2006 GOALS

At the beginning of 2006 I posted a few goals I had for myself. That was one year ago to the day so let's have a little review.

1) professional - 100% of quota at work.
- how's 92%? Pretty good I think. This was actually a pretty lofty goal looking back on a lot of the difficulties that my job posed in 2006. It took a big surge at the end of the year to get to this point and that has made me proud of my effort and accomplishments of late. So even though I was 8% short we're going to call that goal accomplished.

2) personal - get a girlfriend
- accomplished. Fortunately "keep a girlfriend" was not one of the goals. I actually hesitated in writing about this one because I even though this was something I wanted to put a little more energy into I kind of said it as a joke. In the end it was something that came about all on its own and I think that's always the best way. At the time it was a really great thing and I in no way want to belittle it by simply checking it off a list. I had a girlfriend for almost 7 months of this year and we had a great time together. She was pretty, cool, and liked me back. I used to tell her those were the things I looked for in a girl. There obviously must be more to a realtionship than those things (although it's not a bad place to start) and I thought at some point we would have a deeper and more meaningful relationship. After a while though I realized we were never going to connect on the type of deep level that people need to connect on to continue a dating relationship in the direction of marriage. The hardest night of my year was trying to explain this to her in a way that was honest and open but mindful of her feelings and ultimately her future. It was impossible to say all that was on my mind and it pained me to know that she was hurt. In the end I hope we both realize it was better to end when it did than to go on for months and maybe even years with a relationship that would eventually end. I hope she is well and would say I'm thankful and happy for the time we had together.

3) attain beginner level on the piano
-failed miserably. I didn't even learn one note on the piano. I don't even have a piano. What was I thinking? This is actually something I'd really like to do but to be honest ... somewhere around the middle of February I think I may have forgot this was a goal of mine. I was so bad at accomplishing this that I'm not even going to make an attempt this year.

4) write enough songs for an album
-failed .... not miserably .... but failed. I have a real problem with follow through. I'm thinking I should probably end up someday with someone who is good at following through. Otherwise we're screwed. I'm constantly writing. Sometimes it goes down on paper and sometimes it is in my head until I fall asleep and is then gone forever. I've got several songs started and a few close to being finished. I think if I ever do decide to record anything I will most likely (and this will probably work to my advantage) take a bunch of unfinished pieces into the studio and pull them all together there. It's an environment where that is all you focus on and you know you have to finish.

So 50%. If this were baseball I'd be the best hitter of all time. I'm currently working on some goals for 2007. Stay tuned as I'm sure you're really excited to see what they are. Until then ...