2008 – The Outcome

With only one week left until the official end of the year, I don’t think I’ll have much time to wrap up some of the goals I’ve set for 2008. With an early holiday already started on December 20th I don’t have my focus on achievement monitoring also. So, I guess it’s time to write about how 2008 went for me. I’ll share something with you in the very beginning of this post: I’m somehow scared. I just reviewed my goal list for this year, a list written on the last days of 2007, and I’m amazed how much I accomplished.

First and foremost, this was my best financial year ever. I know this sounds a little bit shameless in the context of a global financial crisis, but I honestly don’t care. I just had my best financial year ever, and the fact that there is also a crisis playing around outside has nothing to do with it. Or with me. Or whatever. This year I made the exit for the company I set up 10 years ago and this was a huge leap forward for me. No need to hide this. It’s not only the financial freedom involved, but much more than that. The financial freedom was only a proof for something much bigger. More on that later, let’s take it the old “step by step” style for now.

As I told you, I am amazed of how much I accomplished, but also I’m somehow scared. I know I should be happy, but I’m still scared. We often function on lower expectancies and when things are coming to us in full flavor, shaped and behaving like we expected them to be, we tend to back up. This is how I feel right now. I feel like “wow, I really did it!”. I’m sure you felt this before, you know how it is. A feeling of satisfaction mixed with a strong vibration of “I just can’t believe this”.

Well, enough with emotions let’s get factual. I won’t give you any exact numbers on my goals. I don’t think the numbers are important, but the commitments are. The list I’ve made for 2008 was made up of 3 sections:

  • personal
  • professional
  • joy

At that time I was still managing Mirabilis Media, the company I’ve created 10 years ago, so my personal and professional path were still pretty mixed.

Personal Goals

The thing that was most important for me on the personal level was my financial income. I don’t think I feel the same way now. But at that time seemed like a priority. I set up a pretty high mark on that. And I did it. Of course, the exit from my company was the key factor in that. Most of my income is now based on that exit.

The second thing was my health, at that time. I’ve set up goals for exercising more (30 minutes per day) and for eating healthier (eating raw food at least two days per week). For the exercise part, I made it for about 1 and a half month from the total of 12 months. For the eating habits, I made it for almost 5 months. But I managed to remain on a raw food eating habit and that is fantastic. Now really, it’s a breakthrough in terms of personal development, no need to hide this.

The third goals was about Bianca’s day care. We managed to have her signed up for the next year, but I think I can safely check this as done, because we did it very well. We both like that specific day care facility and we’re both happy we managed to have her signed up.

Profession Goals

My professional goals for 2008 were split in two categories: Mirabilis Media (my company) and blogging.

I am really happy that I marked even from the last year a specific goal on blogging as a process, because it comes really handy now. I intend to heavily rely on this medium for the next year, and that means I still have a lot to learn about it.

For my company I had a list of technical goals and I’m not going to repeat them here. Most of them were managerial goals, and the metrics were financial, visitors traffic and human resources. I did more than half of them.

For the blogging I had several goals related to my Romanian blog, some of them related to the posting speed and topics, some of them related to monetization. Keeping in mind that I decided to completely move to this English blog and leverage what I learned before, I guess I can check out this as done too.

Joy Goals

I specifically wanted to have more joy during 2008. You can’t really be joyful in a programatic way, I know. But you can create scaffolds for that. You can create contexts in which your joy could manifest. This is what I wanted to do.

And I did a pretty big list of wishes and goals. More than 10 different items. I am still amazed by the fact that I actually did 8 of them. The other 2 are arguably unimportant due to some major lifestyle changes. For instance, there was a goal that stated we should buy a holiday house, but since we decided to move to New Zealand, this goal become obsolete.

This year I wanted to have an iPhone. I know, I’m shallow. But I accepted it and live with it. And I had my iPhone. I wanted to completely landscape my garden. And I did it. I wanted to have at least two holidays longer than one week and I had them. Actually, I blog from one of those holidays in this very moment.

The “joy” section in my list of goals for 2008 was the most “checked” one. And you know what? I’m really happy about that.

What Does This Means To You?

It simply means that you can do it too. I shared this personal story, with a moderate level of details, so you can understand the most important discovery in my life. And I’m not talking about something that I learned it’s possible from someone else, it’s about something that I really tried with my life and succeeded at it. As I said at the beginning of this post, is not the financial boost in my life that matters the most. It’s something different.

And that is the realization of a fundamental life principle: you are what you think. Your life unfolds starting with the first thought within your mind. The clearer the thoughts, the brighter the path. You do whatever you think first. Call it “Law Of Attraction”, call it “Law Of Vibration”, it really goes down to one simple rule: you do whatever you have in your mind first.

It’s much more difficult to do this than to understand it. Everybody can mentally understand that, with a little bit of effort. Ok, I am what I think, that makes sense. Now what?

Most of the people don’t really go over the “Now what?” question. I did it. I started to act according to my thoughts. I tried to understand the consequences of my thoughts. I acted on it. I monitored my activities and tried to make everything better. I strived. I wrote my thoughts and converted them to goals. And then lived each day of this year according to those thoughts.

It was easy? Hell, no. It was the most challenging year of my life. I was happier? Yes. Did I lost track and deluded sometimes during this year? Yes, several times. But I always turned back to the first point and started to do this again.

Living by your thoughts is really an art. Creating your own reality is a fantastic thing to do. Being the master of your own path is also the most difficult, yet rewarding endeavor you can start. And it’s a thing I only start to understand. As I already told you, I’m still scared about it. How was I able to accomplish that much? Is this really working, now what I am going to do?

I am just starting to scratch the surface here. And I’m sharing my understandings with you. This is why I’m committed to this personal development blog. I’m only starting with it. I’m not perfect and I don’t intend to become a perfect blogger, husband or father. I just want to be better every day.

Better is better than perfect.




3 thoughts on “2008 – The Outcome”

  1. Pingback: 2009 - The Goals

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