A couple of things happened today that made me sit up and take notice of the changes that are taking place in my life right now.

I was writing the “About” page for my personal blog and it struck me that after half a lifetime of being invisible by choice and liking it, that I appear to have made a conscious decision to become more visible this year. For the decade or so that I’ve been online I’ve always preferred to cloak myself in nicknames and persona and not really share too much about myself. I think in ten years there were maybe only ever two photos of me ever posted online and I made sure they came down pretty darn quick when I found out about them. I absolutely detest having my picture taken, so there’s not that many of them out there to begin with. You can imagine my surprise this afternoon when I found myself searching through my recent photos to find one that I felt comfortable sharing. It was definitely a scary moment, but a freeing one too.

The second thing that happened was someone asked me to share my weight loss issues with them. Granted it was a coach and the request was in preparation for an upcoming session so that she would have some background info to work with. But as I was writing out my story for her I realized that it was another case in which I had never verbalized the events that led to my weight gain or how I felt about them. This was the first time since I gained my first five pounds nearly 20 years ago that I had ever allowed my feelings on the issue to be visible to another person.

I’m still not sure where this road is taking me, but wherever it is and however I’m to get there, it really seems that I’m meant to be doing it in a much more visible manner than the one in which I’ve led my life for the last little while. The cool thing about it all is that for whatever reason, I’m not fighting this time. I am totally open and accepting of the changes that are coming my way and that’s a really nice way to be for a change.

In an effort to do a little less of the preachy stuff and a lot more of just being me this year, I thought I’d share a few of my goals for the coming year. That way you can see what direction my path to personal growth is starting in.

This year I am making massive changes in my life. The freedom I feel being divorced almost makes me giddy and the first thing I’m going to do this year is make my name change legal. It’s really exciting to be able to change directions now after being stuck for so long.

So here’s the major areas I’ll be focusing on this year:

1. Creating financial stability for myself. I really want to be able to get off disability by the end of the year. I’ll be talking more about this over at The Introverted Marketer.

2. Making a cross country move before golf season starts. I absolutely intend for this to happen by April 1st.

3. Getting fit and healthy. I fully intend to reach my goal weight by the end of this year. I’ll be blogging about my progress on this front over on The Diabetic Chick’s blog.

4. Overall my goal for this year is to live every day to the fullest and fill it with as much love, laughter, peace, and prosperity as I can. And for the most part, that’s what I”ll be writing about here along with the occasional update.

All in all, I’m looking forward to an incredible year. What about you? What direction is your path taking you this year?

So, it’s time for changes again. And yeah, I’m probably starting to sound like a broken record on this but I am so determined to have a better 2009 and to make some serious changes in my own life.

One of the reasons that I’ve never had a lot of success in making changes stick is the way I prepared for them. I was always in the new year’s resolution mindset of I’ll try this, start on New Year’s Day, and if it works fine, and if not there’s always next year. This year I already have a written plan, and goals set out for both the personal and business sides of my life. And I’m not waiting until Thursday to start.

Tomorrow we’ll be starting a major purge and declutter session here. One of my main goals for 2009 is to complete a cross-country move. And there’s no way I’m carting everything I’ve got hoarded up here 2000 miles. We went to Home Depot yesterday and grabbed some big plastic packing bins to put the stuff in that we’ll take with us, but that isn’t absolutely necessary for living right now. We’re stocked up on recycling bags and trash bags for the stuff that’s getting thrown out, and I’ve got boxes here to store stuff in that’s going up on E-bay over the next few days. I’m prepared for change this year, and prepared to take action to make sure it all happens.

Once our cleaning and decluttering is done, all the desks are getting rearranged. My big 3-sided office station is getting broken down into two parts. One for my son’s room, and one for mine. I find trying to write out here with the tv and other distractions really hard to do. I’ve wanted a desk in my bedroom for the actual pen and paper portion of my writing process for ages, and am finally going to have it by the end of this week. Another of my goals is this year is to write a novel, and by moving these desks around I’ll have a place to write where I can actually go and shut the door.

I’m really excited by the prospect of a new year and a new life… Bet ya couldn’t tell, could ya?

What about you? Are you making any changes in the new year, and are you prepared for them?