Earlier this year, I shared with you a notion of creating a personal toolkit. This was a goal that I set for myself at the beginning of the year and spent some time each day picking up on something new, relevant and extraordinary. The purpose of this goal was to continually learn and grow, find ways to better yourself and become more self-aware. For my personal toolkit, I purchased a pocket-sized journal that I carried around in my purse and aspired to answer one question each day for 365 days, “What did I learn today?” It’s a simple question to answer and I wanted to learn something new by reading more articles pertaining to my discipline and everyday life as a full-time marketer and project manager. Believe it or not, setting aside time to actively read an article is doable and probably part of many people’s daily regimen. But it was different for me. Without holding myself accountable and writing down something I learned each day, it was easy for me to push it off, devote myself to another commitment, say I have little time and flip on the television.

Looking back in hindsight, I read one article a day – sometimes two, if I missed a day – and ended up with over 365 topical and newsworthy articles and ideas under my belt. Each day I carved out a little time for myself whether it was spending ten or twenty minutes during breakfast, finding time between meetings, reading during lunch or pulling up an article on my commute home. Time was always of the essence, but so was keeping up with the goal I committed to at the start of the year.

At the end of the day, I learned about countless topics – embracing organized chaos, how to find your inner calm, proximity management, establishing daily routines, qualities of successful young leaders, and more. I jotted down some of these new learnings, facts, inspirational quotes and ideas in my journal. I even discovered new writers and bloggers who are now added to My Favorites. Every now and then, I flipped through my journal and reread some these notes. I participated in more conversations at work, in class, on the bus and to friends, families and strangers.  I continued to share articles, raise questions and engage myself further by writing down some of these learnings and discussions. The notes that I captured ended up spanning outside the confined space of my journal and into a separate notebook. This notebook was filled with dozens of ideas that got me energized and excited, and inspired me to continue sharing them. After reading more articles and blogs, I grew interested in starting my own blog, but I wasn’t sure what my topic or emphasis would be, and I hadn’t considered myself a strong writer. I realized it was going to be a learning process and now was as good of a time as any.

Creating this personal toolkit was a life-changing journey and experience. What started out as a class assignment turned into a commitment and an ongoing resolution. I exposed myself to new ideas, conversations and learnings that I had not anticipated. I became a more interesting person and applied the idea of a personal toolkit to other areas in my life. Since then, I have written 12 blog posts, read over 365 articles, read nearly a dozen books, tried over a dozen restaurants, and tripled the amount of movies I’d watch in two to three years – all in one year.

In retrospect, I became more open, accepting and apt to trying new things. I accomplished more than I could imagine and fulfilled far more than I ever thought I could in 2014.

In writing this blog post, I hope to encourage you as well to create a personal toolkit. You don’t need to limit the size or scale of what there is to learn. Anything from discovering a new route home to picking up some facts in an article to watching a movie and gaining a new experience are all forms of learning. Learning has no limits. It is a means to enhance yourself and even affect the people around you.

What’s in your personal toolkit?