Bram Esposito

Tag: theme system

  • An update on my writing ambitions

    It’s been a long time since I last posted to this blog. 

    Although I often thought about posting, I have not come around to it. And that got me thinking about what stops me from posting. 

    These are a few topics that came up:

    1. Stage freight
      I’m very aware of the fact that I’m publishing my thoughts. 20 years ago I was less hesitant to post. Times have changed, and in the era of social media it became clear that sharing things online is not without consequences. 
      I often wonder: who’s waiting for this photo, this remark, this post. Isn’t my writing pretentious, am I being well-informed. How is my language, how do I express myself. 
    2. Time
      A lot has happened in the last months. A lot that could serve as inspiration for writing actually. I’ve read a lot of good things, had good conversations. And while I’d love to share more of what keeps me busy, at most times I don’t feel the energy to keep myself focused on writing. I would write a quick draft, think ambitious thoughts and then never return to it. Or while writing, start to feel kind of bored and want to stand up and walk away from it. It’s some kind of performance anxiety or fear of the unknown. Will I finally be able to break through and publish something?
    3. Intention
      And while we’re on the topic of time: while my inner dialogue is writing page-long pieces during the day, in the evening I’m way too often doomscrolling Reddit or Mastodon. Not a single synaps is launching the suggestion to start to write. 
      After forcing myself to observe this behaviour,  I realise I’m often led by impulse instead of intention.  
      It’s motivating that just having the intention to write can already lead to these insights. 
    4. I am a project starter
      Not a project finisher. Apparently. 
      It’s with a reluctance that I admit it. But I have to be honest with myself. And knowing this, I might actually be able to focus on finishing things instead of jumping on the new interesting adventure.  

    This post has gotten quite personal. And that’s exactly why I wanted to write in 2025. To bring clarity in cloudy thoughts. Observe things and give direction.

    If I succeed once this year, I’ll consider it a success 😉. 

  • a new theme for 2025: the year of writing

    I’m sitting down to reflect and wrap up my thoughts about the year that has passed and the year that comes up.

    Theme system

    In the last years, I have started to adopt the theme system that CGP Grey and Mike Hurley came up with. It’s a system that focuses on your intentions and motivations rather than hard goals like new year resolutions. They discuss it frequently on their Cortex podcast.

    2024: the year of balance

    Last yearI focused on finding balance in both my personal life as professionally. The work-life balance is maybe most famous and impactful, and that was no different for me in 2024. I had a startup becoming a scale-up on the one side, and a lovely family with kids reaching puberty on the other hand. Finding time for friendship on top of that has always been a challenge for me.

    While work is often about hard results, I’m happy to be able to look back and see how I was able to connect with the people I work with as well. I’m very grateful to be surrounded by people that value that maybe even more than I do. I sure hope this is something I can keep for the future.

    Although I often felt too tired, friends kept coming back and we had lots of fun, concerts, camping, travelling, running together, it was wonderful. I’m planning to show up more and in better shape. I owe you.

    A new start in 2025

    Since 2024 gave me a lot of balls to juggle, I plan to bring some direction to my activities now. And I believe the best way to do that is by starting to write my thoughts down on a regular basis. Just like starting to run regularly has brought me more than I could have imagined, I expect that writing will do the same.

    First of all I, hope to get better at it. Finding the right words, ironing out complex sentence structures and cloudy thoughts. I’m sorry I subjecting you to the current quality of my writing, and I plan to get better at it. I’m looking at chatgpt1 and native speaking friends to help me learn here.

    I believe writing also helps to sort out your thoughts. And I hope sorted thoughts will make it easier for me to reach results and find focus in the things I’m getting into.

    So I plan to practice writing in 2025. I’m curious where it will lead me.

    1. this post is written without using AI ↩︎