If you take any time today to browse around the web you’re going to find a lot of folks writ­ing about the past year what they’ve learned and what they’re plans are for 2012.  Each New Year’s seems to bring a new hope and excite­ment for the com­ing year and I’m no excep­tion.  This year though comes with a dif­fer­ent feel­ing though, while I’m still excited for the new adven­tures that will come my way and the new oppor­tu­ni­ties, my focus and inten­tion for this year is very dif­fer­ent from any pre­vi­ous years.

I’m have a few things to share, my review of 2011, my inten­tions for 2012 and my Word for the Year.  So please, grab your favourite drink , set­tle in, enjoy and then share with me your thoughts for the new year.

2011 was about learning

I suf­fered a great loss this year, my father passed away in Feb­ru­ary and that affected not just myself but my whole fam­ily.  I’m lucky that my par­ents live close by so it was easy to be near and sup­port my mom through this tran­si­tion we’re all still learn­ing.  It hasn’t just been about learn­ing to adjust with­out my Dad around, it’s also been a year about learn­ing how to do things dif­fer­ently.  I real­ized this year that my busi­ness and being self-employed doesn’t haven’t to fit the “norm” or pur­sue the idea of a six fig­ure busi­ness.  I learned and real­ized that for me it’s more impor­tant to have a lifestyle busi­ness that fits the way I live.  I left the cor­po­rate world to escape and get away for the “cookie cut­ter” life style and the idea of liv­ing in “lit­tle boxes” (if you watch Weeds you’ll under­stand the ref­er­ence), yet I found myself pur­su­ing this idea that so many of the “six-figure guru’s” have served us telling us that the way to be suc­cess­ful is to hit that six fig­ure mark and you’ll have made it.

Not So.

The last few months of 2011 brought me the real­iza­tion that, I’ve never been some­one who fits into the “stan­dard­ized box”, I’m not what soci­ety wants to con­sider “the norm”, so why should my busi­ness run that way.

2011 was about struggle

Parts of 2011 brought me times where I couldn’t han­dle the busi­ness that was com­ing my way, this in itself isn’t a bad thing but it also added a stress level that I didn’t want, nor desired.  In Sep­tem­ber I started a slow pro­gres­sion to refo­cus myself and my busi­ness.  You can see this in the devel­op­ment of ReneeShupe.com (where you’re read­ing this right now) and a pro­gres­sion away from the brand­ing of Red­head Busi­ness Solu­tions.  This doesn’t mean that I won’t be offer­ing Word­Press ser­vices any­more, quite the con­trary but the ser­vices I do offer around Word­Press will focus on the train­ing, coach­ing and con­sult­ing for Word­Press.  I’m excited about the new direc­tion and I hope to be able to help out more folks by doing so.

2011 was about rethinking

Through the strug­gles and learn­ing in 2011 I started to review how I do things and where my focus needs to be.  One of my inten­tions for 2012 is to become Sus­tain­ably Cre­ative.  This is some­thing new to me and thanks to the likes of Gwen Bell, Ev Bogue, Leo Babauta, Michael Nobbs, Tammy Stro­bel and Joshua Fields Mill­burn & Ryan Nicode­mus, I know it is some­thing I can carry out.  I don’t need to look at the way things are done, the stan­dards, but I can look at  being me, uniquely me and shar­ing that with my read­ers.  Yes, I’ll loose a few read­ers along the way, but the ones I gain will make me bet­ter for it.

What does all of this mean?

To break it down to its sim­plest form and what I will have on my com­puter mon­i­tor for 2012:

Mind­fully Different

Mind­fully dif­fer­ent is my phrase for the year. This past week I have mulled over a vari­ety words that are cur­rently rep­re­sent­ing me and where I’m at and also where I’d like to go.  Words such as Sim­ply Mind­ful, Sim­ply Grate­ful,  Mind­fully Honor, Focus, Cre­ative, Sus­tain­able and many oth­ers, but get this Mind­fully Dif­fer­ent came to me as I’ve writ­ten this post.  Yes!  It speaks to me in so many dif­fer­ent ways.  Mind­fully Dif­fer­ent rep­re­sents to me my desire and inten­tion to be.…

Sus­tain­ably Cre­ative, Mind­ful, Focused, Excited, Dif­fer­ent, Unique and Me

All of this have set new things in motion and some of my per­sonal inten­tions for 2012:

• Launch­ing my new pro­gram, Self Care 2012: A Per­sonal Ini­tia­tive, if you are look­ing for a new way to bring some self-care and focus to your­self in 2012, join me start­ing Jan­u­ary 17, 2012 (my 41st Birth­day) we’ll take the chal­lenges and pro­gram together and share our journey’s with each other.  It cost less than a $100 for the year and you can get a great deal until tomorrow.
• Read at least 2 books per month.  I do a lot of read­ing already, but much of it is online read­ing RSS fees, blog posts and other mate­r­ial so I want to get back to read­ing books.  You can see my list here of what I’ve added for 2012.
• Launch­ing my Word­Press Mas­tery Video Series.  I’ll have spe­cial deal for my Weekly Word­Press List (sim­ply choose Weekly Word­Press News when you sign up).  The Word­Press videos cover EVERYTHING from set­ting up your Word­Press site to man­ag­ing your site and with that will come an exclu­sive coach­ing pro­gram as well.  This is all still in devel­op­ment and can change over time, but I’m excited about it all.
• Writ­ing to Inboxes.  While I plan on shar­ing much of my jour­ney here on ReneeShupe.com to become sus­tain­ably cre­ative much of my writ­ing will come to your inbox.  I will be shar­ing details of my exper­i­ments, what I’m doing dif­fer­ently and how I’m being mind­ful in the process.  Those who join me on my jour­ney will get to expe­ri­ence what I expe­ri­ence and I will share my insights with you there.  I’ll be ready to launch my first let­ter to your inbox in Feb­ru­ary.
• The Let­ter.  The Let­ter is part of my first step to being sus­tain­ably cre­ative, it will come to your inbox.  It will be mind­fully dif­fer­ent and cre­ative.  It will talk about what’s work­ing and what isn’t.  I’ll share details about what I’m doing and how I’m chang­ing my busi­ness to be mind­fully dif­fer­ent.  I’ll evolve, change, shift and adjust along the way.  To join me on this jour­ney and to receive this exclu­sive, non-archived let­ter you can sign up now at a spe­cial rate for the year, or join me when you are ready.