2009 Stocktake

We are coming to the end of 2009 and all I can say is WOW, it sure has been one helluva ride! For me personally it has been fun, frightening, challenging, exhausting, overwhelming, but most of all fricking awesome! So here I am doing what I usually do at this time of the year, doing a stocktake of lessons, regrets, achievements etc. This helps me to work out my personal kinks by seeing what worked, what could have been improved on, how I have grown and where I want to go from here. Sure we all have a general life plan like 'I wanna be rich' or something like that, but after another 365, how much closer are you to becoming that person you aspire to be or owning xyz? As mentioned in my last video 'Gratitude 2009' I said that for me it has been a cerebral year. Indeed the majority of my small successes stemmed from 'eureka' moments found in the midst of quiet solitude. I spent a lot of time immobilised by incessant sickle cell crises that landed me in hospital about 3 or 4 times, and when they did not result in an admittance, I still found myself bed bound for weeks at a time. The upside was it forced me to try to find a way to still achieve something small each day, better yet, promote my book despite my inability to get out on the street and work a good hustle. Now I had heard of book trailers, but I didn't have the funds to invest in one, which at the time was going at the rate of $300. But hey, reading is fundamental, so that's exactly what I did. From what I could see, they were just a series of static pictures with words that floated on and off them. I researched hard into finding out how to make one myself. After all, for a part-time geek like me, how hard could it be? Turns out it was simple, just a case of a couple of hours to learn the necessary software. Score! I now had a movie clip that I could put all over the Internet and have many more people viewing it and learning about my book even as I slept! But more importantly, I had learnt a new skill that had a lot of potential. This eventually had me create a new channel on youtube, from which many more videos could be viewed.

Everytime I took ill, I found a way to turn my negative into a positive by coming up with a new idea for how to promote my book and keep myself from going crazy with boredum. The conclusion I reached was that, where my body couldn't take me, my mind would exceed that journey. All the effort I put into promoting my book online assisted in developing a reputation ahead of myself offline. I've even had a young woman approach me with her credentials as an actress for when my book gets made into a movie LOL.

I can't say I have any regrets, because I made it my quest to re-channel any energy that could be perceived as negative, into a positive. If anything that is something I wish to continue into 2010 with. Overall I think my motto will remain the same; don't work harder, work smarter. Quit trying to physically be in 100 places for the sake of short term results.

On a personal note, I believe I tell myself this every year, but for some reason I fail to follow through; be selfish, I want to put the same amount of effort into myself as I do everyone else. N9ne Day (09/09/09) was a wonderful day for me. I turned off my phones and treated myself to a whole pampering package, hair done, mani, pedi, facial, massage and photo shoot. I'm not going to wait for another special event to take place for me to be worth it. 2010 is personal ;)