Plans

The year of being 43 was meant to be the Year of Disciplined Execution, drawing from the Sean Covey book, namely : focus on the wildly important, act on the lead measures, keep a compelling scorecard and create a cadence of accountability. Looking back it is fair to say delivery on this was middling at best, with both high and low lights, summarised below: Highlights Daily Bible App story helped me maintain a semblance of devotional life Highest ever plant performance ranking at work in several categories, increased recognition at the plant of my M&C skills with several key solutions delivered Good earnings supplemented by decent performance in the stock markets Greater clarity around the next type of role for me: stay in Upstream M&C Corrosion Management, not necessarily projects etc Offered roles at bp and Shell after rigorous interviews, great boost to the morale that I can still mix it with the good guys Bonding with L, despite the distance and intermittent visits from me Lowlights Weight stayed high, didn’t manage to bring it down to the low 90s as anticipated Health was middling, a number of developing issues to keep a eye on as I transition into my late forties Beginning to feel like I am in a rut at my current job Didn’t blog/ write as much as I would have wanted 44: Legacy For the next run around the sun, the word which has bubbled to the fore of my mind is Legacy. It is one which has guided the core of my activities and decisions over the past few years albeit without being explicitly expressed. In a sense, it is a continuation of the Year of Disciplined Execution, as Legacy and its underpinnings should drive the definition of what is wildly important which is then executed in a disciplined manner. Legacy is also inextricably linked to the three interaction clusters of my life plan, personal, professional and public. Of particular importance for me in this context then is being healthy in every dimension of my life whilst adding value in each of those three clusters. ...

List of running actions and habits for 2019 for tracking, derived from The Year of Living Intentionally: Read The Hero With A Thousand Face Utilise the hero’s journey in updating my Life Plan Identify my band of friends and brothers and engage them individually once a month Identify devotional to use for 2019 (should involve reading 10 or less verses):YouVersion selected Track performance vs KPIs (various), report monthly, quarterly and annual Find web filter app for Linux and install Remove phone and laptop from bedroom Run >=25km a week Practice intermittent fasting Eat <100g of carbs per day Exercise daily (run or fitness blender) Limit coffee intake to one cup per day (morning) Explore options/ procure a blood pressure monitoring wearable Save >= 10% of net earnings (less GAYE) Restrict spend to <110% of budget Clarify medium/long term work plans (data science, corrosion/materials/welding/inspection) and location Update M&C roadmap, include gap analysis and closure plans (vs XoM competencies) Complete Data science Data Scientist track course, decide on Udacity Nanodegree Join a Data science for good meetup/ hackathon Identify/ complete a creative non fiction writing/ blogging course Learn to use kdenlive or other editing suite, also inkscape? Build list of books to read/ themes for 2019 Read a chapter of a book per day Write compassion kid once a quarter Identify/ complete assertiveness training/ coaching Find a mentor for work and personal life Call siblings / in-laws once a month, call Dad weekly Meet up with one of Rotimi, Deji A and Deji Ajayi once a month build stock picking tool (strategy and triggers) Identify app for tracking daily/weekly actions completed vs planned Determine my target macros (fat, protein, carbs) and total calories

Day 28 of the Art of Manliness 31 Days of Journaling Challenge is to gather my tools for a better life. Here goes: A Mentor: One of the clear gaps I have identified from the past year has been a tendency to isolate myself from people, both at work and in my personal life, one of the impacts of which has been a lack of oversight of my decisions. Mentors, in both my personal and professional lives, are a priority for me over the next year. Two people, EM and CG, come to mind as options for both domains. Engaging them with a view to seeing if this is something they’d like to help me out with is something I have added to my list of things to explore and conclude over the next year. A Mastermind Group: The AoM folks boil down a Mastermind group into a collection of similar irons which sharpen each other. Through my interactions with my friends in the corrosion business, I’d like to think the intent of this tool is being met already. Carefully selecting a mentor with corrosion expertise who also help provide coverage of this need, I believe. A Pocket notebook: My evolving journaling practice is loosely aligned to Austin Kleon’s (which is in turn inspired by David Sedaris’s). Discipline: All of the above require me to get off my backside and develop/ implement a number of habits consistently. Discipline is what will ensure I keep at these till they deliver value in my life. Enough self.

For Day 8 of the AoM 31 Day Journaling Challenge: Reflect on Your Career. – Work for me has focused on materials, particularly ferrous ones, and how they perform in a variety of oil and gas environments, on two continents; Africa of my birth and Europe where I have spent the last few years. My journey began in December of 2003 with being hired straight out of University in 2003 as a trainee engineer through progressing via a number of roles in various aspects of the corrosion and materials discipline and eventually leaving in October of 2008, thanks to a mixture of burn out and the opportunity to return to the university for graduate studies. Since graduating in July of 2009, I’ve gotten back into the Corrosion & Materials field first with a service provider and latterly with an oil & gas production company where I am Corrosion & Materials Technical Authority. ...

It feels as good a time as any to begin to think about beginning again, what with it being the start of the second half of the year (and there being no scientific basis for determining that this point on the earth’s arc around the sun is any more an origin than say 10.53 am on April the 16th). That it is bang in the middle of a particularly emotive season - bookended by H’s birthday and mine, with her passing and her interment looming large over that six week period - also adds to that sense of an ending, and a need to draw a line in the sand and begin again. ...

It felt like I coasted through 2017 in many spheres of life with the main (only?) thing of significance that occurred being getting married to S in October. I’d like 2018 to be a vastly different one, filled with energy and intention and delivery. The seven focus areas in my life plan apply, with a few (Spiritual, Physical & Health, Financial and Personal Development) being focus areas. A successful 2018 for me is one in which I: ...

Image Source As has been the case with every year since I can remember, I rang the new year in at church, taking the opportunity to reflect on 2016 and my plans for 2017 as the year turned. As part of preparing for that, I took time out to reflect on where I was on achieving the wider goals that underpin the seven focus areas I have identified as part of my Life Plan. It is fair to say that it makes for gory reading, the details of which I’ll have to spare you. The cliff notes version is that, like everyone else, there are a few areas where I am pretty much where I want to be (Causes & Charity, Work & Career), a few where I have put in a decent shift (Financial, Physical & Health, People and Social) and a couple where I’ve gone backwards since the end of 2015 (Spiritual, Personal & Mental Development). ...

The following are what I consider my main focus areas and objectives for 2017, derived from the Life Plan. A number of these are long running things I have failed to resolve over the years. Here’s hoping 2017 is a much better year. The Life Goals Restated for visibility: 1. Be the best husband, father, brother, son and friend that I can be 2. Excel in the Corrosion, Materials and Asset Integrity Engineering Discipline 3. Live in, and contribute to life in, a great church and a great city ...

I am big on putting together grand plans, ones which go to a great level of details to spell out the things I want to do and achieve. Where things have fallen down over the past few years has been in the application; the hard, long slog that is the doing needed to bring the plans to fruition. It would appear that in this regard I am like most people, particularly as this relates to New Year’s resolutions. This gap - this disconnect between what I want to do and what actually happens - is most obvious in the area of my spiritual practice. As an example, getting to a place where a daily time of prayer and bible study is embedded in my daily routine is one of the key things I have wished for over the course of the last few years. This has tended to be more a source of frustration than inspiration in my case, especially as these failings drive a sense of cognitive dissonance. ...

It feels like a trick of time, a sleight of hand drawn from the very top tier of a Houdini play book, but the facts – borne out by the calendar I have open in front of me, and the worn pages in the notebook I bought a couple of months ago - tell a different story; a record, as stark as it is of just how much time has passed in 2016 already. ...