Tag Archives: 2012

Goals 2012 — Progress in March…

The PolyBlog
April 5 2012

I’m still tracking progress on each goal by month, trying out the new tracking mechanism for the year. And it is helping me visualize my goals better this year…only time will tell if it improves performance though. March should have been a good month for me, as work quieted down a bit and my goals were firmly established, and I did make progress — active on more items in total, upped my “green” rating overall. Mostly though, I’m happy about initial progress on a HUGE “soul” element…see why below!

Progress on Mind: My planning guide is done, printed, and I’ve got my trackers up and running, definitely “green” and I expect it will hover around green for the year (might dip to yellow occasionally). We did get most of our powder room done, although that is more a gift from Andrea’s parents than my own effort. A few things left to do to tick the box. I had hoped to have the ETFs done by now, along with taxes, and more done on sorting books, but didn’t do much on those this month.

Goals_2012_03a_Mind

Progress on Heart: I continued my support to Andrea on her M.Ed., although that is mostly just making sure she has her night free for her class. I should be doing more somehow, but not sure what that is yet…we usually divide up our chores, and there are certain jobs that are “blue” jobs, like shoveling snow and cutting grass, and some that are “pink” jobs like washing dishes, because I hate washing … and then others that are up for grabs, like laundry. And while I have been trying to do the dishes a bit more (since Andrea has been doing more laundry, a blu-ish job), I don’t think “dishes” counts as career support. I helped out a bit more at the start of the month on Jacob’s nighttime routine, but not so much near the end of the month when a cold and some blood pressure spikes just wiped me out. Equally, I fell off the wagon near the end of the month for making my lunch rather than buying it every day. And I’m annoyed that I haven’t finished the Pontiac website yet. No progress yet on a Remembrance Day party, but then again, it’s MARCH! hehehe I did kick in some cash for one of my universities as a charitable donation, and successfully earmarked it for a specific program to support.

Goals_2012_03b_Heart

Progress on Soul: My big “success” this month was on a specific goal. I’ve got a mixed history for spiritualism and religion, and to be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I believe anymore. Or, from another perspective, my beliefs are not entirely coherent. So I came up with a unique idea — defining my core beliefs by coming up with 12 questions and asking myself them throughout the year. I’ve started work on coming up with the 12 questions first, which in and of itself is no easy matter. And while this might take awhile, I’ve also enlisted the aid of an expert — my friend Hope is a Catholic military chaplain, and I’m going to grill her like a fish about better questions. Heck, she’s got professional training in this, I might as well bribe her with food and cut my learning curve. As I said when I asked her, I’m not looking for her to give me answers, just help me come up with some better questions. I’m pretty happy with my approach so far, and I’ve got the first few questions starting to shape up pretty well. Look for more blogs on this when I go to answer them. I’ve even recruited friends on FB to help me come up with better questions.

Separate from that, I’ve done a little more work on my business model for writing, and organized myself a bit better for my HR guide (including for the actual cover), but not much tangible to show for it yet. Most of the rest are “reds” as I haven’t done anything on them yet, but I also gave myself a “red” for having a regular “new recipe” cooking night as Andrea and I have defaulted a LOT in recent weeks to not planning our dinners, just mostly doing responsive “day of” cooking that is really unexciting. Need to get back into a better groove for that, as well as ensuring the “new recipe” nights.

Goals_2012_03c_Soul

Progress on Body: As with January and February, most of March was a washout. And I had a bad experience with my blood pressure spiking near the end of the month — cold and flu remedies can elevate blood pressure, but Tylenol-based ones tend to cause less impact. So, I bopped along taking my Tylenol Cold/Flu stuff for three days and started to feel better, only to have my blood pressure spike and give me really really bad headaches at night. Not fun, and a little scary until I realized what was causing it. In the end, not super problematic, easy to adjust (stop taking the damn cold pills!), but the rest of the first quarter is a wash. Definitely need to be more active, and happy that the warmer weather is starting to appear.

Goals_2012_03d_Body

Overall Results

  • January: 32 inactive; 0 RED; 0 YELLOW; 2 GREEN = 5.8% for month, 5.8% for year
  • February: 25 inactive; 0 RED; 6 YELLOW; 3 GREEN = 8.8% for month, 8.8% for year
  • March: 17 inactive; 7 RED; 6 YELLOW; 4 GREEN = 11.8% for month, 8.8 % for year
  • April:
  • May:
  • June:
  • July:
  • August:
  • September:
  • October:
  • November:
  • December:

Onward!

Goals 2012 — Progress on my goals…

The PolyBlog
March 9 2012

I’m not normally quite so anal-retentive in that I want to measure “progress” in this way, but I thought it might help me visualize it better this year…Not a lot of progress for January and February, but not surprising since I just formally established the new goals.

Progress on Mind: Didn’t accomplish much in January other than another presentation on my HR guide, this time tailored to the post-Strategic Review world, which went well. For February, I updated my planning guide, did some financial work on ETFs and RRSPs, and sorted my books in the basement in at least a rudimentary fashion.

Goals_2012_02a_Mind

Progress on Heart: I had a really slow start on the HEART items…For January, about the only progress I made was continued support to Andrea on her M.Ed. For February, that continued, and I did a little bit more on trying to take my lunch and/or eat a little healthier, plus registered the website for AstroPontiac.

Goals_2012_02b_Heart

Progress on Soul: January was pretty much a complete washout, and for February, the only thing I moved forward on was a little bit of research for a dinosaur book for Jacob.

Goals_2012_02c_Soul

Progress on Body: Like with SOUL, January was a washout. For February, I followed up on some health stuff (a head MRI to explain some headache and odd symptoms going on) and adjusted my sleep times a bit better. Not great progress overall though.

Goals_2012_02d_Body

Overall Results

  • January: 32 inactive; 0 RED; 0 YELLOW; 2 GREEN = 5.8%
  • February: 25 inactive; 0 RED; 6 YELLOW; 3 GREEN = 8.8%
  • March:
  • April:
  • May:
  • June:
  • July:
  • August:
  • September:
  • October:
  • November:
  • December:

Onward!

Goals 2012 — My plans for the year…

The PolyBlog
February 24 2012

As I gear up for this year, one of the things I wanted to think about differently than last year was the way in which the colours interact with my overall goals. I thought last year about “blue” vs. “red” vs. “yellow” vs. “green”, but all I really did was use those colours to group a lot of sub-categories. Ultimately, although I was telling myself I had “four” categories, in truth, my list wasn’t a lot different from four years ago when I had 12 categories, three years ago when I still had 10, or two years ago when I got it down to 8. All I was really doing was grouping them. And a lot of the time, the sub-categories were a bit of a force fit because the overall categories weren’t really “speaking” to me.

About six weeks ago, I was reading some articles about personal branding that were dealing with the “storylines, themes” you share about yourself with others, such as how you present yourself in interviews or business or online to ensure a consistent, coherent message. And about the second or third article in, a light bulb came on — because what I really needed to be thinking about were the storylines and themes that I was using to market me to myself. What an interesting concept — if you were presenting yourself to yourself, what would you say? If you were recruiting someone to live your life for you, would you hire you?

It particularly resonated with me, building on an article I had read last year that talked about transformation through goal-setting, mind-mapping, etc. The article was rather ho-hum, except for a small concept buried deep within it. It asked you to think about goal-setting from a different perspective than the one most people use. Usually, when people are thinking about goals and improvements, they take this radical perspective that suggests if they just do X or Y, their life will suddenly get “back on track”. It’s a popular concept, the basis in fact for most diet programs where it tends to work to motivate people if their problem is willpower. But in other areas of their life, what if your life isn’t actually off-track? What if you are already the you that you should be? Maybe not necessarily the you that you want to be, but the you that you should be, the you that you were somehow destined to become? Taken from that perspective, goal-setting starts to be less about radical transformation and more about self-acceptance, less about jettisoning everything and more about polishing some of the edges. Taking into account of course that sometimes polishing only on one side will eventually wear that side down quite a bit…self-acceptance doesn’t mean you’re not aggressive in some areas, but it does help to stop you from feeling like you’re not making progress, losing motivation, or throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater.

In my case, I have been aggressively setting goals and making progress towards them for the last 12 years. Not always huge progress, not always linear progression, not always even in the directions I thought I would go. To become the me that I am now…and, when push comes to shove, I have to admit that my life is pretty dang good. My mind still functions, I’m gainfully employed, I have family and friends that I care about, I am generally connected to my inner spirit, and even if my body isn’t running marathons, it isn’t racked with debilitating illness either. My past efforts and progress, not to mention a dose of pretty good luck, have all combined to make me the me that I am. Sure, I’m going to try and polish some stuff. But I’m not going for radical change or even innovation necessarily.

goals_2012

However, I do need to tell my story to myself differently. And this year, I’m going to try and really use the four colours along with internal proxies.

My Goals for 2012

I’ve managed to limit the number of priorities for my MIND category (blue) to just ten items for this coming year:

  1. Revise planning guide, including themes, bucket list, goals layout
  2. Setup backyard (deck, play area)
  3. Organize office closet
  4. Redo powder room
  5. Redo kitchen island
  6. Exchange traded funds
  7. Review insurance
  8. French profile update
  9. Book collection — paper and e-books
  10. New areas for website (MRs, Photos, Trivia)

The “storyline” here is about being organized (planning guide, website, books, some finances) and getting our house set up. In addition, I’ll finalize my reading list (bucket list #67) and continue towards my career goal of presenting on HR to more than a 1000 people (bucket list #77). And, just by way of validation, these are elements that maintain momentum on my successes of last year (a new house, financial planning, finished my website, started reading on my Kindle, and updated this planning guide for the colour wheel).

For the HEART category (green), I can hold myself to just six priorities:

  1. Career support: M.Ed.
  2. Lunchtime outings with Andrea
  3. Jacob’s nighttime routine
  4. Astro Pontiac initiative
  5. House party — Remembrance Day? Corn roast?
  6. Question about charitable giving

The storyline here is about a better connection to Jacob and Andrea, increasing my involvement with friends (emerging from hermit stage), and answering a long-standing question of mine about what’s the best form for charitable giving within a community. While I probably won’t make any more progress on bucket list items for this category, I am building on regular success in the last year as I learned to be a better father, supported Andrea on her educational efforts, and began early involvement in Stephan’s astro-park idea.

For the SOUL category (yellow), I have ten priorities:

  1. Complete my HR guide (from my bucket list)
  2. Outline my business model for self-publishing
  3. Develop 12 big questions that define my spirituality
  4. Expand book reviews
  5. Reboot movie reviews
  6. Read some of the books on the Top 600 list (also on my bucket list)
  7. Read some of my to be read pile from my bedside table
  8. Restart the monthly cooking night
  9. Create a dinosaur book for Jacob

The storyline here is about expressing myself through writing and cooking, reading the creative endeavours of others, and figuring out the true nature of the universe (or at least what I believe in). I am building on some success from the last year, namely some of my work on the HR guide, researching the self-publishing industry, blogging, uploading my past book reviews, and answering the first two questions of my “12 big questions guide to the universe”.

For the BODY category (red), I have six priorities:

  1. Follow-up on some outstanding health issues with doctor
  2. Do something about my weight
  3. Increase exercising @ home, golfing, walking, bicycles, basketball hoop, swimming
  4. Adjust sleeping times to go to bed earlier
  5. Find a new dentist
  6. Give blood (also from bucket list)

If there’s time, I’d also like to explore meditation (from my bucket list), but probably not a huge priority. The storyline here is about overall health and getting more fit. Not a lot of success from the past year, although I did get set up with a new doctor, grabbed new glasses, and got my blood pressure under control.

Onward to 2012!