What Got You Here, Won't Get You There.

And your best chance of becoming a cowboy in 2025

Your New Year’s Resolutions in February

We’re at the end of the year, staring at a clean slate full of potential.

For some, the new year feels like an exciting fresh start. For others, it looms with the weight of unfinished goals and unfulfilled intentions. How you feel might depend on one key thing: your track record with follow-through. Have you been someone who turns dreams into reality—or someone who watches them fade away?

Why Dreamers Struggle to Become Doers

Let’s talk about that graveyard of brilliant ideas you’ve got buried in your mind. You know the ones — those sparks of genius that got you so excited you couldn’t sleep, only to fizzle out two weeks later. Ring any bells?

Here’s the truth: You don’t have an ideas problem. You have a finishing problem.

The Confetti Mind & Why Focus Feels Impossible

Your mind is like a sky filled with confetti — bright, colorful, full of potential. But confetti doesn’t move anything forward. To create impact, you need focus and follow-through. And that’s where things get hard.

The moment you commit to one idea, shit gets real. Suddenly, you’re faced with:

• Saying NO to other options, ideas, and potential.

• The fear of choosing the wrong thing. What if something better comes along?

• The discomfort of sticking with something when the initial excitement fades.

This is where most people get stuck. They overthink. They jump from idea to idea. They find reasons to quit before the finish line.

You’re what I call a "confetti mind." You’re constantly in motion, but like vectors pointing in different directions, all that energy cancels itself out. You end up nowhere, just with more ideas to add to the pile.

Fear and Reactivity: The Real Enemies of Focus

Focus isn’t just about willpower; it’s about managing yourself within your project. That means:

1. Handling fear and discomfort.

2. Staying calm, grounded, and clear-headed.

3. Balancing input (inspiration, learning) with output (execution, shipping).

But when fear kicks in, everything gets harder. Fear of failure, of imperfection, of wasting time. It’s no wonder you stay busy without making progress. You’re stuck in reactivity, bouncing from one thing to another, avoiding the discomfort of commitment.

The Addiction to Potential

Let’s be honest: potential is sexy. It’s full of hope, possibility, and excitement. But it’s also a trap.

When you’re addicted to potential:

• You avoid constraints because they feel like limitations.

• You’re constantly in motion but rarely make real impact.

• You love the thrill of starting but hate the grind of finishing.

You’re like someone addicted to first dates — you love the butterflies, the possibilities, the what-ifs. But as soon as the initial excitement wears off and reality sets in? You’re already on dating apps looking for the next rush.

Here’s the hard truth: constraints will set you free.

When you commit to one thing, you give yourself the chance to go deep, to make something real. But first, you have to face the discomfort.

The Discomfort Zone: Where Growth Happens

To follow through, you need to get comfortable with discomfort.

Here’s what that looks like:

1. Uncertainty: You don’t know if it will work. You don’t know if you’ll like it. That’s okay.

2. Imperfect Execution: Your first attempts will suck. That’s part of the process.

3. Vulnerability: Shipping your work means risking judgment, rejection, and failure.

4. Boredom: Not every step will be exciting. Some of it will feel mundane, even pointless.

At first, this will feel like a loss. You’ll grieve the freedom, impulsivity, and endless possibilities you’re giving up. But the sooner you embrace the discomfort, the sooner you’ll make progress.

The Myth of All-or-Nothing

Part of what makes commitment so scary is the illusion that it’s permanent. That if you pick one project, you’re stuck with it forever. But here’s the truth:

• Commitment isn’t forever. The sooner you finish, the sooner you can move on.

• The work often becomes more interesting the more you invest in it.

• You can start small. Build your commitment muscles gradually.

Breaking Your Wild Horse

Think of your mind as a wild horse. It’s full of energy and resistance, constantly looking for ways to escape. To ride it, you have to break it in. That means:

• Teaching it to stay calm under pressure.

• Training it to follow your direction, even when it’s scared.

• Accepting that it will fight back at first, but persistence pays off.

Commitment raises the stakes, which triggers fear. Your mind will start fixating on what you’ve got to lose (options, freedom, potential). This is normal. It’s “just” resistance, not reality.

Our Society Glorifies Ideas

We live in a world that celebrates creativity, intelligence, and potential. In one of my recent posts I wrote that life rewards action, not intelligence. Ideas are sexy. Execution is not. But execution is where the magic happens. Here’s why you avoid it:

• You don’t trust your idea is good enough.

• You don’t trust yourself to stay committed (you probably have a lot of proof for that, so it’s not totally unsupported!)

• You don’t trust that you can handle the discomfort.

But trust grows with action. The more you show up, the more you’ll prove to yourself that you can handle it. Your self-efficacy grows.

Escaping the Distraction Trap

Distractions are a way to numb the discomfort of doing the work. They’re like drinking to forget you have a drinking problem. But they’re keeping you stuck. To have a chance of escaping this pattern, you need to:

1. Recognize distractions for what they are: avoidance.

2. Commit to small, manageable steps.

3. Focus on the process, not the outcome.

It is totally possible, but not easy when done alone.

The Reality Cycle

Every project has a cycle:

1. Excitement: The honeymoon phase where everything feels possible.

2. Reality: The hard, messy middle where things feel boring or impossible.

3. Completion: The satisfaction of seeing it through.

Most people abandon their projects in the reality phase. They think the cracks mean failure. But cracks are normal. They’re part of building something real.

You’re caught in all-or-nothing thinking. Either it has to be perfect, or it’s not worth doing at all. You don’t understand that imperfection is where the magic happens.

From Dreamer to Doer

If you want to stop being someone who dreams and start being someone who does, you need to:

1. Fall in love with the process, not just the outcome.

2. Embrace constraints as a path to freedom.

3. Build trust in yourself through consistent action.

4. Stay with the discomfort long enough to see progress.

The journey isn’t easy, but it’s worth it. Because the alternative — a life of unfulfilled potential — is like a damp blanket on a cold day.

Start small. Commit. And see what happens when you stay the course.

Your wild, idea-generating mind isn’t a curse. It’s a gift. But like any powerful tool, it needs to be harnessed, directed, and focused.

So pick one thing. One small thing. And finish it.

Because dreamers are wonderful, but it’s the finishers who change the world.

You can be both.

What’s Holding You Back?

• The Confetti Mind: Your thoughts are scattered, full of energy but moving in different directions, canceling each other out.

• Fear of Commitment: What if it’s the wrong idea? What if something better comes along? What if you fail?

• The Discomfort Zone: You bail when things get messy, boring, or uncertain.

• Addiction to Potential: You’re in love with the idea of possibilities but avoid the grind of making them real.

If any of this resonates, this Adventure is for you.

Hope to see you on the other side!

(Just do something! :D)