I began this blog to help me improve my thinking. I achieved some degree of success, at least a little win in each of the areas I mentioned at the beginning of the year. I didn’t go as far as I had hoped, partly because it’s a big endeavor and partly because I kept taking side paths, some priority driven and some of the “oooh, shiny” variety.
Writing and publishing helped me keep focused, as I had intended. Some of my posts make me wince and there are some I’m proud of. I didn’t write about everything I was doing or thinking but on review I’ve found a few key arcs of change.
I discovered the personal development genre and that I had something to learn from it. Motivational and self-help reminded me for years of the exhortations by my mother to think positive during my teen-age years. It felt like whooey and hot air. But when I really started thinking about defining success and becoming successful I somehow related to it all differently.
I discovered systems thinking and became fascinated by the existence of a discipline devoted to seeing interconnections in complex problems. I’ve been browsing and buying and building a foundation for future discussions. It was great to find what I wanted to investigate attached to this concept and also to theories of innovation outside of it.
I developed a new appreciation for the power of relationships, not because someone told me it was so, but because I was seeing it for myself. As a teenager I was introverted, blunt, and essentially socially clueless. In college and afterwards, I made more friends and learned more people skills but it was more like learning a song by rote than by feeling the music. This year was somehow different. I’m finally getting it. One effect was that the concept and value of leadership also became more real for me.
2008 has been about me and my development. I still have a lot of looking inward to do. I don’t suppose that ever ends, but it’s not all that I want to be about. I want to take action and I want to add value with something other than “I went through it.”
More on that tomorrow…
