The year that was and the year that will be
2007 seemed to be a year of stillness and not much happening for me. Looking back a lot happened but nothing sticks out as being either amazing or terribly bad. It was a good year.
From going round the world and seeing friends for the first time in several years, to achieving some of my goals I set last year. Whilst at he same time forgetting or adapting some of my goals from last year too.
This was most definitely a year where my obsessions over my body and image have taken a back seat to striving for a totally different type of achievement. In fact I have not been to the gym at all this month, and at the moment I most definitely have a small bump of a tummy from the extremely hectic eating, drinking and socialising.
But on the plus side of the goals I did achieve all but one of the business goals, but the one I did not meet is being met at the moment with the SAAS platform well and truly underway.
I talked about my dislike of new years resolutions last year and I still hold the same thoughts. It should be goals not resolutions.
I am keeping my goals to myself this year, but many of them revolve around the six month plan I came up with in October as a result f my business discussions in the USA.
Like every year great icons of the world passed away such as Bergman and Pavarotti, along with acquaintances and friends who also lost their own personal struggles this year.
I am still looking for my theme song for this upcoming year last year was I Just Wanna Fucking Dance. But this year I am having trouble deciding what I want.... Will it be sentimental, dance or something in between?
This year has been a year for making a lot of new friends and expanding our group, whilst at the same time getting back in touch with old friends who we have lost contact with. But there has also been the deterioration of a close friendship which has caused me much stress.
This year has also seen quite a few couple we know part company which is always sad when people break up, but in the main for the best.
The total annihilation of John Howard and the almost unprecedented throwing out of a government in a buoyant economy and the rise and rise of Kevin Rudd as the new Australian Prime Minister.
So far he has been doing what he promised he would do, but I think we must be vigilant and encourage Kevin and his Government to continue to fulfill all the promises made.
So what will 2008 bring?
I don't really know what 2008 will bring, I do know that it will be the end of the USA Bush era, but beyond that I do not know whether it will be a Clinton ticket, Obama ticket or someone else?
In Australian politics I don't see anything great happening until after July when the conservatives no longer have the majority in the upper house. Until then I think wankers like Bill Heffernan will continue to oppose any form of equality for same sex couples.
Anyway so 2008 will be here in a few hours and a whole new year of opportunity.
Labels: contemplation, wrapup
Some things are clearer
Following on from this ridiculousness from yesterday today was even stranger. I am almost tempted to use real names and explain more.
But I think it probably best not too. So many people that I know read this blog anyway and know the situation but it's best not to throw a red flag at a bull.
An incident happened this morning that made a lot of things clear and helped explain an awful lot of things that I have been mis interpreting.
I have however worked out what the issue actually is, and it's one of power games more than anything else. There is a perception on my friends behalf that I have been playing power games and he feels as though I have been intentionally making him look bad or trying to undermine his authority.
It's funny because nothing could be further from the truth, but in fantasy like reality, perception is king, and just the perception is enough to cause all the problems.
I was fuming over an incident this morning and I was all set to first off right a very nasty email basically hauling him over the coals, but decided not too as emails can be sent around, picked over and badly misconstrued.
I then decided that I was going to confront him over the telephone (in person would be better but he does not cope with any form of confrontation and would sand bag). But after thinking about what would be the possible outcomes of any form of confrontation, I sadly realised that the only outcome of any of these would be bad news and would have far reaching consequences.
So I am just going to have be careful to make sure that I am not playing power games and make doubly sure that the perception of power games or the perceived slight to his authority is mitigated.
This whole thing is such a waste of my time and energy. I was so upset over this today I probably wasted at least an hour of quality work time, only half concentrating on what I was doing.
It's interesting though I think I can now safely say the ball is in my court to mitigate the issue from happening in the future.
Sadly though the friendship I had is pretty much over, which is a significant shame, but I have tried time and time again to build it back up but I think today was the last shot. You can only take so much.
I think he's too stubborn to ever say sorry even if he understood the truth.
It's amazing that in twenty four hours I have gone from wanting to repair the friendship to realising that sometimes friendships go through natural progressions and sometimes even the best of friends must drift apart.
I thought a small musical interlude to today's post, it's 'For Good' from the Stephen Scwhartz musical Wicked. It's all about friends.
Labels: contemplation, friends, stress
Is that an Elephant?
The friend and I that are having communication issues got together yesterday for several hours, and a specific point was made to make sure we had 'alone' time to chat.
But not surprisingly the actual issues were never discussed, it's like there being a huge elephant in the room that we were both ignoring.
We talked about all sorts of things but never touched on the issues which have come between us and stopped the ability for me to have an open and honest discussion.
There's an old joke from the Simpsons, "There's the truth, and there's the truth". Nothing could be more accurate in this situation, everyone expands and embellishes a good story, that's human nature.
When someone tells you a story or recounts something that happens to them parts of the story are amplified, while other parts left out, and you take all of this in with a grain of salt. We just accept this variance as being normal.
But when does the variance and amplification become an out and out lie? I struggle with the fact that so many things I am being told are not just small variances or embellishments but total lies, told with a straight face even though I know the truth.
It's almost as if there were two apples siting on a table and I was being told there were three. It's as blatant as that.
I hate being made to feel stupid, and I sat there yesterday asking myself whether I mention I know the 'truth' or ask the questions that are eating away inside. The boy is fed up with listening to me complain about the situation, and he just accepts that the friendship has changed.
I know people psychologically sometimes construct an alternate reality for themselves and as they tell the small white lies, they start to believe the fantasy, and pretty soon the fantasy becomes reality in their own mind.
But how do you as a friend deal with this fantasy world, what makes a friend? Do you sit quietly nod and say nothing, or do you confront and potentially alienate a friend even more than they already are.
Or is this just the way that good friendships just become acquaintances until it is the occasional "Hi how are you, we must catch up"?
This afternoon we will be going to the
National Day of Action rally to protest for equal rights for same sex couples. The boy says they need to learn how to make these things more interesting and maybe more people would go. I prefer to believe that most gay guys seem to be vocally in support of equal rights, but very few are actually willing to interrupt their day to actual go and participate in something.
It will be interesting to see how many people turn up this year
Labels: contemplation, friends
Fixated
For my actual birthday on Monday night the boy and I went to my sister's for dinner with my parents. I always find this a stressful as much as I love my family, my sister and parents have become even less in touch with reality as they get older.
I suppose in many ways my family and especially my mother were cushioned from the day to day true reality of life, and her views are very much still based or stuck in the 1950s on most topics.
She still believes that a wife should really stay home, that managers do no work, and that most people work 9-5!
One of my biggest bugbears is her fervent support of John Howard because 'he is such a nice man and he even washes up'. She cannot and will not believe that he lies, and she has this elitist snobbish attitude that drives me bonkers.
My teenage years were very much spent battling my parents (mothers) views and these have been ingrained into my sister now too. Coming out for me was not an easy experience and there is still a great deal of latent homophobia in my family.
In fact my sister who quite frankly should know better accused me 'of being a bit fixated on the whole gay rights issue'.
You can imagine how much that was like waving a red flag at a bull!
Of course I am fixated on the 'gay rights issue'. Equality is an issue that is about as basic a human right for basic respect as you can get.
There are so many issues with my family that just drive me potty, these just being the ones that are most commonly raised.
If you asked my family they would say that they have always been supportive of me. But if you scratched the surface it wasn't support at all, more like coercion, sneaky tactics and more often than not strong arm tactics to get me to do what they wanted.
Unfortunately due to their age and their stubbornness you cannot argue with them, they just either do not listen or do not understand complex arguments (or simple for that matter) anymore.
I had thought as the years had passed and I had grown into adulthood and have been out of the closet now for seventeen or so years that they would get it, but they just don't.
In all of this they are becoming less able to deal with the realities of the world and this fantasy world is being pushed upon my sister too, who at 38 is still waiting to be married so she can be 'complete'. (because there must be a problem with a girl if she is not married according to my mother).
I think at the end of the day what upsets me the most is their blind support of a political party that actively discriminates against me, in fact many of it's members would advocate the re criminalisation of homosexuality and have us thrown in jail.
And when I try to point this out I am told I am a bit fixated on the gays rights issue.
I do love them I just wish they would actually be supportive!
Labels: contemplation, family, politics
Achievement and Self Affirmations
Sydney is in the grip of a self discovery journey, what with the visit of the Dalai Lama and the incredible success of books like The Secret. Every second person seems to be on some personal discovery journey of their own.
I haven't read The Secret yet, although NSSG is reading it at the moment along with half the people I know. I don't generally get a lot of time to read for pleasure these days, most of my time is taken up working, thinking about work or trying to forget that I work entirely and seeing friends!
The basic premise of the book is that you need to ask for what you want ( I am sorry if I am oversimplifying the concept). The idea of everything you want to achieve being out there is nothing new and in fact it makes perfect sense for a couple of reasons.
You have to have goals to achieve them
It seems really stupid when you think about it, but everyone that gets what they want, knows what they want and can identify this. I don't mean things like 'I want to be rich', I mean things like I want to own my own property by [insert age]. When you think about this sort of goal setting and look around a bit you can see this in everyday life.
I run a small business and like good small businesses I have a business plan which includes my 'business goals' and then the tactics I am going to use (and do use) to achieve the goals.
Most small businesses fail, why? Because the business has no goals to achieve!
Create small baby goals to get you on the way to your big goals.
Baby goals are short term easy to achieve things that when you add them all together get you on the way to your big goal. If you think about the objective of owning your own property, you need to do some pretty fundamental things:
Save money for a deposit;
Prove that you can regularly pay off a debt;
Get a job and keep a job (if you don't already have one).
So in terms of the small goals it's things like 'save XX dollars a week from my pay packet'. Every time you do this you can mentally tick off your baby step goal for that week.
Remind yourself of your goals and reward yourself
Big goals can take a long time to achieve and even the most self directed person gets bored with the small baby steps. You need to remind yourself on a regular basis what the big goals are and reward yourself for achieving the small goals.
I once read Scott Adams ideas on affirmations, for those of you not in the know Scott is the creator Dilbert one of my all time favorite cartoons. Scott believes that to achieve something you need to visualise what it is you want to achieve and then write it down 15 times every day while visualising it.
Affirmations are not new, nor are they witch doctory crap, they work just like good psychological techniques work in helping people achieve.
Why not try some of these things yourself? Sit down and actually write out what you want to achieve, make it something tangible and then work out the small baby steps you need to achieve to get to the big goal.
Then visualise your goal, make the achievement tangible in your mind, what do you feel when you have achieved it? What can you see, taste, touch etc.
I am a list maker, every day I write out my to do list and as I do the tasks I cross them off the list, for me this are my baby steps of the day that help me with my big list which in turn helps me get to the big goals!
Labels: contemplation, direction
Offended
I am not generally easily offended by people and I have a pretty thick skin. Or let me re-phrase that, I am not generally offended by people I do not know.
However when a good friend does something exceptionally tactless or rude I can be very offended.
And let me say right off, I am offended.
In this case a good friend said something to me that has left me quite offended and more than a little pissed off.
I am not going to talk about what was said, because that's not relevant. What's relevant and offended me so badly was the way this was said and the way I was made to feel. The delivery was clumsy and done with pretend embarrassment.
This friend has had more than their fair share of ups and downs the last few years. At times I have dropped everything to help this friend out or to just babysit them through some shit. But that's what good friends do right!
Yes I am offended and I am having a very emotional response to this which could be considered to be over the top.
I know that this friend is not the most open or honest person and will often mislead friends. More than once I have taken him to task on outright lies that were said to my face, and we are not talking about small ones either.
I am in a quandary really, I am deeply offended by what was said, but I am not sure that he would understand if I tried to explain why, as he would think it was about what was said (which was offensive in itself but not the point) and not the situation.
Partially this is about a lead up of things that have been said and done over a longer period and I think that I am reacting to them all with this friend. I think unfortunately when you can't be honest with a friend and or you start to mis trust what they say there are problems and the friendship that goes from close friend to friend to acquaintance.
Labels: contemplation
Staying still moving forward
For the last five months or so there has been much flux and uncertainty in our lives. I alluded months ago that something big was in the wings but I would not elaborate more.
Well the big thing was a potential move to San Francisco, which we are no longer pursuing. So for months and months we did not know whether we would be staying in Sydney or moving countries.
After much and I mean much discussion we have decided to concentrate on staying here. The boy was considering two promotions one based in San Jose and one based here, no points to the fact he has accepted the one staying here.
This has been a real challenge for me because I have had to start packaging up my company for a large scale move to the States or maybe stay. The strategy I have put in place is achievable in either country although it may take a few trips to the States for me to kick start the next chapter and secure my second round funding!
However this means that I finally get to complete and decorate our apartment! Yes I can finally finish this place and not feel like we are still living in between 'student chic' and high class, well kind of student chic.... well ok it was never that stylish more likely the furniture from our last place which didn't quite match the very modern new apartment!
So in keeping with this new and very exciting move forward (not backwards) we went shopping and have ordered the furniture for the apartment. I am so excited I am almost falling over myself!
Unfortunately we must wait between 8 - 12 weeks for the actual delivery of said furniture, but that's what happens when you order from Italy I suppose!
So the designers chosen are, Corbusier, Poliform, Starck and others!
Labels: contemplation, design, furniture
Gaunt Gay Boys
Over the last few months I have been seeing people out and about whose faces are familiar from out and about on the scene. This is not that unusual, the unusual part is that some of these gay boys have become mere gaunt stick figures of themselves.
Fifteen to twenty years ago you would see gay men shrink before your eyes and you would know that they were wasting away with the ravages of HIV/AIDS. Today though it's no longer HIV/AIDS instead it is the Crystal Meth crisis and the ravages of an extraordinarily addictive drug that many in the gay community think is benign or 'just another drug'.
Walking back to the office at lunch time today I saw a gaunt figure sitting by my building. He looked a bit like the last picture above, a couple of nasty looking sores on his face, cracked lips and really really unwell.
I wouldn't have looked twice except something about him was familiar.
I had a quick closer look and I was shocked by what I realised. This was a guy that even two months ago when we last went to a big dance party was one of the 'pretty young guys'. You know the type, muscly, perfect skin, hair, body, everything the whole gay enchilada.
But in no more than two months he looked like he was knocking on deaths door.
Now I know for a fact that this guy is into crystal because I was told by someone who knows him.
I think it's time for the gay community to really start to rally against this growing scourge in our community. I have seen at least five people in the last few weeks who have all gone from attractive muscly guys to gaunt thin crystal addicts.
The gay community needs to really start looking at the whole hedonism lifestyle and the use of crystal meth. We know both anecdoetally and through research that crystal meth is fuelling a resurgence in unsafe sex out in the community and by default a rise in new HIV/AIDS cases.
Crystal or Ice is so addictive that you can get hooked from almost the first go. It's a dangerous drug that should be avoided at all costs.
Labels: contemplation
Anxiety & Dizziness Vs.Insomnia
I have suffered from a very mild form of
Agoraphobia for a couple of years, which is in essence the fear of
embarrassing yourself in public.
My particular fear is of passing out in public or having a bad panic attack to the point of passing out in public. Agoraphobia is
particularly annoying because you actual get anxious about getting anxious, and you tend to build up the anxiety levels as you worry about a specific public event in the future.
For me personally there are a couple of
situations which make my anxious, meetings, sometimes sitting in restaurants, queues, walking across open roads at traffic lights, talking to people while standing up and driving.
About the only thing I do avoid these days is driving, mainly because the consequences of having a serious panic attack while driving could be catastrophic and or I could kill myself or someone else.
For people who do not suffer from anxiety or panic attacks it can seem almost incomprehensible how 'a bit of stress' can have such an affect on someone else.
I am a bit of insomniac and
regularly take
Stilnox (
Ambien) to help me sleep which does a great job, or so I thought. Of late there has been a huge amount of press abut
Stilnox in Australia,
particularly to do with side effects such as amnesia when taking it, sleep walking and in one case it has been linked to someone walking off a
balcony and killing themselves.
I was reading an article about this and found out that the most common two side effects from regular (or even semi regular) use are:
DizzinessAnxiety
So hold on, the two most common side effects are what I would describe as a "heightened sense of anxiety".
In thinking back I can pin point too times at which for days I have been seriously anxious and they have almost all
coincided with a period where I have taken
Stilnox for several (at least five) nights in a row.
So It's a no
brainer really I can't take it any more to help me sleep, so here is to finding
another to stay asleep that doesn't involve
something that makes me anxious!
Labels: contemplation, stress
Growing Older
I saw my parents and sister on the weekend for lunch which was lovely. But every time I see my parents I am reminded that they are getting older and older. It seems my father is 'shrinking' in front of me.
Every time I have seen him over the last few years he has just seemed to get smaller, the big broad shoulders that used to pick me up and swoosh me onto things as a child have become much smaller.
The chest which I would fall asleep in as a little toddler has shrunk too. The wrinkles on his face and neck are far greater and they tell enormous stories of my dads last 77 years of experience.
But by far the most distressing thing about seeing my father grow old is his mind. Once a brilliant man, he is fast turning into an old forgetful man.
Sometimes he forgets things like what he was doing just that moment and you can see the confusion flash across his face.
He does not remember people's names and never really has, but it has started to get worse and he no longer remembers things in the close past and instead remembers things in the distant past.
Mind you the most difficult to participate in was his adamant 'memory' of something that did not actually happen to him. I was seriously surprised by that episode on the weekend, because I was at the event he was adamant happened to him and not my mother.
It's hard watching your parents get old, and my mother has had her fair share of medical issues over the last twenty years. My father has always been a bit 'eccentric' but recently it has just got worse :(
The father becomes the son, and the son becomes the father
Labels: contemplation, family, father
A Reminder
A long time ago (December 2003) I wrote a few articles on the drug G, GBH, Liquid Ecstasy. My point of the articles and my belief is about harm minimisation.
Whilst I do not have an opinion either way on whether drugs are bad or good, I do believe that prohibition of illegal substances does not work and they should be licensed. I read during the week that more tan 25% of deaths of people aged 18 - 25 are caused by alcohol, but less than one percent of the deaths are caused by illegal drugs.
G however is a dangerous drug, as is Tina (Crystal) and a few years back people were dropping left right and center after taking a bit too much G. The difference between an overdose and a 'good' dose is negligible. It acts as a central nervous system depressant (like alcohol) and an overdose causes people to rapidly fall unconscious and their respiratory system to cease working.
Back in 2003 it was the "new" drug of choice for many people, it was easy to get, virtually undetectable and cheap. It is also a drug that is commonly used as a date rape drug, as the the effects can also be an amnesiac and a paralasys of the body, so someone can be easily drugged.
Over the last couple of years most clubs, dance parties etc have become even stricter than before on party drugs especially G, because back then so may people really were dropping in clubs and needed emergency life saving medical care.
People have also become complacent again about the drug, if a mate goes to "g sleep" they let then sleep, or they wait till the absolute last possible moment to call for help, which can have disastrous consequences.
In fact, I found out today that a friend of a friend had in fact died a couple of weeks back from a G overdose. In this case he had been given the drug in a club and left the club as he felt unwell and on the way home started spinning out and going into g shock. By the time he was home he was unconscious and by the time the ambulance arrived it was too late.
As I wrote four years ago, I have a request to people, G is dangerous, if you must take it be careful, and if you see someone in trouble don't wait to get help, get it as quickly as you can!
Labels: contemplation
My Dilema Explored and Decided
Thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a comment or send me an email on my work dilemma. I was interested to read people's opinions on what I should do.
In the end I have decided that I will not actively pursue the client and if they do come back and really want the product I will charge full (and I mean full) price without any discount.
I will however not provide any quotes or offer for strategy or design.
So if they call back they can have the software, but I will not follow the normal sales process and follow up with phone calls, emails etc.
Is it discrimination?
Yes probably so, but then again I think if they met me and discovered I was gay they probably would not buy our software anyway. I could also let slip if they do ring back as one person suggested!
Labels: contemplation
Disappointment
For the last month or so I had been interested in having Laser eye surgery so I would no longer have to wear contact lenses or glasses.
This was bought about because a friend and his boyfriend had theirs done and their health fund covered almost the entire cost! I was told originally that my health fund would cover the majority of the surgery cost which is about $2750 per eye.
However it turns out that my health fund does not cover laser eye surgery, so for the time being at least I will just have to wear my contact lenses.
*Sigh, maybe we should change health insurance funds hehehe
Labels: contemplation
Friday Morning Coffee
It's finally Friday morning and I am having my coffee before heading intot he office for a full day of work!
The boy is back (YIPPEEEEEE) tired from honkers but glad to be home, and the good news on Wednesday my mother does not need an operation on her spine! So all in all a good week.
I have a lot on my mind at the moment, like the Sydney Mardi Gras refusal to included groups in their parade and fair day because they conflict with the commercial sponser (and I thought mardi gras was a grass roots community organisation!).
Toybox is in five weeks this sunday so I have to seriously increase my workouts and cardio sessions (and restrict the bad calories too LOL. That said I am at the gym with cvardio sessions 4 - 5 times a week and am doing 4 - 5 weights sessions too.
Our traditional house Mardi Gras Parade Party is also in five weeks tomorrow night and I had better start planning this soon or I will have no times to get stuff done!
This weekend the puppy trainer is coming along to help us with her growly moods, she snapped at me yesterday morning which was not good, but she was mortified afterwards and spent the next 30 minutes making it up to me.
A few things have been pissing me off of late as well...
I had an email telling me that my site didnt print properly and to fix it up immediately, well blow me down with a feather bitch! You don't pay to use my site, you don't click ont he advertising instead you grab and print the content and then tell me I have to immediatley fix a problem, well fuck you!
I am fed up to death of the lack of respect the tennants in my building show for the building, please don't dump your rubbish in fire exits, no it is not a smoking building, and please do not put your ciggerrete out on the floor of the elevator. Please do not park illegally in the garage and restric access ot otehr people's car spots, please do not just dump your rubbish anywhere. No I am not your building manager and do not ring or write and tell me what I shoudl be doing. If you want something done, pick yourself up and do it yourself, or move out!
*sigh*
Labels: contemplation, The boy, work, workout
Hump Day
This week has been longer than normal, with the boy off in Hong Kong I am virtually sleeping for a few hours then waking up and not able to get back to sleep.
I have always been a bit of an insomniac, and I am a very light sleeper so any noise wakes me up, and once I am even semi conscious my mind starts to work! So the last three nights my mind has been in total overdrive.
With the new direction I am taking the company I am having to balance the need for supporting the existing clients and software, getting new full service clients, normal sales and admin needs and the development of both the new software and the new business case and financials.
Looking after the existing clients and getting new ones is more than a full time job, so trying to find the time to do the rest makes my head swim!
Apart from that the amazingly cute Lucy Beagle is entering into a really difficult stage where she is really pushing her dominance. This is coming out as being growly and very possessive of food and refusing to back down. For some reason I take it very personally when she gets growly at me (I know she is only a puppy) but I still take it as a bit of a personal emotional attack.
The specialised dog psychologist is coming this weekend to help us with her. At least the person we are getting does not believe that you have to de-personalise the dog to get them to behave. I love Lucy' s personality, I just want her to be less growly.
There are two other levels of quite immense stress as well, both relate to uncertainty.
Hopefully one will be resolved today when I talk with my mother's surgeon over whether she does or does not need an operation to fix her spine. This is a huge thing for her as she is nearly eighty and does not want to go through another major operation.
The other point of uncertainty, only time will tell that one!
Labels: contemplation, stress, work
Almost one month in to 2007
I am still reeling from the fact that in another ten days it will be a full month into 2007. Half the time I am still writing 2006 in the date!
The last few weeks back at work have been a real struggle, so much is going on and it has been very stressful indeed. 2007 is shaping up to be a year of immense change (all good), a lot of things are coming together for the boy, some things a lot quicker than planned I must admit, but nonetheless good things!
Much of what we do in life is a series of choices, sometimes we don't necessarily understand how large these choices are until we have made them. Whilst sometimes we have made hundreds, if not thousands of choices which all add up to huge changes / directions in life.
In the next several weeks / months it looks like some huge changes will happen, there is a great deal of uncertainty, expectation, fear and excitement all mixed in together. I don't deal with uncertainty very well, it grates and eats away at my conscious mind and makes me stressed and anxious, which for me is not a good thing to be!
Things are falling into place, pieces are joining together and a new picture is being drawn!
For myself personally I am quite ambitious, but not in a fully traditional manner. I kind of fell into my career, not quite by engineering what I do, but by in some ways my side interest and hobby becoming my career.
I often vacillate between loving what I do and hating it! If there is one thing about my job that I hate, it is dealing with clients who expect more than promised or more then they are entitled too.
Conversely one of the things that I enjoy is clients that appreciate it when I do actually go the extra mile (of which I generally give much more then promised).
The other thing I love about what I do is the ability to sometimes push back and make my own choices. Things have been changing with what I do for quite a while, I moved the office to a much better location, I have started a re-development of our major application to to grasp more firmly at the wheels of change and have convinced many many people that my vision is something special.
So 2007 is a year for my vision to take on an even larger stage!
Labels: contemplation
Looking toward 2007 last post for 2006
After my post the other day on 2006 and what I have achieved, this post looks at where I want to achieve in 2007.
I have sorted the goals into categories, or material and more emotional / physical.
Material Goals for 2007
- Double my businesses revenues
- Increase the net operating profits for the business
- Achieve the specific goals set out for the business
- Launch the new SAAS application by the end of April 2007
- Launch the two new sites by the end of May 2007
- Finally finish the story Life at a Private School once and all!
Emotional / Physical Goals for 2007
- Get to at least 75 kgs with less then 11% body fat
- Improve my actual fitness level to "above average" *in terms of my age, heart rate, endurance etc*
- Follow on with more Yoga to de-stress on a more regular basis
- Take more time out from working in the form of exercise and other activities apart from the computer
Whilst these may seem like new years resolutions, I don't 'do' resolutions. These are natural progressive goals that I have been working on for a long time and they are the next steps in what I have already been doing or achieving!
I always feel that to many people, when they set ' resolutions' they are
un-achievable or not something that is realistic.
So there we have the goals and objectives for 2007, So what are your objectives for 2007?
And more importantly how are you going to achieve them? I am intending to post some of my tactics for achieving the goals and
objectives.
Tag on Goals and ObjectivesSo now I am going to tag some people with writing their own goals and objectives. The rules for the tags are:
- Choose no less then two blogger friends
- Each friend tagged must post their goals and objectives for 2007
- They must then in turn tag another at least two people
- The tagged blogger must be notified by a blog comment on their blog so they know!
I am tagging,
Brenton,
Mark Darien,
Alex,
Dan,
Phil,
Nick,
Narcicuss, sorry guys but I love reading all your blogs and chat to a few of you on a semi regular basis and I wanna push
ya'll!
I will be mobile posting tonight from a view of the fireworks over Sydney Harbor at nine and then midnight! So what out of a post provided my phone works!
Labels: contemplation
Looking Backwards 2006 a year in review
Looking back at the last year I have had to really think about what was achieved and what was missed.
Probably the most important thing I achieved last year was
stopping smoking, which I did on the 15
th of February after attending an
Allen Carr's Easy Way Clinic. For those of you who smoke and want to stop smoking, I cannot
recommend this course enough. It truly was something that really made the final piece of the stopping puzzle all fall into place so much easier.
I certainly have managed to take far more control of my own mental and physical well being in the last twelve months, although it is still and up and down process at times. I have not had a bad panic attack since 2005, although certain situations still make me anxious, meetings are probably by and far my most difficult. I have learnt all these coping mechanisms to help me work my way through these situations, the best one has been to tell people at the start of meetings!
I have recognised that the more stressed in general I am, the more likely I am to feel anxious, which in turn the more likely I am to have the feeling of having a panic attack. So I am working on my overall stress levels by exercise and general relaxation techniques.
On my body shape front I have made some enormous gains this year, with a whopping 8 kilograms of weight gained. Whilst one kg of this has also been fat, the overall transformation of my shape has been nothing short of amazing! I am currently hovering between 72 - 74kgs and somewhere between 12 - 14% body fat. Still a tad higher than I want for the body fat but I will be setting some very specific goals for next year on that front.
What I do not know is how unfit or fit I am, and I unfortunately believe that I am quite unfit even with the level of exercise I do!
From a personal development standpoint I have learnt and applied two major new technical skills which have mad a huge impact in my work and business life, and in my business I have nearly doubled the revenue and look set to not only double the revenue again next year but should also see the operating profit triple!
There have been some sad times as well this year, with the passing of an old friend, Christopher, but that has been tempered by the re-acquainting of an old friend too.
So that's in a nutshell the year that was, the good achievements, not dwelling on the failures! So later I will start to set my goals for 2007 and the tactics of how I will be achieving them!
Labels: contemplation
I am a thirty something married gay boy living in Sydney, almost on top of the gay scene but not in it!
Why Sometimes blue?, because I love blue, but also I am sometimes blue :)
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