2010 – The Year in Review

First off, HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!  2010 – it was a good year.  A fun year.  A fast year.  At times, a stressful year.  I will avoid re-hashing in explicit detail, after all, that’s what this website is intended to do.  I wrote a bit more which I am finding I enjoy doing when I actually sit down and do it.  I feel like I worked more which in an odd way I think brought the overall quality of my work down from my standard.  We took some great vacations again this year (e.g. beach trips, hiking trip, etc.).  We spent quality time together as a family.  With each passing year I am more thankful for what I have.  With each passing year I feel like I am not doing enough for those who are less fortunate.  I still have a strong urge to one day run my own business.  The first step to setting my goals for the coming year is to first look back at my performance against my goals in the prior year (here’s where I stood at the midpoint of 2010).  Clearly some of my goals need to carry forward into 2011 as they are still works in progress.  Some, although not accomplished, will likely fall off as they aren’t as much of a priority.

2010 RESOLUTIONS

Marriage:

• Setup 1 date per month (continue to go on 2 dates per month). Honestly a fail for me.  I think I setup 2 all year.
• Enable all “Girls Nights” and “Girls Trips” for Cindy.  Achieved.
  
• Play together (e.g. cards, Wii, scrabble, etc.) 2x per month.  Partial credit for this one – while we did sit down and play games periodically it was typically either on Wii or iPhone/iPods.

Fatherhood:

• Be at home eating at the table for 2 weekday dinners.  Fail. I likely made 3 overall dinners a week but I needed 2 weekend nights.  Requires an earlier work arrival – I’ll keep pursuing this.
• Re-establish weekly family game night. Partial credit here.  We play lots of games as a family.  Could be more of a weekly “event” which I know the kids enjoy.
• Golf with the kids 1x per month. We did great here through August/September.  I blame the weather on the rough finish.
• Weekly bike rides with the kids (need a little help from Stewart here…) Yes – cold weather months aside.
• More laughter and less lecturing with my kids (2009 repeat – needs more work). Fail.  I need a lot of work here.  Any and all advice welcome.

Health and Fitness:

• Yoga 2x per week (2009 repeat).  I completely fell of the wagon in August.  Strangely coincides with my hiking trip where I talked a big game about how consistent I was.
• Eat less chicken – continue no red meat. Success!  If you meat and you are not shrimp or fish, you aren’t in my body.  I feel the difference.
• Run with Purpose – donate $1 per mile every mile run in 2010. Success! I will have run nearly 1200 miles in 2010 and donated accordingly with full corporate matching. Cool.
• Run 3:15.59 at the 2010 Thunder Road (Charlotte) Marathon. Success! Proof writing it down helps.  Ran 3:14.20, my PR by over 6 minutes and officially qualified for Boston!
• Run sub-30 hour BRR with 6-man team (run sub-8 min pace for my 6 legs). Partial credit. I averaged 7:50s for 44 miles.  We finished a few minutes above 30 hours.  Even more significant was watching Cindy kick arse on our team this year.

Personal Well-being:

• Say more with less – fewer words in professional settings both with writing and speaking. Success but can still improve.
• Start everyday at 5:30am (latest). Success – 5am is the new norm for me (vacations aside).
• Read 18 books (up from 14 read in 2009) and continue to document via blog. Fail. Read 15. Improvement over 2009 but not the goal.  Darn you “Atonement”!
• Work: lead more proactively;  Build framework for others to follow.  Honestly I am not sure where I fall here.  I always feel there is room for improvement at work.
• Learn “presentness” to help better engage with all people in my life (taking all tips/advice here).  Continues to need serious work.
• Develop better gift-giving habits – surprise people with small thought-filled gifts.  Wow I stink at this.  Needs serious work.

Overall not a terrible performance.  Of 19 goals I gave myself full or partial credit on 12 (ok, I grade with a curve).  There are some big areas needing continued focus and some new areas that I know I want to place focus in the coming year.  Stay tuned for a coming post in the next few days/weeks on what these will be (dum, dah, dum! Cliffhanger!).  Happy New Year everyone!

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