what was your biggest non-monetary success this year? i asked this question on twitter, LinkedIn and facebook. this is post #3 – the first instalment is here, and the second here. (the ones with the @ denote twitter names).
@dorylanenter: new friendships i made
joanna poppink: transforming my front garden into a gorgeous, free chi flowing rock garden. i kept all the plants that were doing well. i covered bare spots with rivers of flowing mexican black smooth pebbles. the steep areas are now embedded with large black mexican stones. the plants grow better because the rocks hold the slope and retain moisture. the stone change color in different light and moisture conditions.
i use half the water i used before. my neighbors pause to look. children stop to look and ask questions. i get reports now of how people linger on a regular basis and feel better, even nourished and inspired by the garden.
it cost very little because i did it myself. unlike most gardens, it requires little tending. i loved doing it. and now, like most gardens, it keeps giving.
katana: i quit smoking.
airdrie miller: owning my first dog, lucy, is my biggest success of 2009. lucy is a four month old shihtzu poodle. she is my new best friend. i love her.
@patientanon becoming even closer 2 someone where the relationship had 2 already withstand unbelievable trials 2 stay together over years
sanjib: my biggest non-monetary success in 2009 was getting into plan B trying to anchor myself in canada as a new immigrant. i used to be a journalist back in my home country of india as well as in taiwan. but now I am working in both the fast-food as well as retail sectors to learn and equip myself with those extra skills necessary to be successful here in canada.
@crpitt i think just keeping it together when the mum had her leg amputated was a success, using the power of humour and doodling
corinna carlson: the renewed relationship with my parents… was time there when i thought that was it, we wouldn’t be speaking again, they almost got a divorce this year, we ‘rescued’ my mom from bali while i dealt with three embassies and foreign affairs to get her out of bali, and somehow we’ve worked it all out and are a real family again..
@blissfulgirl i beat cervical cancer. it doesn’t get much better than that 🙂
@DTSuites finally getting my composter in the garden working efficiently, taking several theta healing workshops which have pushed me more toward energy healing and awareness than before. new year’s resolutions are now all about my continuing shift in awareness, personal and lifestyle goals…back to basics
@kattlea my non monetary success – healing enough to start playing guitar (although that cost a lot of money)
hera (a recent canadian immigrant): my success – got along with the canadian working environment more and more, completed several projects including writing the reports.
karen: firstly, all my successes necessarily have to be non-monetary: i was let go of both my contract gigs, and now i’m an overworked graduate student working part-time and not pulling in rent! i’m not ready to write-off the year entirely
looking back, i think the most important success i can name is really coming to grips with how important knowing thine self enables being true to said self. acknowledging, accepting, relentlessly cataloguing, reminding, remembering… it never really dawned on me how quickly it can shift and how much i’m still thinking of myself as i was 10 years ago, until really just now. i think realizing that is a success in and of itself! everything flows from this first and foremost: what i want to do, what i’m good at, where i can provide the most value, how i go about asking to be paid for this awesome i do…and how best to communicate this to others and to ask for acceptance for who i know myself to be.
monica: i have to say speaking as one of the keynote speakers at a conference was quite a success. as usual, i was (very) concerned about doing a good job (i’m a little nutty like that), and was quite relieved that it went well. (here is the video)
craig (a piano player):  howard and i had a concert called “a nutcracker christmas” scheduled. the day before the performance, howard came down with such a severely sore throat that he could not perform. almost all the planned repertoire was not useable without the clarinet part. with just 24 hours to go before the performance, it was not possible to find a replacement.
for a fleeting moment, my old being visited and i thought about canceling. include embarrassment, loss of income (the hall was rented) and frustration in all that. but, i am strengthening the muscle of stepping over my fears, and i quickly (like in 5 minutes) decided the show was to go on. the concert was just 2 seats short of being sold out. i was sticking my neck out. 45 minutes before the performance was to begin, i had all my christmas music spread out on the chapel floor and i was creating a program from scratch. we had promised the nutcracker, so i chose three of numbers from that suite that would work as vehicles for improvising. i had not tried this before. i chose 8 favourite carols that i could extemporize on. i had 3 classical masterpieces i could play. i walked into the music hall and calmly greeted all the guests as they arrived. then i entertained them for 2 hours. just about everyone went out of their way to say how delighted they were.
as recently as 5 years ago, i never, never improvised in public. as recently as 3 years ago, i only improvised in situations where i was background music and know one really seemed to be listening. i wrote down on my life rocks form when catherine wood was coaching me that i had the dream of being able to do a solo concert that was almost entirely improvised. and it happened …
@janaremy sent me something on twitter the moment i asked – and i just realized i lost her post. i think it was this one – it’s entitled what’s your dream? and starts like this: ‘a few years ago i dreamed that someday i would start each day with paddling on the ocean. but i thought to myself how ridiculous that was given my physical limitations, the difficulty of actually getting to the beach on a daily basis, the expense of procuring a boat, etc. it seemed…impossible, implausible, impractical. undo-able.”
finally, creativity coach roger von oech sent me his personal highlights for the decade, which involves, among other things, swimming, a fascination with the greek philosopher herclitus, and putting something whacky on a communist grave in russia.
sooo … what was YOUR success?