2011 Final Review

I’ve been looking at Stephen Covey’s book First Things First, and several other things, because I want to reevaluate my long term goals, my brand: who I am essentially.

Covey says there are 4 areas of your life that you need to get to work together in order to really achieve that level of life accomplishment.  These are universal needs of the Spiritual, Physical, Mental and Social.

I’ve also seen some articles that ask you to grade your performance and see how well your doing in these areas.  I think I’m going to look at how I did in 2011 and then grade it against those 4 aspects.  Then I will look at how fulfilled I FELT against how fulfilled Covey said I SHOULD FEEL.  Let’s see if he’s right, or see if he makes me feel differently about my year.

Health
1. Waist - 36
Success
Bought new pants and 36s fit noticeably better than 38s. Was measured at my health screening with my shirts on at 36.  The 36s are now a bit tight and my belt is tight at the last hole
2. Weight - >220
Fail

Lowest was 222, now  I’m back up to about 230.
3. Finish P90
No longer relevant.  I switched to Body for Life (which I didn’t technically complete, but I did very well in)
4. Bike commute as often as possible (75 times)
Success

DONE 2 Nov 11!
5. Walks (10k steps a day)
Success

Averaged over 10k for the year

Family
1. Pay more attention to family finances
Success

I think I'm doing that.   This was not really well defined.
2. Quarterly Dates
Fail

Complete fail.  We didn’t have a single one
3. Game Night
Fail

Only attempted one and it didn’t go off.
4. New Pet
Fail
We did talk about a dog, but decided that even if we got one that the end of the year would not be the time to get it.
5. Walks
Fail
Didn’t walk with Mrs. Prop once this year

Music (these are sort of in order):
1. Learn to play ukulele (the definitions are still subjective)
Success

Not well defined, but I’m well along and Christmas was pretty successful
2. Play with my family (both in my house and a holiday gatherings)
Fail

No one seems to want to get together to do it.  I think the main problem with this is the need for others to want to do it too.
3. RE-learn to play sax.
Success

At least a partial success because I played in a band, but I still need loads of practice.
4. Learn to play bass
NA

I dropped this fairly early on and replaced it with sax.
5. Join a band
Success

Libertyville Village Band

Scouting
1. Commissioner Key
Fail
Still working on it
2. Archaeology Merit Badge Clinic
Fail

It’s a long story, but basically and simply it’s a fail

Writing:
1. Do NaNoEdMo in March
Fail

Tried again in November and December, still with no luck.
2. Submit my NaNoWriMo 2010 novel to a publisher
Fail
3. Blogging
A. I will blog more posts this year than any previous year
Success
B. I will review and update my 2011 goals at least quarterly
Success

Work
1. Don't get laid off
Success

This really was out of my hands so it doesn’t really count
2. Get a Promotion This is a Q4 thing, and I've told my boss about it
Fail

I have applied, but very late in the year.

So, just using raw numbers I have:

Health:  3/4

Family: 1/5

Music: 3/4

Scouting: 0/2

Writing: 2/4

Work: 1/2

Total:  10/21

About 48% so I guess that's why I feel pretty bad about that.  On the other hand, 21 goals is a lot.  Maybe that was too much.

I could look at it this way, I had 6 categories; 4 of those had a successful majority.  That's 67%, still an F but substantially better than 48% which isn't even half.

If I look at these by the measure of Spiritual, Mental, Social and Physical I would assign them thusly:

Health & Work = Physical

Family = Social

Music & Writing = Mental

Scouting = Spiritual

So I did have them all covered.  Looking at them in that way let me grade them:

Physical (Health and Work) = 4/6 F

Social (Family) = 1/5 F

Mental (Music & Writing) = 5/8 F

Spiritual (Scouting) = 0/2 F

I still didn't get anything higher than an F.

On the other hand (how many hands is that).  I did address ALL the needs and in the end I accomplished 10 New Year's Resolutions.  That's pretty spectacular in a way.  Also this is pure numbers.  I didn't weigh any goals higher than any others; although some were clearly more difficult and I paid I lot more attention and effort to them.

If I ignore the numbers and grade them on how I feel I'd say:

Physical - Success

Social - Fail

Mental - Success
Spiritual - partial success (major improvement)

That would seem to be a pretty good year in that view.  It was certainly better than 2010 (it would have to have been).  The failure I had in the Family arena did hurt drastically, almost completely ruining the year.  We've had some very trying times this last year.  I'm glad it's over.

The challenge now is to keep up what I have and meet the other needs I have not met yet.  Also, I need to define who I want to be, in several roles (Father, writer, Scouter etc.) and how they fit into my goals.