This is it – daily lesson #366 for this leap year 2012. What an adventure!
When I set the goal at the end of 2011 to write a daily lesson learned for 366 straight days with each post no longer than 366 words, I knew it was an ambitious goal. After all, I had only written a total of 16 posts in the nine months of having the blog during 2011. I was intrigued, however, hearing about recent year-long efforts of other bloggers. Could I do it? Would I stick with it? Would I really find that many things to write about?
It helped that I decided to live daily according to a framework around my 3 words: ground, stretch, reflect. That means spending time daily to ground myself in what is most important to me, stretching myself during the day to perform at a high level, and then spending time reflecting on the events of the day to capture at least one lesson in writing. It was a great framework and one that I will write about again soon.
Since the posts were reflections on the day, they could not be planned or written in advance. That made it a little scarier than tasks I can plan well ahead of time, but kept it fresh, real and genuine. The span of topics was equally unplanned. Some came from work – some from personal life. Looking at the tag cloud on the left of the blog page will tell you according to the size of the words shown which topics were written about the most. For example, relationships, communication, attitude, goals, business processes, and work-life balance were frequent themes.
The process of reflecting and writing concisely would have been valuable if nobody else read a word of any lesson. Still, I am incredibly thankful for the more than 10,000 views the blog received this year and for the 55 people who subscribe to receive notifications of new posts. Your comments and encouragement means much to me.
Stay with me in the coming days as I reveal what’s next. Tonight, however, when the giant Times Square ball drops to usher in 2013, I will be very thankful for leap year lesson #366 – Accomplishing big goals instills hunger for bigger ones.
Next Practices 
Awesome job my friend. I am inspired by you as always!
Thank you, Rodney! A very happy 2013 to you and your sweet family.
Jeff, thanks so much sir. Reading your blog was a great encouragement, not only because of what you wrote but because it pushed me to keep writing. I look forward to the year ahead.
Thank you, Eric. I’m enjoying your blog as well.
Good Lesson Jeff, Well congratulations on all of the lessons you did this year, It was a blessing to read them, Have a great New Year
Thank you, Tom, for the kind words and encouragement along the way.