Half way there. This is my year, for sure.

This year I'll try to only listen to myself. (Start this going as your blog-reading soundtrack, ok? Ok, good talk.)




So suddenly it's July, and 2013 which has only recently become habit is halfway over (you know, writing down '13 on things instead of '12). I started this year off with some sort of ambitious game plan to be a bit more purposeful in my moments. I put together a list which turned in to a spreadsheet of goals or resolutions, and I was inputting updates to that chart for the first three months of the year. I took April off from a lot of things that were becoming time sucks for me, and I guess one casualty was updating this blog, as well as updating that list/chart. It's still there. I did take a look the other week and update where I'd gotten with some things. The real goal wasn't to do everything 100% of the time, but to do pieces when they made sense and not get let down by breaking a streak and then knowing I'd never be at 100%. I have formed some habits, and made some real progress in some places. Some things are laughable. You can do anything but you can't do everything. I certainly can't do everything.

Back in Orientation Assistant training (2004? 2005?), we had one big session that was focused on our strengths, the thinking being that if everyone played up what they were awesome at, we wouldn't need to worry about where we might fall short and how to make up for that. I'm usually intrigued and amused by any sort of personality test, and this one seemed somewhat more legit than most, or at least appeared that way. It spit back my five main strengths, which I'd agree make sense for me for sure (perhaps some change in almost ten years?).

My five themes were as follows: Includer, Strategic, Input, Woo (Winning Others Over), & Connectedness. I've got the write-ups & descriptions of these all handy if anyone wants to read further. The perhaps more interesting part of this training, however, was when we discussed these themes, about ourselves and the interplay of these themes. How, me with a big Strategic badge could approach a situation incredibly different than one of the others in the room, though we both were championing strategy. It was eye opening in little ways, I found myself getting thoroughly upset (about how others would approach situations I guess?), and then realizing that that's what this was about, really digging in and feeling out the different approaches and seeing that there's no one best way.

Back to goals. Some have gone well. Like these.

• cook 3+ dinners/week [Well, maybe not three every week but certainly not going out three nights per week for dinner. Sometimes it's cooking and remixing, or just lots of planning.]
• run semi-regularly [been going 4x per week since February, that totally counts]
• run a 5k [I've ran 2! April 28 at 31:23 & June 8 at 28:54. Longer races coming up soon soon too. I'm hooked.]
• lose about 15 more pounds [I'm at about 10 less than January now, works for me]
• KEEP OFF the above 15 lbs and the 20 lbs lost in 2012. [Doin' it.]
• stay more hydrated [Totally have been. Strategy!]
• Gauge my ears bigger (0?) [I'm at a 4 now, I might just stick here but it's a step up from the 6!]
• Open a ‘hidden’ emergency account that I really do not touch [Yup, did it.]
• explore! try new stores, new routes, etc. [All over the place. Less ruts, more explore.]
• install CS6 (what have I been waiting for? :I ) [Did it. Love it.]
• learn more about letters (general) [This has been more practicing and observing rather than traditional study, but I think it counts since I've been thinking about letters a lot]
• organize my twitter in to lists to be more useful (friends/design/ROC/etc.) [Yeah I made some lists! Those of you who I bother most often are probably on one of them. Still in progress sorting further though]
• be more social (at least 1 purely social encounter per week, whether over beer/coffee, or phone/skype/hangouts) [Maybe not every week, but I've had some great ones lately]
• Visit Nashville - and sister&bro-in-law&pups [Did it!]
• Cleveland visit [Did it very slightly on the way back from Nashville, so that counts a bit. Planning to be back for WMC fest in August]
• paint my dining room [Done in February, much thanks to my folks for coming up for a couple days to help get that done!]
• SAVE things less -- use as soon as makes sense to, and replenish when needed [Yes, totally. Been especially better at working through my cabinets eating weird things that I bought once, or just kind of making dinner happen out of whatever is there]

And then there's all those others that maybe I'm doing ok with, or maybe I'm not doing anything at all with. It's ok. I've got the above to show for the first half of 2013, and I can't wait to see what's next. Focusing on the strengths, you know?








I feel like I used a lot of qualifying language in this post. Yup.