At the beginning of 2013 I wrote about my goal, theme and challenge for the year. I’ve posted a few updates throughout the year but want to take some time now to review them more in depth.

2013 Goal: Create With My Hands

Self Grade: 8/10

Going into the year I believed that there was value in creating things myself and that often they also would better serve my needs and/or last longer than mass produced alternatives.

After building a number of items, I have only strengthened my hold on those beliefs. There is a joy of craftsmanship. Each time I use one of my self-made items I feel a sense of renewed accomplishment.

Here are the five projects I completed this year:

• Surfboard
• Cribbage board
• Sleeping/storage platform for my truck
• Tool storage dolly
• Wetsuit glove drier

2013 Theme: Grow As A Leader

Self Grade: 8/10

Just to be clear, I am not scoring my leadership abilities, but rather my efforts this year to grow in them.

Starting early in the year, I immersed myself in a leadership role, taking a step back from most of my individual contributor responsibilities and doubling down on leading teams as a product manager. I of course supplemented this with a few books, many philosophical conversations with mentors and a good bit of experimentation.

I’ve learned a lot about different team dynamics, personality types and one-to-many communication. Though I understood the importance of these before, in theory, I now have a few more notches in my belt and arrows in my quiver.

I suppose this is something I’ll continue to grow in throughout 2014 as I take on a new leadership role – my wife and I are expecting our first child this spring.

2013 Challenge: Surf Mavericks

Self Grade: 0/1 1/1

My rating for this challenge, unfortunately, has to be binary and as of today I have not yet surfed a big wave at Mavericks.

That said, since this was my challenge, I am using my discretion to make an adjustment.

Mavericks typically breaks during the winter season between November & February. Although I have prepared, I have not yet, in the first half of this winter’s window, had an opportunity that I felt was satisfactory to attempt to conquer the giant.

So in the last days of the year, rather than hastily rushing into a dangerous situation in non-ideal circumstances, I decided to extend my cutoff to the end of this winter season. If I surf Mavericks before the season is over, I will consider the challenge complete – though I might dock myself some points for the late delivery.

I will of course loop back and update this post.

UPDATE: On January 25, 2014 I surfed Mavericks. Shy of a month late, but a success nonetheless.

Conclusion

I did pretty well at these efforts this year which tells me I need to reach a little more next year. I’ll be reflecting for a few days at which point I’ll set my 2014 items.