At the end of 2011 I posted new years resolutions in a post called 12 in 12. In the post I identified patterns of life I wanted to create or enhance. I can honestly say I did better at most of these things this year. Here is a review of 2012 (all opinions are relative to 2011).
1. Spend more time with other people I care about. I think I can say I accomplished this. I spent more time developing friendship locally, traveling to see life long friends, and spending quality face to face time with my family.
2. Have more purpose-full conversations. I can distinctly remember several intintial conversations this year. Some were quite good for my soul, and others were very difficult.
3. Remember I have friends and relationships I want to continue building. I have called my life long friends more often, gone on more adventures with friends, and gotten better at spending time with my favorite person Mollie.
4. Participate in my faith rather than simply contemplating it. I'm a thinker so this one will always take practice. Even in contemplation though I am moving more toward a faith beyond belief. That is a faith that moves from the cognitive to manifest itself in the every day actions of life. While I may never can be satisfied in this endeavor I do think I have made at least some progress since 2011.
5. Become more pragmatic in business and less pragmatic with the people that surround it. This has become a greater conviction of mine throughout the year, and it has proved increasingly hard to do. I can say that the business part has become more pragmatic, but in doing so I am afraid that some of my relationships surrounding my also have received this approach.
6. Become more humble, vulnerable, and comfortable with doubt. None of those sound any fun. If I could go back and rethink late 2011 I might have chosen different areas of self improvement. The instances that come to mind for each one of these areas were all uncomfortable experiences. That said, they have each been memorable and caused me to grow as a person.
7. Write more blogs. Make more videos. Done and done. However, fewer and fewer are getting published these days.
8. Read a book every week. This was a lofty goal that I can affirmatively say I did not reach. I can say that I probably read close to 52 books if not over this year. I often am reading 4-10 books at any given time which means some weeks I finish 6 and others none. I've decided I like my method better than trying to read one a week anyway.
9. Fish more. Teach someone to fish. Ahhhh my proudest accomplishment. I got a slow start this year and didn't get much done, but more than made up for it in July and August. I took new people fishing with me and showed them the art of river fishing for small mouth bass.
10. Convince my friends to do something great together. In business I am in the process of making this happen still. Greatness doesn't usually happen over night. Personally, I did convince a number of friends to take a couple of great hikes together. One particular hike in Arkansas to find caves on a mountain top that has no trail proved a test of my leadership abilities, but the payoff at the top made it well worth it.
11. Visit Nashville. Mollie and I loved our trip to Nashville to visit friends this past year. We will do it again.
12. Breathe mountain air. Twice. The Ozarks of northern Arkansas and Blood Mountain in Georgia. Both trips happen to be bachelor trips I planned for two of my best friends Ben Backus and Brandon Barrett.
John Stumbo says finishing well is an important part of being able to begin well. I hope I have done just that.
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