I’ve Finally Said Goodbye to 2008!
| by Paula Brett |
Yes, I’ve finally cleared my desk and am ready to launch myself into 2009! A very happy New Year to all my readers. I can feel it in my water that it’s gonna be an exciting year 
I expect you think it’s a bit odd that I’m launching my New Year when we’re already half way through January? Well, I have to come clean and tell you that when I look back at 2008, I was a bit skittish; a bit flighty; a bit of a flibbity-gibbit. I don’t know why but I just couldn’t settle down and finish many of the things I started.
I’m sure you know the scenario…. you have this brain-wave, this fantastic idea for a product or a project, you get all excited about it and you rush off and buy the domain name — you get started, then something else grabs your attention and you’re off on another tangent. And by the time you get back to that original idea, your enthusiasm has wained, or the project doesn’t seem like such a good idea after all!
Well, I feel as if this happened to me quite a lot in 2008 and it bugged the hell out of me all year. It was like I was floating outside of my body and watching myself doing it; being aware of it, knowing that it was gnawing away at me but refusing to do anything to put a stop to it. I was just coasting along. Not a great feeling!
Of course, I was still making money from my products and projects that were completed but I wasn’t pushing myself to go on and `rinse and repeat’, which is what I talked so much about in my first post of 2008 when I was looking back at what I’d done in 2007.
It was only when I was chatting to my friend, Peggy Baron, on Twitter and she told me that that post was her favourite and she asked me if I was going to make a similar post looking back at 2008, that I started to really assess my performance last year in the cold, hard light of day.
I wasn’t impressed and I have to say it was quite uncomfortable!
Too many half finished, half realised projects – that’s what last year was all about for me. So, that’s why I’m only now saying that I’m ready to launch myself into 2009. Like an office worker who has to clear their intray by the end of the each day, I couldn’t say goodbye to last year until I had cleared my 2008 intray. So, I’ve spent couple of weeks going through all my stuff – my online real estate, as some people like to call it.
I’ve scrapped some projects that were half started, so they won’t bug me this year, they won’t be at the back of my head yelling “finish me”. And, most importantly of all, I’ve taken steps to go ahead and finish other projects that are viable and that I still have enthuisiasm for and that I still believe in.
I feel that I’m starting 2009 with a great weight lifted off my shoulders.
So for me, 2009 is all about
- Discipline and planning
- Following things through to the very end
- Staying focussed
- Risking failure
- Bursting through that membranous wall that is my comfort zone and surprising myself
How about you? Can you relate to some of the things I’ve mentioned? Were there things you did in 2008 that you’re determined to kick to the curb this year? Are you starting this fresh New Year of 2009 with optimism and enthusiasm? Do leave a comment and tell me how you’re going to be moving forward this year.