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Last year instead of a New Year’s Resolution, I opted to select a themeword for the year. After all, four out of five of the 100 million Americans who made a resolution last week will break them. If you think that’s bad, nearly a third won’t make it to the Super Bowl before caving. As you may recall, the concept for selecting a themeword came from HorsePigCow a couple years back.  For 2010, I selected FOCUS as my themeword. When I selected it I wanted to refocus my energy on becoming a better DBA, more active in my professional network, and being a better husband and father. Little did I know that when I said I wanted to focus on becoming a better DBA that I would become the lead DBA on a large healthcare project in the public sector. I wish I could have been more active in my professional network and attended at least one event but with my responsibilities before and after my career changes kept me away. Suffice it to say my aspirations of being a better husband and parent will always be areas that need focus. Let’s be honest, if being a good spouse was easy divorce would not be so prevalent and Bill Cosby wouldn’t have any material for his book Fatherhood.

In thinking about my themeword for 2011, I wanted to chose something that fosters fortitude. 2010 ended with me placing myself outside of my comfort zone and the stresses of becoming an independent consultant and putting myself in a role that has a wealth of opportunity for growth.  There are so many things that I think I need to do in order to lay the foundation necessary to succeed as an independent. I wrestled with BALANCE, DISCIPLINE, and GROW for a while. But while each of them have merit in their own right, they didn’t carry the weight I felt I needed for the upcoming year.

My themeword for 2011 is ACHIEVE.

What is your #themeword?

How to Pick Your #ThemeWord for 2010

1. Think of a word that reflects your hopes and dreams for 2010.
2. Share your themeword with friends on Twitter, Facebook, or Your Blog.
3. Be sure and use the hashtag #themeword.

Focus

I have never been one for putting together a list of resolutions every year only to forget about them before the new year is a month old. However, there was a discussion and game of tag that emerged on Twitter among the SQL Server tribe recently about choosing a themeword instead of listing resolutions. After reading about the themewords that were chosen by Thomas Larock (@SQLRockstar), Colin Stasiuk (@BenchmarkIT), and doing a little reading about the concept over at HPC, I decided that I would jump into the ring and try it out this year.

My themeword for 2010: FOCUS

The one thing that I realized over the past year that has been missing in both my professional and personal life is focus. I need to focus more on my career development this year. The role of a Teradata DBA has been a great source of achievement and satisfaction for me over the past several years. I still enjoy the thrill I get when I hyperfocus on a performance tuning a query, writing a statistics maintenance routine, building an object catalog or developing a multivalue compression routine. But I also have the desire to learn more about data management, data quality, and data governance. While I blogged about data governance, data management and business intelligence this past year, many of the issues that I have dealt day in and day out with have centered on being a DBA and less on theses other areas.  This year I want to spend more time focusing on these areas because they are going to continue become increasingly more important in both the public and private sectors.

I have also made several great connections on Twitter. I would like to focus on strengthening theses connections over the course of the upcoming year. In doing so, I need to also make sure that I focus on the value that LinkedIn can provide through its discussions and even local meet-ups that occur on a semi-regular basis. This also includes branching out into new realms such as attending the local SQL Server PASS meetings on a regular basis.

However, just as important as focusing on career development there needs to be equal amounts of time spend focusing on developing as a father and husband. I have been very fortunate that I have been able to be an active participant in the activities that both my sons have been involved in over the past several years, from coaching Little League to bowling tournaments to roller skating and school parties. But I need to work harder as they grow older to serve as a role model and provide guidance for them as they face the transition from childhood to adolescence and adulthood. As a husband I need to focus on setting time aside for my wife and I to do things together. All too often we are so caught up in our children’s activities, day-to-day life, or my Playstation 3 gaming habits. It doesn’t need to be anything elaborate like cruises or vacations abroad (although I wouldn’t mind either!). Just something simple like catching dinner and a movie or having take-out dinner and watching a movie at home.

How to Pick Your #ThemeWord for 2010

1. Think of a word that reflects your hopes and dreams for 2010.
2. Share your ThemeWord with friends on Twitter, Facebook, or Your Blog.
3. Be sure and use the hashtag #ThemeWord.

Tag Your IT!

I am going to tag a couple of the people that I have met on Twitter this year:

• Jim Harris (@ocdqblog)
• Merv Adrian (@merv)
• Tamara Dull (@tamaradull)
• David Accampo (@daccampo)
• Jill Dyche (@jilldyche)