Episode #129: My Year End Review

Finding Your Groove With Kathleen Thompson

You know, I always hated the end of year performance evaluations I did on myself and my team. The format was so restrictive. It didn’t really tell the whole story. So this year, I turned the annual review on its head. I tried it on myself, and thought I'd ’hare it with you. You might want to try it yourself.

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On This Episode

Rhythm of Life – Do You Wanna Dance?
Random Riffs – Melt, Melt, Melt
Feature Segment – My Year End Review

Today’s Quote

Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, ‘It will be happier.’ –Alfred Lord Tennyson

Rhythm of Life – Do You Wanna Dance?

Drew and I needed a dance song to round out the album we’re working on. I tried writing it a few times, and came up empty. Then on the plane I had an inspiration, or so I thought. It turned out the words were better for a ballad because they told a story. (I’ll probably save them for another song.)

So now we start over. Thinking about the type of person we want to dance with. Now it started to flow. Listen to the episode to hear a sample of our writing session. And imagine what it might sound like when it’s done!

Random Riffs – Melt, Melt, Melt

I love traveling, especially when I get to go somewhere warmer in the winter. But, it can be hard when we get a winter storm while I’m gone. The last storm left a sheet of solid ice covering the driveway.

I couldn’t wait for it to melt on its own. I had to chop it. As I worked, I found myself singing the song Jerry used to when he did it. Listen to the episode to hear Jerry’s song, and then my new one. You could sing it too.

Feature Segment – My Year End Review

As the teens came to a close, I found myself thinking about what I had learned and done in 2019. I decided to do a year-end review of my year. And share it with you in case you want to do one too.

These reviews are usually boring and tedious. They don’t get to the heart of what happened. They don’t tell the whole story. Or even a story at all. So I took it on myself to do a different type of review. To ask myself some important questions and see how I’d answer them.

Here are the questions:

1. What Brought Me Joy? And people. Art is what we remember long after other memories are gone.
2. What surprised me? That I ended up writing songs to put in an album. That’ wasn’t even a twinkle in my eye at the beginning of 2019. Listen to the episode to hear how it happened.
3. What am I most proud of? That I followed my curiosity and the path that seemed meant for me, even though I can’t see a clear end. Even with no guarantees.
4. What key lessons did I learn? I let fear stop me or slow me down much more than I had realized.
5. What does 2020 look like? Listen to the episode to find out what I think I’ll be doing in 2020. It should be interesting to see how much the year looks like I expected it to.

Now let’s talk about you. Why not do your own review, starting with some good questions? You can use mine ro come up with your own. You can share your findings in the comments, on my Facebook page, or keep it to yourself. It’s up to you.

Whatever you do in 2020 and beyond, focus on who you are becoming. You take yourself with you everywhere you go. So you might as well be someone you’d want to hang out with every day. So find your groove and make your life sing. I can’t wait to hear your song.

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