I don’t do New Years Resolutions; I do New Years themes. What the hell’s the difference?

Themes focus on your behaviors while goals focus more on the outcome. Embracing a theme for the year like “risk,” “experimentation,” or “calm,” gives you a compass to guide you through the moment-by-moment choices that get tossed your way.

Last year, my theme was “growth.”

For 2015, my theme is growth: rapid, insane, and dangerous growth. Fuck the margins. If I gross $500,000 next year but spend $450,000 to make it, so be it. I’ll optimize it later.

I did okay.

Financially, there wasn’t much growth. (At times, it was the opposite, which I’ll explain below.)

Career-wise, there was a wee bit of growth. For example, after years of struggling, I finally wrote for Men’s Health, which was a dream of mine since I first joined the fitness industry.

Dating-wise, there wasn’t much growth. I met dozens upon dozens of women at random places (ex. the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport), but it led to A LOT of flakes. I also did my Tinder experiment, but it failed miserably. I got one mediocre date from it — that was it.

Fitness-wise, I grew a lot… until I landed in the Emergency Room and limited my training for six or so months. (I may finally be back to where I started.)

Socially, I friended some of the coolest people on Earth. Funny, smart, and interesting people doing some badass things. (Why they befriended me, I have no clue, lol.)

Travel-wise, I did surprisingly well. For example, I’ve been debating on going to Costa Rica for years now, but one morning early-January, I said, “Fuck it,” and bought a ticket. (I later postponed it, but the thought still counted.) Same thing with Cincinnati. Same thing with Portland. I went to Chicago and Tahoe for “work” — if you could call it that — and I joined a buddy for a road trip to California and back that took us through Zion National Park and the outskirts of Arches.

Why wasn’t my progress as good as I wanted?

I hate to make excuses, but during the second half of the year, one of my biggest contracts ended due to financial problems in the company. I guess new ownership + “bringing in consultants” = no moolah. Immediately, I had to divert most of my attention from growth to “staying the fuck afloat.”

I managed, but there will still be many more questions than answers heading into 2016.

As a result, I stopped doing interviews for my podcast. I stopped blogging as much. And I stopped taking as many risks with my side projects.

Unfortunately, it leaves a lot of unanswered questions for 2016.

But like I wrote about before, you have to be confident in your own resourcefulness to have the courage to do the things you want.

So what’s the theme for 2016?

Quick backstory: I spend a good chunk of time in Q2 of 2015 diving deep into philosophy and spirituality because, well, when I couldn’t do much fitness, I spent a lot of time in the park, reading books and thinking more about death (not in a suicidal way).

I thought more about our own existence and our place on this Earth.

I realized there’s so much I want to do with my life that has nothing to do with money, work, or careers.

So here’s the theme:

Adventure.

It’s time, people.

I have so many things I want to achieve in life and everyone I respect (and who is older than me) all say the same thing:

DO IT NOW.

Don’t wait. The music doesn’t last forever.

Yes, the money issue is important, but let’s see what we can do.

So here’s my Step One: Write my own bucket list. (Here’s the link.) Some of you might not understand why those things are “bucket list” items. Maybe you’ve done some of them already. THAT’S AWESOME. That’s why a bucket list is so important — because it’s tailor-made for each individual. Some of the things you want to do might be things I don’t like or that I’ve already done.

That’s where we can help each other out. (Email me.)

Also, know that a lot of people will scoff at your bucket list, make indirect criticisms, and construct barriers FOR you. What will you do for money? Is that enough time? Isn’t that really hard? How are you going to do THAT? etc.

Never mind them. They are the same people who won’t achieve their bucket list (and don’t want to).

It’s like I said time and time again: If you want an awesome life, you need to do awesome things. There’s no other way around it.

One day, I’m going to die. And all the things I’ve never done will remain… as things I’ve never done.

That scares me. Heck, that scares me more than the things I’m thinking of doing.

So I want to prove to you that it’s possible to shatter comfort zones and push the envelope.

This year, I’m going to try various fear-tackling adventures. And I’m going to write about how they go. (For example, I’ve already called the Pepsi Center in Denver twice to try to get something going.) Why?

If I can inspire just ONE person out there to get off their ass and do something they’ve always wanted to do, I’ll be pleased.

Wish me luck. (I might also need a good lawyer, haha.)

And I wish you the best of luck for 2016.