Hey ,

First up, I'd like to say Happy New Year to you and that I hope 2014 is an awesome year - filled with loads of success (however you decide to define that) - for you.

I also hope that you'll be sharing all your startup and entrepreneurial success, failures and challenges with me. ;)

If I think about what 2014 possibly holds for me, I realize that I've set this year up to be perfectly poised for adventure, uncertainty and a lack of comfort zones. Pressing pause on PublicBeta towards the end of last year has had a significant impact on the goals that I'm setting myself for this year.

I've been debating (procrastinating!?) whether I should publicly share my goals (either via my newsletter or blog), because it's obviously personal and I wasn't sure whether anybody else would actually find value in that.

I ultimately decided that what I'd do is to share these goals within the intimate confines of my newsletter. But I'm not just gonna tell you what my goals are; instead I'll focus more time on the why. So here goes...

1. Taking A Sabbatical

The goal: I will not work on a startup this year (my own or joining someone else's).

Why? I know Adii, the entrepreneur, really well, since that's who I've been for the last 6 years of my life (sometimes to the compromise of other aspects of my life). This year I want to rediscover who I am and who I could be in an attempt to be more than just an entrepreneur. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I'd like to know whether I have any hidden, unlocked talents or interests. :)

2. Personal Investment & Rejuvenation

The goal: I want to spend my sabbatical (from startups) to invest time and energy into my detoxing and rejuvenation with the ultimate aim being the establishment of a stronger foundation.

Why? Simply put: I have issues. The last 6 years of being a young (and sometimes, naïve) entrepreneur has taken it's toll and some of my thoughts (about startups / entrepreneurship) feels out of balance. This needs to get back into equilibrium and I need to distill past events with greater clarity. There's mistakes made and lessons learnt that I'm yet to uncover, which will ultimately help me be a better Adii and entrepreneur.

3. Create Daily Habits

The goal: Start new daily habits related to exercise, meditation and rest.

Why? There's only one way that I've been able to consistently accomplish something and that's when something has become a habit. In the pursuit of personal recovery and rejuvenation, it's important to be healthy (mind, body & spirit) and the way I'd like to do that is through daily habits. I also believe that this will strengthen my core, so that when I eventually work on a new startup again, I won't repeat the mistakes of the past.

4. Writing & Building An Audience

The goal: Continue to write daily, publish something on every weekday and grow my mailing list to 15 000 subscribers.

Why? Writing is like therapy to me. Plus, I absolutely love sharing my experiences, especially when they involve mistakes made. On top of that, I want to continue growing my mailing list ((to make up for lost time)[http://adii.me/blogging-mistakes/]), which means a bigger audience of like-minded entrepreneurs. Hopefully this creates a fantastic platform from which I can launch my next startup in 2015. ;)

5. Learn a new hobby or skill

The goal: Learn something new. Examples would include a new skill (playing a musical instrument) or a new language (like French).

Why? I want to test myself and put myself way beyond my comfort zones. But I also just want to have fun and experience the sensation of living life a little. Such a big part of my life (interests, likes & dislikes) are linked to being an entrepreneur, so I'd like to broaden that with something else that I can be totally obsessive about (which isn't red wine, because that's too easy).

I think these goals are rather unconventional. At the very least they are for me. I'm already feeling quite anxious about actually accomplishing all of these; specifically #1 (because I love working on startups) and #5 (picking up another hobby is something that's been really hard for me in the past).

I'm excited about the blank canvas I have though. In setting myself these goals I tried to adhere to the spirit of having that blank canvas too.

What are your goals for 2014? And what would your goals be if you truly had a blank canvas?

Cheers

Adii

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