Baby steps. (2008 in review)

I had been thinking of an appropriate way of summing up 2008 all throughout its last few days and could come up with nothing! I figured I'd just leave my annual New Year's walk down Old Year Memory Lane alone this year, and then I came across this clip. So appropriate!


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In 2007 I set a number of clear goals that I wanted for my life and positioned myself mentally to achieve them. It was also the year I commenced some very serious introspection and began to visualize what I wanted my life to be. This was the year I was introduced to the law of attraction and the year I began to understand how it worked in my life and could work in my life. I would say that 2007 was the year of foundation, and 2008 was the year of the baby steps taken towards realizing my goals.

Aww. I just read the last sentence in the previous paragraph. Sounds nice doesn't it? Taking baby steps towards my dreams for 366 days (remember 2008 was a leap year!) is a nice thing - a great thing really - and I'm proud to say that it's the truth. Every single freaking day of 2008 I was concerned with turning my visions into reality and how I would get that done. That, in itself is an accomplishment - a natural accomplishment for someone who is as serious as I am about turning my visions into reality. And so those baby steps towards my dreams were great but there were so many times that they sure as hell didn't feel great!! There were many days when it felt crappy. I accomplished some things but the hurdles I had to jump to get over the hurdles were quite high. But, I accomplished them.

One of the things I love about writing is that I can start out with one goal in mind for the piece and as the words flow, my idea for the piece evolves into something else. I started out writing this post thinking I'd post the video above about baby steps and connect the baby steps theme to a list of things I've learned, accomplished and gained in 2008. I've changed my mind and now I'm gonna run with this metaphor a bit (because you don't really need to know ALL my business, do you?). The way my mind can change while writing a piece is a lot like what happens as I pursue a dream - as I pursue, the dream can change. I found that this happened in 2008 in a tremendous way in two major areas of my life:

Career. The long story short of why I decided to become an attorney is that I want a career of service, helping people in a way they may not be able to help themselves, and making my love of words, writing and communication an important part of that career. I was actually inspired by reading this book to pursue the law - and all throughout law school the dream of being an attorney seemed to be pretty fixed in the arts. I wouldn't say that completely changed in 2008, but this year the dream morphed a bit - and now I want to pursue a career in the law that will lead me to working with education law and policy.

As a creative soul, there's no way I wouldn't be interested in working in the law as it relates to all creative outlets and it means something that during my time in law school, I kept attracting these sorts of opportunities and kept on meeting/dating other creative souls. But I feel passionate about education and the law - I think I always have but it didn't become clear to me until a couple of months ago - and the policy bit - yea. That's definitely new. The dream to be an attorney is still there - but it's taken on this whole new look.

Health. I've been wanting to lose weight since I was a little girl and my older cousins taunted me for being fat. True story. The why and the how I wanted to lose weight has changed quite a bit since then and in 2008, I suddenly added a "what" dimension to this whole thing - marathon running! I get all nervous and butterfly-filled just thinking about it. I think on this one the baby step came in making the decision to run one. It occured to me years ago that it would be something good to do but I'd always quickly discard the thought. Ms. YCV in full effect. In the summer of 2008, after making it through the marathon that is studying for the bar exam, it occurred to me that I should ignore Ms. YCV and go for it.

2008 was a rough year for me emotionally - full of highs and lows - but I kept on moving towards what I want for my life. As a typical Taurus, I move slow. Baby steps fall right in line with my natural way of getting things done. But you know what they say about the slow and steady types.

If you don't, I suggest you stay tuned.