I have a few hours free this afternoon, so I thought I’d do an “end of 2011 look-back review type thing” blog post. I did a whole series of blog posts for the end of 2010, looking at the goals I set for that year, but this will be way shorter I guess. Why much shorter?<\/p>\n
Well, last year I didn’t post my “list of plans and goals for 2011” to the blog, and I don’t think I referred to it here during the year. One reason was that my new year’s resolution (if you can call it that) was something like “Set fewer goals for the year!”<\/p>\n
I didn’t want to be beholden to what January 2011 Luke wanted to spend time on when October 2011 Luke had changed his mind about it. On a weekly basis I have a larger creative output than almost anyone I know, so I have nothing to prove to myself or anyone else that I’m wasting my time, or that I’m a failure if I succeeded at only “35.05 out of a possible 50 plans and goals.” And yes, that was my success rate in 2010.<\/p>\n
So in 2011 I intentionally didn’t work towards to plans and goals on my list. If I had time free, I’d look over the list, and see if it inspired me, but otherwise I just worked on what I wanted.<\/p>\n
And, as it happened, some of the things I most proud of accomplishing weren’t on the list at all. For example:<\/p>\n
In January last year I never imagined I’d have the skills and material to do a whole new hour-long show. This is on top of the two hours of juggling material I have, AND on top of the (maybe) two hours of other music I could perform, and all of it original material. <\/p>\n
I think that’s pretty cool. Right?<\/p>\n
Who knows, maybe this year I’ll actually do a full-length solo music show, rather than just performing sets in longer shows.<\/p>\n
All that aside, here are a few things from my list of plans and goals for 2011 that have been fun to track. <\/p>\n
Partial win! I don’t have much control of this one, as I don’t make most of my travel plans. As it happened I visited 18 new countries in 2011.<\/p>\n
I also made sure I got a video of me juggling in every country I visited in 2011 (win), even those I only passed through without leaving the airport. <\/p>\n
Win! Berlin and the EJC, plus the French Convention, Brianza Convention in Italy, Portland in the USA, and Passout in Germany at the end of the year. I’d never been to a convention in Italy before, so that was cool. <\/p>\n
Win! I won in Berlin, but JJ didn’t take part. I lost badly at the EJC. No bonus.<\/p>\n
Win! 8 open stages over 8 nights. There was stress in the organization as a whole, but I deflected it all by being more professional and confident than others, and hopefully the stress didn’t leak out too far into the venue I had to control.<\/p>\n
Win! I broke a few. The most “impressive” record was 5 club backcrosses. I worked on it many hours in the spring, up to an hour day for many days, and smashed my old record. It now stands at 50 catches, though my 5 year plan back in 2001 was to get 100 catches. I’m okay with never reaching that goal, even after 10 years.<\/p>\n
Win? I’m not sure if I did practice more or less than previous years, because this is the first year I’ve tracked how much I juggle. I think I’ll release the nerdy numbers as a separate blog post.<\/p>\n
Other juggling and performing goals included working on new material (win), building new props (win), developing routines which don’t need more equipment than I already carry (win), finishing the construction of “The Room” set (progress, but nowhere near finished), writing the show “Powercut” (fail), and working with other jugglers and artist on material for the above shows (win).<\/p>\n
I had some writing goals, but this was tricky. Half way through 2010 I decided to keep a diary, and writing about 1,000 words per day for my private diary took up so much of the energy that would normally be spent writing fiction. I did manage to make progress on various novels. I even completed one novella and recently published it on my website.<\/p>\n
I intentionally left this even more vague than others. Photography is something I’m still getting better at on a monthly basis, and until that stops, I don’t think I need to think about setting myself other goals.<\/p>\n
My only goals were to learn more about small strobe photography (win), to learn more about self-portrait photography (win), and to set up a photo studio in my juggling studio at home (partial win). <\/p>\n
By the numbers:<\/p>\n
The numbers are nowhere close to last year’s success rate, but last year I put down loads of things that I knew<\/em> I would succeed at anyway. Things like “continue to record the SFBRP podcast”, and even without trying I put out 32 episodes of science fiction reviews. And a lot of them were really simple too, like “buy a new camera bag”. How much effort does that take? Nothing compared to writing a whole novel!<\/p>\n And, as I said before, I decided to be happy to go on flights of fancy with my plans and goals and dreams. <\/p>\n I’m super happy with 2011, and how much I achieved in terms of life accomplishments and creative output. I even found an awesome girlfriend, and she is going to be included in many of my plans and goals for 2012.<\/p>\n But that will be a whole other blog post.<\/p>\n New for 2012: I’m turning off comments on my blog. Since early 2009, when I started this blog, there have only been about 10 comments really worth my time reading and approving. And for each of those, I responded individually by email, or created a new blog post. All the others were fine, but not worth wading through the spam. <\/p>\n So from now on, I’ll just leave my email address at the bottom of each post. If you have something to tell me, please email me. I’ve done this since 2008 on my SFBRP podcast, and have developed really strong relationships via email with my listeners. I’d love to replicate that here. Just so you know, I reply to every email:<\/p>\n luke@juggler.net<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have a few hours free this afternoon, so I thought I’d do an “end of 2011 look-back review type thing” blog post. I did a whole series of blog posts for the end of 2010, looking at the goals … Continue reading
\n