Setting Fire to This Year's Bagels
I love you readers
Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the Sunday Bagel. I can’t promise you anything from your investment in reading this edition, but a bagel will be lit on fire at the end of it all to symbolize what a beautiful shit show 2023 was for everyone.
The end of the year is a good time to shed anything that is not needed. Take for example having a bad habit or a dependency.
If you are trying to get rid of “chocolate” for example, you can imagine just how little the chocolate industry needs you. It will be totally fine as it is, selling candy bars to kids and bored office workers at vending machines.
You can apply this thinking to all sorts of situations in your life. If a person or a team is treating you like garbage, they don’t need you. If they needed you they wouldn’t treat you that way.
So don’t engage with things that have the double whammy of being unhealthy, and don’t need you at the same time.
These things need you: your friends, your family and your most creative work (also known as your life’s work or your mission).
By not being weighed down by “chocolate”, you will free yourself up for this task.
Three Ideas from My Notebooks
Invest your fears and doubts into the successful outcome you plan to achieve. All great work has an element of fear embedded inside which you will use as fuel to burn as you dive into the work.
A to-do list is only useful is put the items into categories and then set priorities. Otherwise it’s overwhelming to look at 12 things that you have to do in no set order. Try Todoist or Tick Tick to get started with this workflow (Apple Reminders has many of these tools built-in).
To get good at playing music or any new skill, be firm with your commitment to show up to practice, and then be easy on yourself with whatever happens when you play. You can’t be firm in both parts of this process or you’ll never want to play an instrument or take up any new skill.
This section is everyone’s favourite. I have set a to-do list item to round these up and put them in one long list for you by next week.
New Track: A Bit Psyche
Here’s a new tune to ring in the new year with. This one is an epic ride into the next galaxy. It features a beautiful arpeggiator and some dreamy soundscapes to go with it.
Listen on Apple Music or YouTube.
Introducing The Project Lab: Coworking and Accountability System
Projects are the container for all your best work. Inside of projects there are tasks and deadlines, and outside of projects there are visions and dreams.
The Project Lab is a pet initiative that I have been working on since the end of 2023. It’s a way for me to help others do their Most Creative Work.
This is a system that helps people sit down to develop their projects, both by scheduling time to work on Zoom, as well as asking members to take time to check-in with their progress throughout the month.
In a world that is grooming you to become a vegetable with short-form videos, I am happy to help encourage a sense of focus and long-term progress into people’s experience here.
When we work on good projects, time has a way of expanding, and in that moment we feel enjoyment.
This is great for artists, writers, musicians, entrepreneurs or anyone with a big dream.
Happy New Year from The Sunday Bagel!
Wishing you a fruitful year of creative insight and enjoyment with your loved ones. And of course, hundreds of bagels.
Thank you so much for reading every week and to my paid subscribers Adam, Ira, Missy, Maria, Noah and Theresa for financing this rogue operation.
What was your best memory or life event from 2023?
See you next week,
Elliott
Happy New Year Elliot! I shall be shedding some chocolate this year and looking forward to it. I don’t need it, and it certainly doesn’t need me!!!