Week 2 progress and Year End Annual Review

Hola! Feliz Navidad!

The past week has simply been amazing. I’ve made solid progress and have been able to nearly get a lesson in everyday this week even with the holidays.  As with anything, learning a language is a marathon and not a sprint.  The lessons are getting incrementally more difficult but my vocabulary is increasing quickly.   Conjugating verbs and getting different tenses down is increasingly difficult.  I am intent on keeping the momentum going into the new year.  I have some friends, Mike and Marcella, who speak spanish at home (Marcella is from Chile’) and I hope to spend much more time with them. Perhaps we can set up some spanish only nights where we watch a movie in spanish and just talk. It would be fun.

On a separate note, I follow the blog: The Art of Non Conformity by Chris Guillebeau and was reading his annual review that he did in 2011. He does it every year but I just started getting in to it.  This years post was pretty interesting so I decided to give it a shot on my own.

He has a very simple format for evaluating your past year:

What went well in 2011? and

What went wrong in 2011?

For me, what went well in 2011 was: 1) Graduating from Babson with my MBA.  2) Making a major change in my life and securing some solid employment. 3) reaffirming my conviction to get my own business up and running online or off. 4) Taking a stab at another relationship.

What went wrong in 2011? 1) Franchise partnership falling apart right at the critical moment. This was the killer in the year that really set me back mentally and financially 2) Financial situation has not improved as greatly as I wished. 3) Lack of confidence in my ideas and abilities. Overall, I am a highly confident person but lately I have doubted my plans and goals.  I need to find something to sink my teeth into that really motivates me.  Really though, it is as Seth Godin says, “Do the work when you don’t want to.”

Anyway, I will keep everyone updated with my progress with my spanish lessons and get back to you next week with 2012 goals and how I plan to get there.  Until then! Adios!

JK

 

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Making the changes.. Week 1 progress

Wow. I really have to make some small adjustments in my day to make this work. Week 1 has gone well but I haven’t gotten in a lesson everyday.. It’s going to be crunchtime by the end of the month.. 5 lessons down.

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Ground rules and December 2011 Challenge

Since this is the first month of the blog and the open challenges I want to lay down the ground rules for the challenges I have to complete.

In “the genesis” post I never really got a chance to talk about the rules for the challenges, what the intended purpose of them is, and how I hope they are interpreted by you guys, the readers!

Ground rules. As simple as possible.

1) The challenge must be posted by the end of the day on the 12th day of the month.

2) The challenge must be completed by midnight on the final day of the month.

3) The challenge can be physical, mental, or anything in between.

4) The challenge must be a task that I have never COMPLETED before. It can be something I’ve attempted before.

5) The challenge can be completed in one day. The intent of the site is not to post challenges that take an entire month to complete. Although, there will challenges that take much longer.

That’s it.   The challenges will most likely be physical in nature of a while although I love to learn and there will be PLENTY of mental challenges.

I intend for the purpose of this blog to really just challenge myself and anyone else who wants to do new and challenging things in their life.   If I wanted to sit on my butt, I wouldn’t be doing this. I am just looking for an extra impetus to get me moving faster.

As for interpretation by you, the reader…. I hope you find it in yourself to follow along and either challenge yourself each month, complete my challenge with me, or suggest challenges to me.  Regardless it should all be fun!

Finally, for December’s challenge. Since this is the first month, I won’t make it too hard.  The challenge is to take 1 computerized foreign language lesson for every day of the month. So 31 lessons.  This is tough for me. I have been trying to stick to a lesson schedule for like 2 years now.  I will try again!

I will be using the Rosetta Stone for my computerized program and I will be learning Spanish.

I had planned to put some intense physical running challenge up but I believe I am developing plantar fasciitis at the moment and I don’t want to push my luck.

Good luck everyone!

Justin

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