Hey everyone! This is my very last Groundhog Day Resolutions (GHDR) report, as I don’t plan on doing it in 2020. GHDR is primarily a way to remember WHEN to do yearly goal setting and periodic progress assessment, but over the past 13 years it seems that I’ve not made substantive PROGRESS. At least it FEELS that way, so I am thinking this might be a good time to try something new next year. Hopefully this will bring a fresh perspective as question everything anew!

That said, it has been a pretty good year, filled with tasty personal insights and revelations that will help me figure out what to do next. I just wish that I had more sense of closure on achieving my goals. As I reviewed the past reports for the year, it occurred to me that maybe if I got the same sense of enjoyment I get from learning how to make pineapple cakes (picture above), then maybe I would feel better!

Making pineapple cakes was rewarding in the following ways:

• Friendship! I made these particular pineapple cakes for the office manager at my doctor’s office, which is closing permanently at the end of December.
• Sharing Superlative Experiences! Professionally-baked pineapple cakes are a popular gift in my ethnic homeland of Taiwan, and sharing the story and taste with curious friends to experience for themselves is very enjoyable.
• Expanding Skills! Most people buy their pineapple cakes, but they are hard to find good ones here in the USA so creating them myself is one way of empowering myself while also learning new skills. I’d never made a pastry before, and this experience is the foundation for future baking!
• Practicing Creativity! Creativity is a kind of muscle that is developed, starting with an idea and progressing through stages of discovery through challenging uncertainty.
• Iterative Refinement! Ultimately I want to make great pineapple cakes, and learning to critically experiment and taste my way through failures is my preferred style of learning.
• Tangible, Tasty Rewards! Sweet, sweet victory is mine to share and enjoy with my friends and friends to be. In my ideal world, my experiments are part of a virtuous cycle that inspires all of us to explore, learn, build, and share their creative endeavors.

In hindsight, the way I do Groundhog Day Resolutions is based on the idea that process and discipline are the central core of productivity; if I apply steady disciplined process to my goal-seeking activities, surely progress will follow. While each attempt has yielded a certain amount of productive work, it’s always felt somewhat artificial; despite the diligent tracking and regular assessment showing that I’ve been creating things, it seemed that my strategic goals were always over the next year’s horizon.

I’m not sure what I’ll change in 2020, but I’m thinking the next approach will be more like making pineapple cakes and less about perfecting process. There was a time when I needed to prove to myself that I had process, but at this point in my life PROCESS FALLS OUT OF MY BUTT. I don’t have to think about it…it just happens. The real challenge has always been something else: MOTIVATION perhaps, or IDENTITY+MEANING, or remnants of FEAR, UNCERTAINTY, and DOUBT regarding my ability to keep a roof over my head while maintaining SOCIAL CONNECTION that makes life worth living. I’ve explored all of those issues for years and have learned to manage them, and my gut says that there’s something else I haven’t seen, tried, or simply ACCEPTED…

But we’ll look into all that next year :-)

For THIS report, I’ll look at How I Did on my GHDR Goals, and then get into Lessons Learned. I’ll follow that up with Notable Insights and that’ll be it. I’m taking the rest of the year off to do holiday things and clean house.

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This is my long-delayed November Groundhog Day Resolutions Report, posted on December 5. After Thanksgiving it quieted down enough so I could do some THINKING about November, capturing a bit of it in this Procreate drawing (above) I made in-between chores.

So let’s recap up to November 11, even though it’s almost time to do the December 12 report! (more…)

Happy October! It’s time for yet another Groundhog Day Resolutions Update, which I have decided to do as just a picture (above). It took 4-5 hours to draw, but it was a novel way of approaching the report. I’ll provide a little more information in the RECAP. (more…)