit. Bangkok is next for the two of us. And then we’ll see!

Now it’s time for you to think about your goals. About your intentions.

• What do you want to achieve?
• How do you plan to achieve it?
• Why are these goals meaningful to you?
• What changes do you need to make to give yourself a good chance to make your dreams happen?

Maybe you need a big change like the one I’m making. Maybe you don’t need a change quite that dramatic. Either way, do what you need to do.

Think about it.

Finally, whether you’re celebrating something in these final days of the year or not, I hope you are enjoying yourself and that you are in good health. See you next year.