2011: The Year in Review

I spent most of yesterday working on my goals for 2012

Broken down into the main categories of Writing, Music, Finance, Health, my goals give me a definite plan of action for the year ahead.

Today's post however, isn't really to talk about those goals at all. In fact, I only mention them due to the contrast between now and my life this time last year, when my only goal was not to have a goal at all.

Yes I know, this may seem counter-productive and goes against everything anybody will ever tell you about how to achieve more in your life, but as 2010 turned into 2011, the changes in my personal circumstances left me feeling free to head into the unknown.

Looking back, that's certainly a direction I'm glad I traveled.

In the early part of the year, it took me a freezing cold LSV Stadium. where I spent a good couple of Sundays trying my hand at sports journalism, covering Leigh Centurions home games.

OK, so reporting on rugby league wasn't to be my calling, but it was good fun whilst it lasted, and I believe the work I did during that brief period benefited my writing style in the long run.

As winter transitioned into spring, I spent most of my time taking The LINC Online and building it from scratch in a new CMS which, to put it bluntly, was quite the pain in the arse.

To be fair, I did learn some valuable new skills, got to work with a brand new system and starting from scratch on a site that had been growing into something of a beast over the last five years allowed us to scale down and really focus on a number of key areas.

Still, I won't deny that I was quite glad once that project was taken care of and I could move quite happily into my own Summer of Awesome Music.

It was a summer which, after selecting the line-up for this year's Haigh Fest and meeting most of the bands, began properly with my wonderful trip to Minnesota, which was mostly for the purposes of hanging out with Stace and meeting her family, but had the added bonus of a trip to the beautiful city of Hibbing and a sneak at Bob Dylan's childhood home.

I got back from America just in time for the Haigh Live concerts, followed by arguably the biggest and best Haigh Fest to date.

From there, we had the memorable trip to Samlesbury with Colour Me Blind and  some awesome performances from bands like The Hicks, Jeramiah Ferrari and Rescue The Eskimo at Bands for all.

The musical summer finally wrapped up with a three-day slog managing Millstone Rocks. 

That festival was undoubtedly one of the most rewarding things I've ever worked on, but it sure was hard work, so I was glad when August slipped into September and things began to quieten down somewhat.

Of course, the winter months weren't without their own memorable moments.

Between receiving a place to run the 2012 Virgin London Marathon, writing for Lifehack.org  and getting my act together ready for the big charity gig in January, I've been  busy the last couple of months working hard on a couple of projects, all of which I'm hoping to see flourish in 2012.

Over all then, 2011 wasn't without it's challenges, but by seizing those challenges and overcoming them, I find myself in a much better place than I was this time last year, with a much clearer direction and a whole bunch of exciting goals that I can't wait to get to work on in 2012.

Couldn't be bothered reading all that? You can check out some of the highlights of my year in the timeline below.

on Dipity.