Little progress

Looking at my birthday wishes at 44 last year, I realised how little progress I made towards my endgame:

Turned 44 today. Another year, another trip round the sun. Some birthday wishes:

🏋️‍♂️ Stay healthy
👪 Give the best to my family
💵 Earn enough to do that
🗓 Have time freedom, and be present
🚀 Build a profitable product

Simple wishes. But not-so-simple execution. It’s easy to wish and dream. But to make wishes real, a whole different game. A whole different universe, in fact.

Staying healthy and lean in an era of middle age dad bods and junk food makes food, sleep and exercise choices a daily uphill struggle.

Giving the best to family is great and all, but best is costly. And it wouldn’t be possible if I’m just scraping by most months. I got to earn more. I got to provide.

Being a present and calm dad had always been my aim. Being able to work from home, work on consulting and indie projects of my own choosing had been pivotal to that. But I’m far from being present. Time freedom is just the first key. The second key is the quality of my presence during that free time.

Most of all, my work aspiration to have a profitable product that’s lifestyle-sustaining. I have profitable products but none that’s even close to feeding the fam.

It’s all hard af. But I feel the mindset has got to switch. Something more fundamental, at the root. Aspiring is fine. But actualising is better. This new birth year, I hope to will stop aspiring and start actualising.

Health wise, it’s not great but not bad either. Could be worse. But I gained too much weight over the stress and poor diet from the consulting months from Feb to May, so I’m now having to get back to intermittent fasting and being more keto strict. 2 steps forward, 3 steps back.

I wanted to earn more last year to give the best to my family. I’m earning slightly more from my indie hacking this year – past $1k for products, another $1.5k from part-timing for Carrd. We went on our first family trip to someplace near. But still not the best I can give to my fam. It’s the best I can do now, but far from where I want to be.

I wasn’t as present and calm I wanted to during the past consulting months. But things had settled down after that. Time freedom is back. So am trying harder now, like stopping by 6pm, not having expectations of focused work during the day. And trying to not let the stress of hustling get to me. Far from ideal, but trying.

Most of all, I’m still light years away from a ramen-profitable product. $10k/m revenue is but still a dream. I keep saying I want to ship new products but don’t, or simply caught up in consulting, or the burnout after.

“Aspiring is fine. But actualising is better.”

I’d say to my past and future self – talk is cheap, actions speak louder.

Action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action, action. action, action, action, action, action. action, action, action, action, action, action, action.