On Friday I had my last conference call with my team of Sales Engineers. In 2009 I will no longer be a manager and will instead be an "Individual Contributor" SE on the Top 50 Accounts sales team. I am very excited about this change. But on Friday, the reality of the situation finally started setting; I will no longer be managing this team. It feels like a good time for this change and I am ecstatic about the great learning opportunity that will be my new role in the new year.
It also made me reflect today on the past year and past years, in fact. I wrote to a friend today that 2008 was not a good year. It wasn't terrible, but definitely not great. I then created an Excel list of all the major milestones in my life going back to 2004. There have been many significant events (moving to New York, Lasik surgery, job promotions, relationships, etc.) many great, some bad. 2004 and 2005 were good to great years. 2006, 2007 and 2008 definitely not so much.
It made me wonder if I have a good sense of how the next year will be before it even starts. I know for a fact that I thought that 2008 may not be a good year before it started. I was hoping I would be wrong because 2008 has the number "8" in it and 8 is good luck in Chinese and thus 2008 should be a good year. Well, it it wasn't great. I browsed back through my blog entries and indeed 2008 even started terribly - apparently I was stuck in travel and airplane delays and it was a painful start to 2008. The weddings of this year have been a great highlight as well as being with friends on trips and birthdays. But work had been a struggle. But all's well that end's well right? And 2009 is looking real good, work wise. I hope this good feeling I have will turn out to be true.
Finally, reading some of my old blog entries made me think that I sounded quite a bit immature in the blog posts. I would like to think I have actually gained some better self knowledge and maturity in going through some of the more painful moments and unwise mistakes of the past few years. (I may have even posted about maturity earlier.) Regardless, I feel ready to make great changes for improvement. It doesn't feel like an emotional reaction or based on regret. I just feel ready. Take it a step at a time and don't be too hard on myself.
2009, we have great hopes and aspirations for you!
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