How I completely changed my life in ten years

And some things to think about if you want 2036 to look radically different from 2026

This is First Things First, your weekly reminder to reflect on how far you’ve come, as well as prepare for the journey ahead. This is where I’ll share with you my deeper thoughts on all things career, money, family, and everything else that I won’t share anywhere else. This is a special place, and I’m glad you’re here.

Confession: I hate the 2016 trend

If you haven’t heard or seen this yet on Instagram, it’s currently trending to show photos of your life from 2016, the “last good year” many are saying, before everything got so bleak. But as I started to scroll through my camera roll, I was reminded of who I actually was in 2016:

nobody was taking career advice from this guy

I was a very different person in 2016. I was a sophomore at the University of Georgia who had no idea what kind of career I wanted, and I wasn’t giving anybody any advice (unless they were asking where the best drink specials were downtown on Thursdays).

The reality was that, at the time, I was running from a lot of things. I still hadn’t processed some of the experiences and emotions I had when I was younger, and rather than deal with them, I spent most of my first two years of college partying.

As someone who has made a living sharing my life and perspective online, I’ll admit it took me a while to decide whether or not to share this part of my story with you. I feel like my life is, in so many ways, very different from this person, and I was worried about what you might think of me, now knowing that your favorite career creator spent most of his early twenties in a bar.

But then I had to remind myself that there might be someone reading this who’s in a similar spot, wondering how to make a change. And maybe my sharing how I got back on the right track could help them on their journey.

So if you’re wondering how to move towards a better life for yourself, here are some suggestions.

How to change your life in ten years

“Most people overestimate what they can do in a day, and undersestimate what they can do in a year”

-Bill Gates

Change takes time. But the time will pass anyway. So here are a few principles that I think helped me make large shifts in who I was in 2016 to the person I am today:

1. The value of a goal is who you become along the way: Most goals, or resolutions, are only action-focused, like drink more water or walk more steps. Though in my experience, if you really want to accomplish a goal, it’s going to take an identity shift to really stick. It’s the difference between saying: “I want to eat more healthy food” and “I eat with intention”.

2. You already have unconscious goals: Your true goals are always reflected in your actions, not your intentions. If you write down that you want to get promoted this year, but never work a second past 5 PM, and haven’t had a serious conversation with your manager about your trajectory, the actual goal you’re subconsciously moving towards is to maintain your career in the exact same spot.

3. You need to create leverage on yourself: This might sound intense, but sometimes, the most effective motivation comes from pressure. Take something small, like wanting to scroll social media less after work. If you never do this, what happens? In a few days, not much, but in the months and years to come, if you never fix this behavior, what relationships will suffer, how will your physical and mental health degrade, and how will your perception of the world radically shift if you never curb the hours you spend mindlessly scrolling on your phone? That future should scare you, and it might be the motivation you need to make a change.

4. Life is a game. Don’t get stuck on the tutorial: All games are meant to take advantage of our brains’ ability to form habits around the things that give us feelings of enjoyment and progress. Gamification is the process of translating something like a goal into clear rules, visible progress, and repeatable “wins” that reinforce behavior. So take your goals and do the same — make a habit tracker in your journal, create mini-achievements for streaks of positive behavior, do something to make progress clear, rewarding, and repeatable.

If you need a little more help, you can plan your 2026 with my Yearly Goal Planning Guide

a few picks from my camera roll this week

Reminder: you hated 2016 when it actually was 2016

We have a tendency to romanticise the past. And that’s because we actually can’t remember it.

Your brain is constantly deleting and distorting your memories, so that what you remember of your first kiss, or your last vacation, is usually up to 30% false.

If you actually look back at some of the headlines and social commentary from 2016, you’ll see that we weren’t so kind to 2016 at the time:

“Guys, It’s Official, 2016 Is Actually The Worst Year” -Buzzfeed

“Everything that was terrible about 2016” -The Washington Post

“Dear 2016: I made you this ornament. It is a Dumpster fire.” -Twitter (back when it was actually still called Twitter)

2016 marked the beginning of a huge political shift in the US. We lost cultural icons like Muhammad Ali, David Bowie, and Prince. And of course, who can forget about losing Harambe?

The good times were probably a little bit worse than you remember them. But that also means that the bad times had a little bit of good in them that you’re overlooking.

ICYMI:

I wasted too much time last year longing for how much time I used to have to put towards my career before I became a parent. I know that may sound crazy, but I’m lucky enough to get a lot of purpose and fulfilment from the work I do, so anything that takes away from that can be tough.

But I’m also lucky enough to have other parents as friends. And those that are a little further down the road have taught me something about appreciating the family fire drills of today for what they actually are: a chance to prioritize presence over productivity:

@careercolin

Colin Rocker on Instagram: "I’m not afraid to admit that every …

My Mom used to get chalkboard erasers and shoe polish thrown at her on the school bus

She was one of the first students bused to an integrated school in Atlanta, and she would tell me this and other stories about what she experienced in the South during the Civil Rights era.

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I’m very aware that I would not have the life I have without sacrifies of those who came before me. And I hope you take a moment today to appreciate that as well.

If you’re open to a suggestion on how best to celebrate Dr. King today, I always enjoy reading his words, like this talk he did with a group of students on deciding what to do with their lives: What is your life’s blueprint?

There are many parts of this talk that I love, but one of the most memorable is the focus on remembering your “dignity, your worth and your own somebodiness”.

Believing you are deserving of a beautiful life is the first step to achieving it.

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