Tag Archives: personal

Goals 2011 — Creativity

The PolyBlog
March 2 2011

Ah, the sweet smell of creativity. Personal expression … the interpretative dance of the soul! How do I express myself, the real me, the inner child bursting with yellow energy to get out of the blue shackles of an analytical mind? With words and food, of course! 🙂

Last weekend, Andrea and I went to a play by one of our favorite contemporary playwrights, Norm Foster. He usually focuses on the comedic interactions between men and women in their late 30s and early 40s as they deal with life, romance, and their changing expectations of the universe. However, the fun part is he often includes someone who is a writer, or an aspiring writer, or someone who aspires to being an aspiring writer. Like Foster’s characters, I don’t know what to call myself. Sure, I’ve written short-stories, op eds, even a play. But does that make me a writer? I’m not a published one, at least not yet. I will soon finish my HR guide for government competitions, but that is more like my day job than achieving my interest in writing entertaining fiction (ignoring the regular joke by writers in the NCR that they used to work for the government, so they have a lot of experience with fiction!).

The best and shortest definition I have seen of a writer is someone who writes. Pure and simple. Not someone who talks about writing, goes to conferences, reads novels about writing, etc. They write. Usually because they are compelled to do so, and it will gnaw at their soul if they don’t. But if it means a butt in a seat, slaving away, my writing of the last two years is sadly lacking in performance. I’ve done some work on the HR guide, and a few other things here and there (book or movie reviews, for example), but dang little time spent on fiction writing. I have done some work on outlines for some of my fiction ideas, but not much else. It was just too time-intensive. But, now that work is returning to some degree of normalcy for workload, I want to set myself a routine of writing at lunch for an hour or so, at least three times a week. In previous years, I’ve written more, taken online critiquing classes, subscribed to writing magazines to help improve my craft. I’m even a member of Capital Crime Writers. But I need to attend CCW meetings more, and I need to get my butt in a seat writing. Writers write, so I need to write. My goal is to have my HR guide for employees done by April 15th, my HR guide for managers done by June 30th, and a full annotated outline for my first novel by November 30th.

The non-cerebral side of things is all about food. One of my long-term goals is to have a cookbook of favorite recipes that I could share with family or friends, if they were interested. And, my goal is for them to be achievable recipes, not some Cordon Bleu recipe that starts with 3 hours shopping trips to find the perfect ingredient at a store in NYC. Practical recipes that once or twice a month helps us get out of the doldrums of regular meal preparations, and gives us a little extra oomph. Andrea and I took a couple of Asian cooking courses, and we love some of the recipes we got out of it. We also have a couple of others we’ve pulled here and there from friends, or just found in cookbooks (note to self, need to WEED the cookbooks down to a manageable number too, they’re out of control!). My goal for this year is to ensure that we continue to do special recipe nights, at least once or twice a month. It’s harder with us both working, and having to pick up Jacob from daycare, etc. But it’s worth it. And, to be honest, we tend to eat healthier when we choose these recipes as they tend to use fresher ingredients than our day-to-day cooking. A win-win solution, albeit with extra work and planning required. Three areas that interest me the most at present are BBQ recipes (need better marinades than I have currently), perfecting a friend’s ground-nut stew recipe so we can make it in smaller quantities, and making ice cream (we got an ice cream maker a couple of years ago, and haven’t used it yet!).

With these goals, I doubt I’ll be able to move on my other bucket goals much this year (novel, screenplay, novella and cookbook). But at least we’ll eat better! 🙂

Goals 2011 — Social

The PolyBlog
March 2 2011

I’m over the difficult “hump” of goal-setting, as the last four categories are much easier to plan than the first four. This one is a fun category in many ways — “expressing myself” through socializing with friends, cultural outings, and enjoying music, books and movies. Of course, I’ll find ways to make some of it look like “work”, partly cuz I’m inherently a blue, but even bluish yellow activities are fun for me!

As with previous categories, there is some momentum here. I’ve had past success with organizing my music (I’m interested in the Billboard lists dating back to 1945), movies (Oscar winners and box office favorites), outings for movies with friends (including the Mid-Month Movie Madness for Men), finding time to go for evening coffees with my friend Amanda, various party events although they tend to be more kid-friendly these days, catching up with Seb at lunch or Mike at a hockey game, going to the theatre with Andrea, or organizing birthday parties or a bachelor party. All of which is surprising given that I’m primarily a “blue” — which means yellow energy neither comes easy to me nor is it normally a spontaneous choice for me. Usually, group activities are my last choice, just ahead of root canal surgery with a rusty spoon. But, like any good blue, I’ve managed to figure out the roles/activities that work for me, usually with somewhat controlled environments or specific roles (host, formal guest, etc.). The lack of structure in social activities is usually what turns me off, not the opportunity to socialize with friends. And small predictable groups are usually preferable to large chaotic ones.

For the immediate future, though, my social time with friends is frequently limited by McGurgle — not all the activities are kid-friendly, and of those that are, we still have to schedule / adjust to fit. Sometimes it fits, sometimes it doesn’t. We can’t do everything, and as a blue, I don’t want to do everything either — it isn’t “re-energizing” for a blue, it is usually draining. It doesn’t mean you don’t EVER do it, it just means you recognize it and match your attempted output to your energy levels (i.e. don’t go to a large chaotic party if you’re already feeling drained).

I want to continue the MMMMM outings for movies, although I’m not really interested in 3D movies, and far too many of the ones I’d choose of late have been 3D. Maybe the balance will shift again. In terms of formal socializing, we used to host Remembrance Day parties, and I’d like to do one again this year, although I don’t know of what size yet. Or maybe a corn roast earlier in the year. For informal socializing, I’m hoping to be able to still go for coffee outings with Amanda, brunches occasionally, and a hockey game with Seb and Mike. Plus regular outings with other friends, format to be determined! (Shhh, don’t tell anyone, but sometimes a “blue” can manage to be spontaneous!).

For books and movies, I’m using the website to post my movie and book reviews, and I’d like 50 of each up by the end of the year. More importantly, I need to get a better handle on my ebook collection, and start pruning my paper books. I’m also determined to finish organizing at least 20 years worth of pop billboard music by the end of the year.

I also have a pretty decent set of items for the Bucket List for this category — 18 items — although some of them could have gone under the learning category. And, because I need the extra “yellow” to balance out the other colours, I’m thinking I’ll keep four of them on my goal list for this year:

  • Learn to knit;
  • Play Pai Gow poker in a casino;
  • Have a movie extravaganza weekend (i.e. a whole weekend of watching movies!); and,
  • Develop a list of top books (draft # = 600) to read.

The last one is partially done, I just need to get organized on it to finalize and link to my Kindle reading! On with the social category!

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!