I started out this year carrying a lot of extra winter weight. Ah, if only I had stayed in shape when I left my reserve combat engineer regiment. I finally decided last month that I had enough of carrying this extra weight and determined a goal for my weight loss. Then I came up with the idea of The Year of Me.
Over the last decade and a half, I have spent a lot of time building my career. Outside of that, I have not really set any goals or even regularly taken vacation. That, in part, is why I have put on the weight.
So, what exactly is The Year of Me. Well, it is just what it sounds like… I am going to focus a lot on doing things to make me healthier and more rounded as a person. To this end, I am placing this list of goals that I want to achieve this year.
- Lose 45 lbs by the end of September, 2009
- Learn to run after losing 30 lbs (got to watch the knees)
- Read more, watch TV less
- Become an early riser
- Do more back country hiking to improve health and my photography skills
- Write more to “nurture passions” and encourage learning.
Of course this list is a living document so I will revisit and update as I add more goals.
The last item, writing more, was inspired by something I read over at Life Optimizer. It suggested nurturing your passions is a good way to improve yourself. Not only do you learn more, but you can synthesize fresh ideas from your passions.
One way of nurturing these passions is to blog about them. Not just one blog… many blogs. The article lists several reasons why you should have multiple blogs:
- It pushes you to keep learning
- It pushes you to comprehend the knowledge you obtain so you can express it better
- It pushes you to find new ideas to write about
- It reminds you that you need to improve yourself
The article goes on to say that you should select a few passions to start with and then start reading regularly on those subjects. Write on those subjects (doesn’t need to be perfect or professional) but try to write thoughtful articles.
I think this fits great into The Year of Me. Not only have I started blogging more on this site, but I have spun off two additional subdomains:
- http://codex.bradrowley.net: This site is all about information technology. With over 16 years in the industry, I have learned many things. I will write on different subjects in the IT industry, sometimes with my own take on things.
- http://recipes.bradrowley.net: I do love to cook, I do love to learn and I do love to learn to cook. This site will be used to share recipes as well as the odd article and/or video on cooking techniques. Don’t forget, I’m currently on a diet, so the recipes might be few and far between for a while!
Of course, http://www.bradrowley.net is the catch-all for everything else. Digital photography and geocoding, hiking, geocaching, mapping, video editing… anything is fair game.
So, there you have it… The Year of Me. I will summarize what I have accomplished at the end of the year. I will also blog more on some the things I am doing to make The Year of Me a great year for growth.