Why 2015 Will Be My Year
We’ve all heard it before. Everyone always says, “This year will be my year!” and they don’t act on it. Sure, they might go to the gym for a few weeks or eat healthy once or twice, but nobody seems to have the drive or determination to make these sort of things a habit.
When I decided this year would be my year, I also decided that I would not end up like everyone else. I set a goal for myself, and I promised not only myself but some of my close friends that I would reach it. Now, I’m sharing it with you:
“By the time I graduate in 2016, I want to be driving a Tesla Model S to school.”
It seems utterly ridiculous. And probably ridiculously material. What’s a college freshman going to do with a $90,000 car? No high school junior has dreams like this, so why should I?
I’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart. Even at 5 years old, I bought dog biscuits, broke them in two and sold them at a profit in my front yard. I learned from my parents about supply and demand, profit and loss, and how I shouldn’t be selling things I didn’t make.
Fast forward 12 years: I’m 17 years old and I’ve taught myself PHP & Laravel, Ruby & Rails, Javascript, HTML, and CSS. Funnily enough, I truly have nothing to show for it. My first venture, CreatorsCast, failed twice. Although I learned a lot about business, competition, traction, marketing, and growth, the project failed, and I blamed countless other things: the scope of the project was too large, the team was too small, the market wasn’t ready — all excuses I made for why the project failed. Except for one thing: I didn’t blame myself.
I simply didn’t have the drive or direction I needed to have to make that project work, and that attitude infected my team, too. Every month, I didn’t know if we’d finish the month in the black, or how we’d do it if we could. This continued for two years. I was not only deceiving myself but just being foolish if I thought anything would happen in the direction we were going.
We shut down the project, and I found it hard to look forward. I was afraid of failing again, and this held me back.
I experimented with reinventing tried-and-true businesses (a CRM, an Analytics platform, a helpdesk). I asked around to see who was doing what. I tried to freelance for friends, and I tried to freelance for companies. I made an Elance profile. I floundered around, looking for business ideas in all the wrong ways (like specifically Googling “startup ideas 2014").
Finally, I decided that this aimless wandering had to stop. I had to start something, or I wouldn’t start anything. It could be something as simple as deciding to blog, like I am right now.
So this is that start. I’m tired of a lack of direction, I’m tired of giving up, and I’m tired of blaming others for my shortcomings. This year, if I commit to anything, it’ll be this mantra:
In 2015, I will own both my successes and my failures alike.
This is the only way to reach goals, grow as a person, and learn from failure rather than fearing it.
