The 13-in-2013 Challenge

In the immortal words of my college roommate:  “It’s time to put up or shut up.”

If you’ve followed my several most recent posts, you may have noticed a subtle shift.

• A shift from dreaming dreams to taking steps.
• A shift from resolutions to practical goals.
• A shift from lofty ideals to teachable skills.
• A shift from thinking about who I should be  to becoming the man God has made me to be right now.

I like to think big ideas, to dream big dreams, and to come up with big grandiose visions for just about everything.  Dreaming stuff up is the easy part. Taking the little steps towards those visions is tougher for me than I’d like to admit.  I end up caught in the same cycle of dreaming about stuff that never actually gets done.

Here’s my 7-step cycle: (1) come up with an idea, (2) get excited about it, (3) talk with my wife about it, (4) drive my wife crazy because I won’t stop talking about it, (5) realize the idea may be pretty hard to accomplish, (6) get caught up in “real world” tedious projects, (7) put the idea on the backburner and try not to be bummed about it… and repeat, but with a NEW idea!

I’ve stumbled across a great tool to help me track my progress as I make the shift from a dreamer to a do-er:  13skills.com.

13skills.com was created by some folks in the preparedness movement to encourage people to learn new valuable skills.  Yes, I know how to turn off the water main to my house if there is a leak, but do I have the skill to fix that leak myself?  Not if the fix involves more than bailing wire and duct tape.  That needs to change.

I’m taking up the challenge posed by 13skills.com:  I’m going to learn (or enhance) 13 skills in 2013. 

Here are a several of the skills on my list: permaculture, rappelling, community building, fire making, and archery.  I’m familiar with these things, I may have even dabbled in a bit of it… but this is about being good enough at a skill to actually use it and teach it to my sons.  In case you’re curious, here’s my complete list.

So I made my list public.  It’s out there.  Here’s where I need your help: ask me how I’m doing!  That’s the simple accountability that is missing from my 7-steps-of -dreaming-and-doing-nothing cycle!

What about you?  Do you get stuck in a similar cycle?  How do you spend your extra time?  What are your goals for becoming the skilled parent/spouse/awesome person that you’ve been made to be?  If you have a lot of soft skills (computer, artistic, office-related), maybe you need to learn some hard skills (carpentry, plumbing, leatherwork).

Take a look at the site, and take a look at what you’re doing to learn new stuff.  Then turn off your computer and go learn something new.