Another one bites the dust….

It’s the New Year – time for some reflection and refocusing. What worked in 2010, what didn’t; perhaps more importantly: what needs to change to make this upcoming year better than the one recently past?  I truly believe that simply going through life without some sort of reflection and change based on said reflection is silly.  We don’t even go across town without a plan including map, times, address, and itinerary… yet we often go decades without any thought as to where our life is going.

2010 was in many ways a great year for me – it was my most successful year in business yet and has resulted in a better booking season for the future year than I could have dreamed. I transformed an unused part of my home into a beautiful and functional new meeting and work space (almost complete – photos soon) and grew a half-ton of gourd that the neighborhood kids were bonkers over. I managed to stay connected with friends that I feared would slip away; and kindled new friendships with people that could have easily been nothing but a fleeting passing of strangers. I got to be with, and capture images of, a bunch of truly cool people during the most intimate moments of one of the most special days of their lives.  Colleen and my’s third year of marriage has shown the first two weren’t just lucky flukes. Family and friends have been more-or-less blessed with good health; and have shown more support than one could reasonably expect. For these things, and many others, I am eternally grateful to what 2010 brought, and to what it showed us.

However, 2010 also was also extremely hard. ‘Doing’ all the time, I rarely had time to spend just ‘being’. I lost a lot of this year planning and prepping for the next years; a lot of now prepping for someday.  To much planning hurts just as much as not enough. Though I love what I do, I missed many memories of my own making memories for others. I only blogged around a dozen times in 2010 – that’s a sadly small amount.  Family life was a bit hard – both because I was not available and because the company my wife worked for since college shuttered it’s doors. I could have done better supporting her.  I only got to wakeboard twice. My grass suffered from neglect.  Much of my time was spent letting perfect be the enemy of good. I use too many emoticons. 🙂

Lessons learned, things to change: I have to purposefully focus on not biting off so much; even if I know that when I do, family and friends will help me chew. Kona is kind of high-definition awesome. Relaxing is not necessarily a ‘waste of time’. My wife is beautiful.  Making a list and sticking to said list are completely different things – I need to work on the latter.  Good friends are worth it. Things will only work well for so long without maintenance – be that a car, a camera, a marriage, or even your own body.  I’m really slow at drywall, but can fish electrical wires like a… uhm… fisherman? (and by that, I mean: ‘good’… heh)  Listening harder is almost never the wrong choice.

I’m going to go work out for the first time in 6 months.  The best kind of start is a good one, right?

May 2011 be great to you and yours….