The past year

The past 6 months have been a great growth experience for myself, both personally and professionally. It all started late last spring (2007) when I found myself pondering life and the direction my life was heading. I had really no idea what was wrong or why I was feeling the way I was feeling. I had (still have) a great job, a wonderful family and a great social network of friends and colleagues. But there was this lack of something - call it a mid-life crisis (wasn't really that serious) or some other name my life was missing something. So I started looking ....I began looking at all different aspects of my life and reading a bit from the library. Here I stumbled across Jack Canfield's book The Success Principles. This book is a great read (not one I would buy, but have borrowed it a couple times since from the library) but it was the one chapter about goals that made all the sense in the world to me.I realized what was missing very quickly and it was simply a goal. I had set goals many years before but through reading this one chapter I realized that I had not set any new goals for many years, and those that I had set - I had finally accomplished. I was lacking direction, a dream, and definitely lacking presence in my current job. I quickly took a look at my long-term dreams and hopes and set some new goals - and one of the most important goals that I have now set it to routinely reassess and readdress my current goals so I don't find myself in the same situation again. I also took a professional speaking course and will be a CAPS member by the summer; I have completed my first paid public speaking event, and have started reading and writing more (including this blog) on a daily basis. While I still do not have a clear picture of the next 20 - 40 years, I feel like I have direction, purpose and my life is going forward rather than standing still.