I’m trying to scrape this post together over the din of my mother relentlessly pestering everyone to clean up our respective rooms, as if having a clean room on the first day of the New Year will be an omen that it will stay that way the entire year. Mother, this is my 23rd New Year in this world — we both know that isn’t true.

Anyhow, as promised, here’s the first part of my Annual Review. Largely based on Chris Guillebeau’s method, I’m splitting it into two separate blog posts: looking back, and looking forward. I really like this first part: going through all my posts from the past year — because it’s always nostalgically surprising to see how much has changed in 12 months.

Highlights of 2011: Things I’m most thankful for

This year was the year where I was truly myself: I found my own voice and owned it, both writing and real-life wise. This was also the year where I put my heart and soul into researching for and doing leg work for something really, really close to my heart. Fruit of that labor? I ended up co-writing an actual piece of national legislation. :)

But there are seriously a lot more things that kept me grounded in gratitude in 2011. Here’s a glimpse of my 2011, in pseudo-polaroids. (The brief descriptions are underneath the photos, but each one is clickable! It will take you back to the actual blog post.)

Falling short: Things that need improvement

Theme for 2011: Focused Expansion

My word for 2010 was EXPERIMENTATION. It went really well – too well, actually – because what happened was, although I was growing, I felt like I was growing all over the place. So, the year after, I wanted to rein everything in –

So my theme for 2011 was FOCUSED EXPANSION.

Although, my definition of ‘focused expansion’ isn’t the same as ‘finding a niche’. I don’t know, but to me, finding a niche is a lot like investing on a house & lot and establishing permanent residence on a single street. And somehow, well… that’s just not my thing.

For me, I’d rather invest and build my own little amusement park — small enough to be focused, but still with lots of free space to run around, experiment, and explore possibilities. (Am I making any sense or am I just sounding like a commitment-phobe or something?)

But on that note, a lot of things just clicked together this year. It was like the different circles of my life found a way to interconnect to form this one big flexible Venn Diagram that I can freely move and bounce around in!

I mean, I was doing government/development work, yet I was still knee-deep in design (although more at a management level), and I was still able to travel, write, and teach dance classes.

I’m extremely extremely grateful to find that place of balance, where you aren’t forced to compromise anything you love doing — a friend of mine once said that that’s pretty rare. So in terms of building my own amusement park, I’d like to believe my foundations have already been laid. Yay! :)

Your turn: How was your 2011?

Okay after writing all that, I now feel so weird for pouring my heart and dreams out on the internet. Make me less uncomfortable, please? Join me! Let me know how your 2011 went: what was your biggest accomplishment, and where did you fall short?

Also – thank you to everyone who shared with me their personal theme for 2012! I’ve posted my own 2012 theme here in the second part of my Annual Review :) Just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about – check out my previous post: The Young Go-Getter’s Guide to staying organized and motivated in 2012.