2011 New Year's Resolutions Revisted

So, almost a year ago, I posted my New Year's Resolutions. I better you wonder how that went for me... well, mostly pretty well and I'd love to share my results with you while I brainstorm for next year. Overall, this has been an amazing year for me. I had a ton of goals and no - I didn't meet all of them but I crossed off a lot of important ones.

Before I get started on the other goals, I want to address the one I didn't put. I really wanted more than anything to get a new job this year. I realized I had gotten to a point where I realized what I wanted to do and I wasn't going to do it staying where I was. Looking for a job isn't easy in this economy but luckily, I knew what I wanted. Once I wrapped my head around that, and how to explain why I would be good for that, I landed a job that fit my skills to a tee.

• Pass the CFA Level II - Well, I didn't pass this year. At first I was really bummed. I wasn't sure if I wanted to try again and I start evaluating how much I enjoyed working in finance. I had been looking for jobs in a research role but I started considering getting more involved in operations. That's about the time that my current position popped up. It was a hybrid operations/research role. I've only been there a couple of months but I've already seen a lot of CFA topics come up. A few weeks ago, I signed up again.
• Pass the lead climbing test - Eek, two fails in a row. I really dropped the ball on going to the gym as much as I thought I would. 
• Speaking of climbing... climb an 11.b or maybe even an 11.c - .Well, we got the 11.b out of the way early so guess it's time to shoot for the 11.c?
• Don't put a relationship before yourself - I don't think I'm the right person to judge if I succeeded at this but I did learn a couple of things. Don't be with someone because it's easy or nice, be with someone because it feels right and nothing less. Even if you find something that feels right, find a balance.Maybe that was the point I was trying to make with this one - If you start dating someone that's great but don't start ditching your friends, move to another country, join a cult, make some drastic career change or otherwise do something that you wouldn't have wanted to do otherwise. In that sense, I think I succeeded (unless you count traveling to another country... in my defense, I wanted to do that, but perhaps not at the exact time. However, maybe sometimes that's the encouragement you need?).
• Think before you speak -Yea, this one probably still needs some work. I try, but I'm really quite awful at it. 
• Pay off my car loan - Done! And what a relief too. 
• Build a little bit of a nest egg - But unfortunately, the point before and the two points after made this one really hard to achieve. However, I think I'm in a good place to be able to do this next year now that I've knocked out a really big expense in my life.
• Dress better - I guess this is subjective too, but I did make a strong attempt to buy nicer work clothes and shy away from some of the ill-fitting, stained or ripped clothes (that were oh so comfortable) that I'd had since the start of my career. I slowly started replacing some of those items and made a lot of donations to Goodwill and now I think my closet has grown up a little. I really bought into that "dress for the life you want, not the life you have" motto and thought that nicer clothes would give me the confidence to get the kind of job I wanted. Maybe it did, but then again, I ended up in an office where jeans are a daily option (but, in keeping with the spirit of the resolution, not an option I exercise every day).
• Travel somewhere new - I would like to think that the overwhelming success that I had with this resolution could make up for the others. I went to so many new places (about 4 of them being exceptionally high on my list, I'll star them for you because I know you're curious) that I really knocked this out of the park.I also just loved this idea. I think it's one I want to keep on my list for the next few years. The new places I went this year: Amsterdam*, Brussels, New York*, Washington D.C.*, Munich* and Vienna. The places I didn't go that I hope to next year: Chicago, Madrid, Lisbon, and Mexico.
• Be nicer - Again, one that's hard to quantify. I'm not going to put so many of these on my list for next year.
• Keep in touch with my relatives more - This is one that I didn't even need to try for - it just kind of happened. Like I said originally, the older I get, the more I appreciate my family and want to spend time with them. I think my family really needed to be close this year, but even aside from that, I made sure to visit a little more and appreciate the time with them.
• Keep up with my blog - I know I really failed at this the last couple of months. I realized that I'm getting to the point where I can't blame it on the new job... I think the changes I plan to make will help a lot because I do better when I write about the experiences that I really loved. I also like the idea of writing some posts just about where I am. The last year and a half have been crazy for me. I faced a lot of challenges and it was hard, but every one of them taught me something. There is a quote that I love - "Sometimes things need to fall apart so better things can fall together" that kind of explains it all. You appreciate what you almost lost, you learn to find something better when you're not happy, you see the world and discover things you never learned in school, you realize what kind of people you want to have in your life, and you figure out how to get over the little things. This is supposed to be a blog about the things I do, but I think the lessons learned and the experiences have been much more valuable.