2015 Upon Review: The Year I Planted Many Seeds and Built the Foundations
Normally I crank this out before Christmas, but time got away from me. And now that we’re on family holiday, space has opened up and it seemed like a good time to look back before I spend time looking forward.
I’ve been doing the One Word challenge for the last 4 years, and my word for 2015 was BUILD.
Within that, I had two main goals:
- Finish my Life Coaching study
- Write a blog post everyday
I’m proud to say I completed about 90% of both of these.
I also created some sub-goals, which sprung out of my word for the year. They were:
- Build a product I can sell: I did this by getting my coaching business up and running, with a launch date sometime in early 2016. I’m so pumped about this one and can’t wait to share it.
- Build on developing relationships: certainly made progress with this. In lots of ways we narrowed the focus on our relationships, and focused solely on the people that we already have connections with. Instead of seeking more relationships, we went for depth, and it’s paid off.
- Build healthy habits: hmm, this has been a slippery slope. I felt ‘snowed under’ for much of 2015, so this part of my life has slipped. My eating hasn’t been as good as it could have been, I’ve been drinking too much beer and exercising not nearly enough. I know what I need to do, I just need to readjust some priorities.
- Build our families spiritual life: this has been a really big step forward for us, in large part because of the diligence of wifey. As Sna grows up, begins to read etc, this will develop further. Still, in 2015 we prayed regularly as a family, practiced gratitude more often, got into the scriptures and allowed the children to determine what we explore as their imaginations were ignited. We’ve worked on intertwining spirituality into our normal daily practice, something which will develop over the years.
- Build on my coaching knowledge: I finished my study, but also met some wonderful people who are coaches which has allowed me to ‘pick their brain’ as I begin my new adventure into the coaching domain. These people and the relationships I’ve established with them will be so helpful going forward.
Finish Life Coaching Study
My study took some time to get going. I didn’t really do much until about half way through the year when a friend asked me how it was going. Sheepishly I confessed it was not going so good. It was the impetus I needed to set some realistic strategy in place and get moving. So I did.
And by December 28 I had submitted my final assessment, with only one teleclass to be completed in the new year. So I got there, which I’m super happy about.
I’ve absolutely loved my study and feel really pumped to be launching my coaching business in 2016. I’ve learnt heaps of stuff and now I’m ready to kick of my business and start building my dream.
Blog Everyday
My writing and blogging was a goal that became a habit….slowly. I had a love/hate relationship with this goal because at times it was the discipline I needed to keep writing, yet at other times it was a noose around my neck.
Some days I found it easy to write, even if it was only a few sentences.
I altered the goal twice throughout the year.
The first was scaling back to only posting and writing during the workweek. I quickly found that my weekends were being swallowed up with time at the computer and my family suffered because of it. So I made the change and it was a much easier goal to accomplish.
The second change I made was taking a break altogether so I could finish the design and content for my new coaching website and business. As I needed to write a lot for that, I found that my personal writing and blogging was hindering the creative flow for my business website. So I took a break in late November, which turned out to be the last thing written until the end of the year.
My daily writing goal had some simple hopes and most of these I achieved. I’ve learnt to just get my ideas out there and press publish. This was always a challenge for me, so it’s good to get over that fear.
Many of my writing goals were achieved, and some missed the mark. Will I continue to write daily? I’m not sure at this stage. I’d love to, but I’m just not sure I can keep it up, especially with a quality I feel my readers deserve. I think I’ll write stuff as I feel moved, yet also want to do some other, more private, long form writing.
A few other blog stats of note:
I wrote 270 new posts; My longest streak without missing a day was 156 days; I had about 12,000 page views for the year; The most popular day for posting was Thursday (weird, but true); My most popular post came on January 7; The most page views for a single day came on January 14.
All in all, I was proud of what I achieved with my writing goal in 2015.
A year of hard work and planting seeds
2015 wasn’t a year littered with highlights, so I’m kinda thankful it’s over. The last 3 months or so were really tough, for lots of reasons, but I’m thankful for my family, kids, friends and the hopes and dreams that God has planted in my heart, because these kept me going.
I feel like I signed off 2015 with some full stops on specific relationships God was asking me to bring to peaceful conclusions. Thankfully, I was able to do this, and the avalanche of peace I’ve felt has been overwhelming. I’m so glad I’ve been able to sort these relationships out and leave them behind as the new year begins.
2015 will always be remembered as the year I spent copious amounts of time planting seeds, building from the bottom up and working hard on my future.
Here’s to 2016.
Happy New Year!
