Day 100! Already! Here we are, 100 days into this calendar year of your life, and if you’re anything like me you look like you were just slapped in the face. “Already?” you ask with incredulity. It feels like it was just last week that you were falling asleep at 9:45 pm on New Year’s Eve. Where did 100 days go?

Father Time: he’s a ruthless asshole, isn’t he? He stops for no one—no man, woman, or child. He won’t even stop for animals (which makes him even more of a butthole, and I dare you to disagree).

Nope, time is trucking on and if you are alive, you are getting swept up in the current of it. We won’t be discussing “where time goes,” because that’s too esoteric (and also who cares). Let’s just talk about what you’re doing with your ticking time bomb of a year—and by extension of that rankling notion—what you are doing with the entirety of your upside-down-hourglass-of-a-life. I’m so glad you’re here!

We make sense of time in predictable ways we can use to our advantage:

We like fresh starts; it’s not a coincidence that we commit to becoming way better versions of ourselves on Jan 1^st/ Mondays/ first day of a new month/ Day 1 of rehab. How long it takes you to fall off whatever wagon you’ve hopped onto is another story … but the good news is that if/ when you screw up and start eating fries/ smoking crack again, you can always press the reset button on a brandspankingly fresh Monday morning. How might you leverage a fresh start on your horizon?
We also find endings motivating; it’s because of the “fast finish effect” that we get our act together when a grand finale is in sight. You’re likelier to stuff more into your vacation when you only have three days and two nights left in Venice, for example. Hello, gondola ride! How might you benefit from a near-term finish line on your horizon?
Thanks to the Gregorian calendar, we also like blocks of time; discrete windows of time make sense to our brains. A week or a month or a quarter is a good amount of time to set (and sometimes even achieve!) goals. That’s why this whole “100-days into 2024” business feels more substantial than if I’d proclaimed it was 85 days in. Who cares about March 25th? (WHOA: that’s actually a terrible example because I just checked and it’s National Eat a Waffle Day. Sacred.)

So how has your 2024 been going so far?

The dust of your 1/1/24 resolutions has likely settled (and maybe blown away) by now. Maybe you’ve had some wins? Likely a few losses? (I’ve written before, here, about how to salvage a year that appears to be going down the toilet; if your year has been ostensibly shitty so far, I’ll wait for you if you want to take a peek now.)

If your first 100 days have been fabulous, woo hoo, you! Keep doing more of what’s been feeling so great (unless you’re back on the crack, and if so, the rehab people will be happy to have you back).

If your first 100 days have been lackluster/ short of expectations/ an unmitigated disaster so far, let’s not dwell. As a meditation expert I used to visit once said, “if you fall off the wagon, it’s right there waiting for you where you left it.”

These next 100 days are waiting for you.

What would make you feel great to accomplish in the next 100 days? Said differently if this way happens to do it for you: what would make you feel lousy if you didn’t accomplish it?
What would make you feel proud in the next 100 days?
What would make you feel undeniably alive in the next 100 days?
What would make these next 100 days of your life feel special?

I’ve been badgering you for years now to count your Mondays, and I shall continue to be the Mortality Badgerer (I’ve been called worse). How might you answer those four bullet point questions above about your life … with your remaining Mondays?

Speaking of countdowns! GUYS! My book is coming out in exactly one month (otherwise known as FOUR MONDAYS from now), and it’s all I can think/ talk/ dream about. I have been gleefully/ obsessively counting down the Mondays (and also the exact number of days; I won’t switch to the hour countdown until the last week—that sounds normal, right?) for many many months. It’s called You Only Die Once: How to Make It to the End with No Regrets, and I’m hopeful you’ll think it’s worth spending a few hours out of your life to read (or to listen to the audiobook). You can preorder it here if you’d like. I appreciate you!