Tag Archives: 2011

Goals 2011 — Body and Soul

The PolyBlog
March 1 2011

This category is mainly about me connecting with myself, my inner and outer self…it combines old categories of body and soul, spiritualism, personal ethics, service to community, health, and (gasp!) fitness. Man, this category sucks. 🙂

In the past, it has mainly been about avoiding catastrophes physically. I go for regular massages, usually when my shoulders or IT bands are screaming at me; I try to take my Prevacid every day to control stomach issues, although a new type of yogourt was keeping me near regular levels even without the Prevacid; I update my eyeglasses, go to the dentist, etc. On the exercise front, though, I’m basically a couch potato these days when I’m not playing with Jacob. My golfing has taken a backseat to just about everything else, and while Andrea and I manage a few active outings here and there, it isn’t consistent. I did manage a slightly more active trip to Hawaii, with kayaking, hiking, swimming, more hiking, etc. On the service side, I have been more focused on the indirect side of things — less about me being active, more about me continuing my charitable giving. I’ve helped with United Way campaigns, etc., but not to a “leadership” level.

On the ethics front, I created my “personal rules” list, but I’m not sure I’m really living them or embodying them. On the spiritual front, there hasn’t been much in my life of late. Leading up to the wedding in 2008, I was a bit nervous about my spiritual beliefs. Having seen or heard of disasters for people with other church services, I felt like a bit of a hypocrite considering a formal “religious” wedding in a church. In fact, I was fully intending to grill any potential minister like a fish to make sure I agreed with their philosophy of faith. Yet, when I met Andrea’s former Minister, Wib, my concerns fell away. I didn’t feel the need to grill him, it was enough that I got to know him as a person and that Andrea knew and trusted him, and liked him. I trust her judgement, I didn’t need to “verify” our choice.

For the coming year, I have a couple of personal ethics goals, small issues that I want to work on…essentially, making more of an effort in a couple of areas of my life where I tend to be harsh. On the health front, I need a new doctor, new dentist, and orthotics. For fitness, I need to start back into some of the martial arts routines and riding the exercise bike. I really want to get us organized this summer for going for bicycle rides around our house too. And I’m determined to go golfing at least three times this year.

On a community front, I don’t feel like I have much free time to get very involved in much this year. I’m involved in a few online communities, mainly as I can timeshift my participation. But I’m intrigued by a proposal that my friend Stephan has developed regarding astronomy! Hope to be able to share more on that in the future…

I do have to come to a decision about my method of charitable giving. I tend to do most of it by giving through the United Way campaign at work, but I’m increasingly disturbed by the administration costs that the local U/W is charging. Since most of my giving is earmarked, rather than a simple contribution to U/W itself, I’m not sure it’s worthwhile to continue to contribute through this means. For example, I could give $$ directly to CHEO (Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario) as a lump sum rather than as part of biweekly paycheque contributions to the U/W. There are pluses and minuses to both approaches, but I need to figure it out rather than continuing to just drift along. This has been on my list for sometime, and I intend to decide by September’s launch of the new campaign at work.

As I noted above, I haven’t been very active on the spiritual front. Andrea and I have been to church a few times but I feel disconnected, an observer rather than a participant. It seems odd to me that, separate from the wedding, I was most affected spiritually by two books. The first is Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup. It wasn’t that the writing was amazing, or even that the structure was emotionally moving. Instead, it was more that the issues being dealt with were compelling, and honestly / openly portrayed. Equally, I really liked The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. The book is, umm, odd. Some parts of it are really confusing. And everyone who reads it comes away with a slightly different impression of what was happening. For me, I read it on my honeymoon, and there is a strong sense in the story of things coming together when you are perfectly still — as you achieve total stillness, oneness with your self, the universe begins to open up to you. The book isn’t directly metaphysical, and the main plot makes for a strange story, but that was my main reaction to the story — the challenge of becoming perfectly still, letting the world slip away. So, while I try to figure out my own spiritualism, I think I’m going to reclaim my interest in meditation this year and try to read some interesting tomes rather than following forms of more organized religion.

My bucket list for this category is, oddly enough, huge — I have 38 items on my bucket list that I’m listing under this heading! In there, I have a mix of fitness items, spiritual work, other items that aren’t quite fitness but are generally more “active” in nature, etc. From the long list, I think the ones that I’m likely to work on this year are related to my weight; meditation; martial arts; and giving blood.

Goals 2011 — Relationships

The PolyBlog
February 22 2011

This category of goal-setting is both the most important and the most difficult. Relationships are inherently not “goal-oriented”, they’re organic, they’re situational, they’re chaotic on a good day. You don’t sit down and plan what your most intimate relationships are going to look like or how they are going to progress. Nor are you going to measure progress against some arbitrary yardstick. Not the least because it isn’t all about “me”…

On the eight-dimensional wheel, Relationships is green energy for me. It probably is for most people, I suppose, although I could see people treating some relationships as “yellow” for their inherently social nature. Picking up on earlier planning that I have done, I’m consolidating a few other headings under relationships — relationships (of course), plus family (including extended family) and personal balance.

Relationships in this larger form are probably the category that I have devoted the most time to in recent years. I got married in 2008, we had a baby in 2009, and the roller coaster has continued for 2010. These are new roles for me, and I can’t say that I’ve taken to them like a duck to water. I find it extremely hard to balance my different roles — father, husband, worker, individual.

As a father, I need to learn to be more patient than I am naturally and to not get stressed about Jacob’s ongoing health concerns. Only 2% of Jacob is defined by his health issues; 98% of Jacob is just a charming little boy. But with all the time it takes for appointments, preparations, adjustments, etc., it’s hard not to see that 2% as a larger component than it is. But in the end, Jacob is Jacob, not a series of “symptoms” to be treated. Yet I am not pulling my weight, so to speak, in looking after him. Andrea still does more than her share usually, although I’m improving somewhat as he gets more interactive. I need to work on that more, particularly as Andrea needs more free time to work on school work.

This is not only the newest role for me but also the one that is the most meaningful to me since he is so dependent upon us. When I was single, if you asked me if I wanted kids, I would have said, “perhaps, if I’m with the right person and they want them too, but it’s not a dealbreaker for me.” But that wasn’t entirely accurate — I said it that way because as a single male, I knew I wasn’t going to have them on my own (physically and emotionally), and I knew I would struggle if I became a single parent. So to admit that I wanted kids would have been to admit that I needed to find someone and get married. But I didn’t want to admit that to my own psyche when I was single, so for years I just said “perhaps”. Yet before I met Andrea, I realized that I really did want kids. It wasn’t a dealbreaker for me, but it was a strong desire. And now we have Jacob in our lives, a really cool little person who we are getting to know as he figures out who he is.

As a husband, I worry that 90% of all conversations with my wife tend to be about Jacob. In the early days, it was all about the process — who was feeding him when, who was doing diapers, etc. Now, we have lots of questions about the future, such as financial planning, medical appointments, tests, holiday planning. But they are still a lot of the time about Jacob. We rarely get time to just talk, even about silly things. So, “progress” in this area will require a more concerted effort to give us that time to ourselves, even if it means paying a lot more money to babysitters in the short-term to free up some time.

As a worker, things have been challenging for the last year. With so many appointments for Jacob, plus the added workloads of two large projects for a while, it felt like I was drowning sometimes, barely keeping up with the work. With one project wound down already, and another coming to a close, plus a new staff member on-board, the level of work is returning to much more manageable levels. Andrea and I have also found ways to balance out some of the extra-curricular demands a bit too, forcing ourselves to accept that we can’t both go to every appointment.

As an individual, I’m not sure what to say. This area seems most days to be non-existent. Once I am through with the first three roles, there doesn’t seem to be much energy or time left to be “just me”. Certainly very little “productive” time…Jacob usually crashes about 8:00 at night, which gives me a few hours before bedtime myself, but often I am too dead to do much more than veg out. But I need to be more disciplined in this area, because it is also a source of energy to balance out some of the other areas. I know I need to do it, just hard to motivate myself. Oddly enough, finishing my website and writing my goals has in and of themselves helped to motivate me somewhat.

I am not without some past success in this category, even if I see lots of ways to improve. I stayed pretty involved for the pregnancy, or at least as much as a father gets to do, I guess. I helped ensure Andrea was able to take off 15 months for her parental leave, and she’s started back to school this term. We managed to take a trip together (all three of us!) to Vancouver and Jacob proved to be a good little traveller. Oh, and to start it all off, we got married, had a honeymoon, etc. Plus, on the broader family side, I did some outreach with my mom and some of my nieces and nephews. And generally became less of a squirrel worrying about relationships. But where to go from here?

As I said, I want to work more on the balance between being a father, husband, worker and individual. This includes supporting Andrea as much as possible as she completes her Masters over the next few years. We also need to decide if we are going to have another child…I’m not getting any younger, as they say, but I’m nervous about the extra stress and workload when I already struggle with just one underfoot. There’s no question the benefits outweigh everything else, but I’m also conscious of ensuring good mental health for me. I want to ensure too that I find time for Andrea to go to movies or out for dinner more often. Hopefully with ME, but she needs fun time for just her too. And, on the “other” family front, there’s a rumour that I have a brother that lives here in town, but I almost never see him. Something should be done about that.

It’s kind of funny that there is very little to put on a “bucket list” in this category, going back to what I said about the category not being “goal-oriented”, yet I have three things that are already completed (getting married for love, having a child, and romance on a beach), leaving just learning more about genealogy.

So, hello 2011, bring it on!

Goals 2011 — Learning

The PolyBlog
February 21 2011

My eight-dimensional “wheel” had Intellect broken into two segments — one for organization and one for learning. I’ve already covered “organization”, so time to turn my attention to the “learning” component.

I’m a little bit shocked in looking at my “learning” category. If you had asked me in abstract the size of the category, I would have estimated it quite large. I’m a big believer in lifelong learning, and even at work, I push my staff to have fairly detailed learning plans as part of my HR management function. But a lot of my past learning is a subset of other categories — such as film literacy for the movie component of social. Means to other ends. So the “pure” learning component seems somewhat quiet in comparison. In past years, my highlights would have been:

  • Attendance at HR conferences (partly for “work” and partly for my ongoing interest in HR processes);
  • Computer techniques and approaches (such as for various CMS platforms, WordPress in particular) as a means to finishing my website;
  • Use of a telescope with Stephan as well as going to Museum of S&T to look through their telescopes;
  • Film literacy courses to improve my movie reviews; and,
  • The grand-daddy of all learning activities, the completion of my MA in Public Policy.

But what do I have on my agenda for the future? Not much, honestly. At least not in a pure “learning” lens. I want to take some further online courses and personal interest courses, maybe even explore some detailed podcast options, but they are likely to be more related to learning to be a better writer and thus captured more under creativity than captured here.  I do need to decide if I want to pursue another grad degree, such as a MA in Legal Studies, but it would likely be part-time and not anytime soon.

Interestingly, though, I have four additions to my bucket list for learning, partly as they don’t fit anywhere else:

  • Use own telescope (and look through giant)
  • Learn photography
  • Learn to drive a standard transmission
  • Learn sign language

But what do I focus on in 2011? I have decided to list only two items to move forward on this year:

  • Personal courses, particularly online or podcasts; and,
  • Learning sign language.

On to the other categories!

Goals 2011 — Organization — Getting my life together

The PolyBlog
February 14 2011

On my eight-dimensional “wheel”, Intellect was broken into two segments — one for organization and one for learning. While “organization” may not be my highest priority within the wheel, it seemed like a good place to start. As part of my “org” segment, I included four elements from earlier lists:

  • Being organized — this includes things like maintaining my todo list, updating my goals annually, reviewing progress regularly etc. … in short, doing what I’m doing with this blog entry;
  • House — this used to be merged with the “family” segment under relationships, but it isn’t really about relationships, it is more about having things in decent maintenance mode within the home, whether it be the house itself or the yard, and that strikes me now as more about being organized than anything else;
  • Finances — Andrea and I have good jobs with decent incomes, but we haven’t been doing a whole lot in recent years in terms of planning, strategic budgeting, etc., but we’ve been wanting to do it for some time; and,
  • Computers — outside of the “creativity” mode, where I use my computer for a lot of things, there is an infrastructure in behind that really isn’t about creativity at all, it is just plain “getting my crap together” literally and figuratively.

Moving into planning for 2011 isn’t without some momentum from previous years:

  • Started my new tracking system in 2005, with improvements in 2007 and 2009;
  • Bought a house (2007);
  • Replaced roof (2009) and walkways (2010);
  • Installed clothesline for Andrea (2010);
  • Set up the baby’s room (2009);
  • Established RESP for Jacob (2010);
  • Consolidated shared finance options (2006-2010);
  • Made RRSP contributions (2005-2010);
  • Set up photos website (2006);
  • Bought a netbook for writing (2008); and,
  • Tested a server option with Linux (2008), some CMS options for the website (2007-2009).

Those aren’t the only accomplishments, but rather a glimpse of some highlights for the category. And, through prior planning exercises, I added five things in this category to my bucket list:

  1. Own a house — Purchased (2007);
  2. Finish my website — I’ve recently completed my web design, and although I have lots of features still planned to be added, it is essentially complete (2011);
  3. Make a garden — I don’t know why this one appeals to me exactly…I’m interested in the idea of growing something, growing food for our table. Oddly enough, I’ve never had the opportunity to actually do that before. Sure, I’ve picked stuff for the table, but not planted, watered, nurtured, nibbled. Even a planter with some veggies would suffice, doesn’t have to be huge.
  4. Design a house — This is not to be confused with building a house…I don’t want to build it, I just want to play with the parameters of designing one. I have some basic software that will do it, but heck, I’d be happy to do a real design even if the model is just made out of legos;
  5. Have a cottage — I can’t decide if this one should stay on the bucket list or not. With all the other things that Andrea and I put on our financial plan recently, the odds of owning a cottage are pretty slim. Growing up, my parents had a trailer out at Chemong Lake, and most of my family got to experience the enjoyment of it as kids, separation from it as young adults, and then the return to enjoy it with their families. But, for me, the lake was long gone before I got to “return” to it. No fishing in the aluminum boat, putting worms on harnesses and trolling for pickerel. No snowmobiling in the winter. No skiing up through the woods or on the lake. No shovelling the lake to make a rink. No swimming across the bay with rafts and dinghies. And it isn’t about the activities, not really. It is more that it was “our space”. A home away from home, somewhere to get away and relax. No telephone, no worries about what is happening in the city. No friends that you have to visit that weekend. And, now that I have a son, I realize that I really wanted to share that type of experience with him because it is a core part of my upbringing, a core part of who I am and why I regularly choose informal over formal. A little bit of “hick” in my “slick”, to paraphrase a friend. Something that keeps me from feeling like a complete nerd most of the time, tied to his computer. Without the cottage, I’ll have to work harder to create those times and experiences for Jacob, both the activities themselves and the natural feeling of the informal atmosphere. Because I really want him to have them.

But what do I focus on in 2011? It is unlikely that I’ll make a garden, design the house, or own a cottage this year. Fortunately, I have a LONG list of other items that I’m tracking in this category.

  1. First and foremost is organizing myself around the new eight-dimensional visual.
  2. On the “house” front, I really need to figure out a new office option for me. Awhile back, Andrea and I merged our offices in the house, and while it was good for conserving space, it isn’t really functional for me. I like being on the first floor, but I just plain need more space for my stuff around the computer. Which means I’m back to figuring out a revised office solution for the basement (new desk, organizing filing, sorting books, storing supplies, and weeding out some computer components). This also will hopefully lead nicely into a re-org of our storage areas, gearing up to shed some stuff from our lives by the fall (some to Peterborough, some for a garage sale).
  3. Some interior work needs to be done on the house if we decide to stay in it longer-term. For example, we hate our front hall closet. We’ll likely tweak it rather than replace it entirely, but make it more functional and accessible. We have had a longstanding “to do” item to have our ducts cleaned, and we’ll make that happen this year, plus deal with a humidifier attachment. Finally, our kitchen island is a bit less stable than we would like it, particularly as Jacob gets taller and more active. It would just be safer if it was fixed.
  4. We also have some exterior work to take care of this year. Some are simple like the assembly of a porch swing we got as a wedding gift (sigh, really, we want to use it) or setting up a basketball hoop that we bought on sale about the same time. Other items are a bit more complicated — probably resurfacing garage and driveway.
  5. On the financial front, things are starting to come together … no, we didn’t win the lottery, but we are seeing a financial planner and getting some of our financial shhhhhhhtufff together in a decent plan for retirement. It isn’t a straightjacket, but it isn’t as uncoordinated as what we have been doing. And we’ll feel a lot more confident once some other pieces fall into place in the next couple of months.
  6. Now that my design is basically complete, it is time to start populating the website — photos, book reviews, movie reviews and a couple of past writing samples are at the top of my list for 2011.

Let’s see how much gets done this year! After I set goals for the other seven categories…stay tuned!

Goals 2011 — Thinking in eight dimensions?

The PolyBlog
February 3 2011

For those who have had the “pleasure” of working with me anytime in the last 10 years, you know that I’m a bit, umm, obsessed with goal-setting, tracking to-do lists, etc. And I search the cosmos regularly for the Platonic ideal of the perfect paradigm for goal-setting for personal use. Sure, lots of tools exist for the working world, or for subsets of the personal world (finances, for example). But very few of them resonate with me. Because my weakness isn’t about what goals to set, or figuring out plans to get from A to B, or even sticking to the plans. My bigger problem is having too many goals, and having to balance them against each other with finite time available to move forward, leading to a potential to be either unfocused (everything at once) or too myopic (rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic).

About three years ago I started working on a new strategy for goal-setting using large categories to help keep the balance going and it worked — to a certain extent. But what I was missing from the approach was an easy way to remember them, a visual that would reinforce my plan in my mind, a logic that I could not only grasp analytically but also visualize.

So as I’m updating my planning guide, kind of half “2011 resolutions” and half “getting my crap together”,  I thought I would re-jig the categories and, at the same time, create the missing visual. Some of you have done the “colour” wheel of personality traits (based on Jungian psychology’s breakdown of major personality types), and there are a lot of different companies out there offering versions of it (similar to Meyers Briggs). I was introduced to it back in 2004/05, and it really resonated with me. So I wondered — could I merge the two into a “colour and goal-setting” wheel for me?

If you’ve seen it before, there are four main personality types that it works with — the “cool blue analyst”, the “fiery red leader”, the “sunshine yellow socializer”, or the “warm green harmonizer”. And while the primary colour is interesting, it is really only when you map all four together that you start to see useful information. So, for example, a blue analyst whose secondary colour is “red” (for leadership) is a very different personality from an analyst whose secondary colour is green.

Interestingly for me, I would normally have rated myself up until three years ago as Blue / Green / Red / Yellow; at work, though, I’m more Blue / Red / Green / Yellow or even B/R/Y/G. Over time, too, I think my personality at home and work has started to merge a bit more, probably leaving me with strong Blue and Reds, and weaker Greens and Yellows.

The goal though is basically to have all four colours about equal — balance.

(The danger of course is one colour overshadowing the rest — the blue analyst who is so obsessed with numbers and analysis that he can’t see people; the red leader who becomes the dictator and doesn’t listen to anyone else; the yellow social butterfly who flits from party to party, never accomplishing anything; or the overly-sensitive green harmonizer who cries while watching long-distance commercials.).

So, why am I posting anything about this? Because I’m interested in feedback.

For me, I’m still primarly an analytical blue — and I think that maps to a combination of lifelong learning and planning / organizational needs. Not sure “intellect” is the right word, but something “cerebral”, or even perhaps just “curiousity” for a different bent.

Red is the expansionary side for me, how I go beyond who I am today — a combination of leadership (on whatever front) plus career (a specific front, of sufficient import to be listed separately, I think). It also includes expanding my horizons through travel …I toyed with making the two headings simply leadership (including career) and travel, but I don’t think I travel enough for it to be a separate 1/8th of my planning. But overall it is about “role enlargement”…

Green to me is about connections, both through relationships (family and friends) and through connection with my self (spiritual, health, etc.).

Finally, yellow is more about “expression” — a shared expression through social activities, or a more personalized expression through creativity (writing, cooking maybe, etc.)

Here is the diagram…I welcome your thoughts!

goals_2011