The year has turned, and the time for reflection has come. Last year, around this time, I made a list of yearly goals. Now, a year later, let’s see how well I fared:

• Live here and now: I would say that this goal is achieved only partly. It remains a constant challenge for this year too, and, dare I say, a lifelong task.
• Eat as healthy as possible: With small exceptions, I eat almost exclusively healthy food. It makes my body and mind feel excellent, and I am in a rather good shape.
• Rest, relax, meditate. Only partly. Could work better on it. World’s just too hectic! :)
• Sport: Succeeded on a very large scale. I cycled hundreds of km in difficult terrains, practiced swimming, dancing, volleyball and others.
• Read more.  Very proud to say this has succeeded and I even surpassed my goal of 5 pages per day. I read 2 full thick books, and I started a third one. I also read numerous pages of (physical) quality newspapers (e.g. Daily Mirror, The Sun..^^, kidding of course, not these)
• Concision: I kept paying attention. It has improved.
• Speak less (and slow), listen more. Also did my best here. Often I remain quiet on purpose, and speak less, resulting in some colleagues asking: “You are more quiet than the usual Alex”. I feel this improved significantly, but it could improve still.
• Write neatly: Mostly successful. Dawn Piper, a friend of mine, once said, upon seeing my groceries list: “Your handwriting is so neat!”. Albeit perhaps too kind a remark, it was encouraging I kept focusing on it. Could do better though!

In conclusion, I am glad to say that a significant part of my yearly goals have been reached, albeit some only partly. However, what we must remember: even if you only achieve half, or a quarter – does not matter, you tried, and that was the best you could do, and it was better than nothing!

On another note, I have also made some other achievements, outside the set goals – I learned a new piece on the piano, I learned how to dance Horo dances (traditional Bulgarian dance), which was particularly handy during my brother’s spectacular wedding last September. Notably, after years of postponing, I obtained my driving licence from the first attempt, in a short period (two weeks), with 100% rate on my theory exam.

The above gives me good feeling to go into my next year’s goals, which I will soon lay out on my blog. Stay tuned :)