Thursday, December 29, 2011

Passages - from one year to the next


2011 revisited
The year started with a lot of promise. New job and new outlook were going to change things up a lot. I don't think it got quite there. I got tangled a few times, lost in labyrinths of work and stress and questioning myself. Other stessors arose like monsters from the bogs, intent on tripping me up, dragging me down, and getting me lost forever in dark, dank, and smelly places.

How did I do on my three words? Not horrible, but there's definitely opportunity for improvement.

- Creativity- Apparently I was going to work on monthly themes. While I did more this past year than I have prior (including 30Days of Creativity on Pinterest, several cool projects, learning new things online and off), I did get stuck on some (Mom's tray took tooooo long) and creativity fell to the wayside when work got nuts.

- Confidence - Again, a strong start, but a weak finish. We'll leave it at that for now.

- Energy - While changes didn't impact stress levels as much as I thought they would, I think energy has improved. Especially since I've been playing SuperBetter and working on the Core workout.

Looking forward to 2012
2011 was rough. Besides the other stressors, it was a year marked by loss. There were some very great moments - Sonny & Pam's wedding and the trip to Paris were standouts. Sometimes those get lost in the shuffle, so it's good to call them out here.

So, what am I thinking for next year?

Following @fitarella's lead, I MAY come up with monthly challenges, but I'm wary about swearing that now - going to think on it over the weekend. I want to keep my 3 words top-of-mind and active, but don't want to feel like all I'm doing is making my list longer when I was time stressed already, so I have to figure that out.
I did like Chris Brogan's idea of a 3 item list each day with one item per theme.
By the turn of the year, I hope to have a better plan of attack.

Here are the 3 words that I've set as themes for Aprille for 2012:

- Initiative - I have sooooo many ideas in my head, on paper, fluttering around in various places. I need to organize and act. Hopefully you will see a big impact from that on this blog, in particular.

- Conversations - I went from a job where part of the definition was to constantly watch the social space for trends and ideas, where I prided myself on being the shy chic who was able to emerge from her corner in the online space and chat with cool people all over. From there to a job where I have yet to fully integrate trend watching into my time and conversation opportunities are minimal to none. This drastic difference in time spent in the social space has really limited my conversations. I've also been horrible about email (that's not necessarily new). 2012 will reverse the trend. I'll make time for convos. They're important to the story.

- Discipline - I need to stick to everything more. Workouts, chores, themes, projects, etc. A big part of this will be planning and focusing on keeping this stuff going. Using tactics I'm learning in SuperBetter to motivate myself properly to not get distracted. Distract-i-girl should not keep me from accomplishing what I hope to in 2012.

I think these three themes are what I need in order to do what I want with exploring, discovering, creating, story, and all the rest. They should keep the year interesting!

What are you thinking for 2012? Do you have 3 themes?