Category: goals

The year that is: 2010

The new year is a time for resolutions, for goals, and for deciding what you want to be when you grow up. I’ve always found that when I put things down in writing, they tend to come true. They might not come true by the deadline I’ve set for myself, but they usually come true. I’ve never publicly shared my resolutions before so that’s why it’s taken me a while to build up the courage to actually share what I want to accomplish in the coming year. I’ll confess that even though this posting is dated 01/01, I’m actually writing it on 1/17. So what do I hope to accomplish in the coming year?

Eat right and exercise

In years past my health goals have always been driven by the number on the scale, but I’ve come to realize that in reality I cannot directly impact the number on the scale. A person’s metabolism is a complicated creature governed by genetics, age, and a host of other factors. All those factors conspire to mean that eating 3,500 less than I expend doesn’t guarantee I’ll lose a pound. This has been the number one reason I’ve given up on diets before because I give up in frustration when I don’t lose as much weight as I think I should. So for this reason, my eating and exercise resolutions are:

  • Track my calories every day
  • Eat less than 2,000 calories every day
  • Exercise 30 minutes or walk 10,000 steps every day
  • Blog about the things that work and those that don’t

Those are all factors that I can control and if I do them on a regular basis, the numbers on the scale should eventually reflect my progress.

Personal

I’m realizing that as I mature that I have a lot of anger, insecurity, and stress that I need to work through. I hold on to things and obsess over them way too long and I always have to be right. This is getting in the way of my relationships with other people and with my own personal happiness. My goals for this year are:

  • To like myself and to accept who I am.

  • To learn to let things go and to move on

  • To forgive other people and accept them for who they are
  • To continue my search for bliss and balance

There are goals I’ve hesitated to set for myself in the past because they are not SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time boxed). These are what in the past I would have called “wishy washy” because the are intangibles that can’t be measured. I guess the only way I know if I have achieved these goals is to look back in a year and see if I’m happier.

Writing

Writing is and has always been my passion and all too often I haven’t been as serious about it as I should be. Things are complicated by the fact that I spend time writing at work so it’s hard to switch gears between work writing and writing for fun. This year there are some very specific things I want to accomplish with my writing this year:

  • Publish Pink Slip 101
  • Publish The Portable Coach
  • Write Finding my Bliss
  • Write in my blog at least five times a week
  • Attend one writing conference

I’ve been letting my writing take a back seat to everything else and I need to start finding time to write again.

Family

My kids are growing up and they’ll only be living at home for a few more years and I need to take advantage of the time I have left with them and start finding ways to spend time with them as young adults. I also need to make time to drive with Cat so she can get her license. At the same time, I need to find time to build a new relationship with John since our relationship will change when the kids are out of the house. Whew…those are some pretty ambitious goals, but they are ones I need to accomplish. Here are some specific ways I think I can accomplish those:

  • Have two dates a month with Cat
  • Have two dates a month with Sean
  • Have two dates a month with John
  • One family activity a month
  • A family vacation

Professional

The more my life marches on, the more I realize that work is only a portion of my life and that I really need to focus on life outside of work. Therefore most of my goals this year are personal, but the one work related goal that I do have is to pass my PMP exam so I’m a certified project manager.

Financial

I’ve always felt behind the eight ball financially and this year is no different than previous years. This year I’m going to focus more on paying my bills off and less on saving money as I’m earning 4 percent and paying out up to 20 percent in interest. That makes no financial sense. So my goals for this year are:

  • Pay off my US Bank Card ($3,500)
  • Pay off both our 2009 and 2010 tax bills ($11,000)
  • Pay Sean’s 2009 tuition by June ($5,600)
  • Pay off my work loan $5,600
  • Save $5,000
  • Stay on track on our regular bills

Hopefully, I’ll get a bonus and a raise this year to help get us caught up.

For myself and the rest of the world, I hope this year is better than last and that my family and yours finds happiness and prosperity.

Butterfly Bliss-Volume 3

For those of you who haven’t read about my butterfly challenge, I’m following the lead of one of the bloggers I greatly admire, Charley Forness at Scribe for the Tribe, and trying to make small changes every week in the hopes that the small changes will add up to bigger changes in my life. The original challenge article is here. This weekly check in will include a report on last week’s progress and on my goals for next week.

Goal–Lose 30 lbs by 12/31/2009

Progress

  • Walk at least 20 minutes three times a week— I only walked twice this week. Once I get home from work, I just want to putz around the house and not do anything. I need to figure out a way to get more motivated on this one.
  • Drink three bottles (aluminum ones) of water a day–I didn’t do such a good job on this one. Two days I managed to drink two bottles of water and two days I managed one bottle.

Butterflies for this week (Based on my progress from last week, I’ll keep the same goals)

  • Walk at least 20 minutes three times a week—I think I need to work on this as it isn’t habit yet.
  • Drink two bottles of water a day—I need to be realistic about this and acknowledge that I’m struggling. Hopefully, I can start drinking two bottles and then work up to three.

Goal–Have Sean’s tuition and the taxes paid by 12/31/2009

Progress

  • Cook dinner at home six nights a week to save money.–We did a good job on this and we’ve worked on cutting the costs of the food that we eat as well. I’m also trying to work through the food in the freezer.
  • Pack my lunch four days a week–I didn’t pack lunch at all this week, but I did come home and eat one day. I ate out two days and skipped lunch one day. Definitely need to keep this as it is not a habit yet.
  • Not buy any magazines–I did buy a Woman’s World magazine, but resisted the urge to buy several more.

Butterflies for the week

  • Cook dinner at home six nights a week to save money. I still need to work on this as it is not ingrained yet.
  • Pack my lunch four days a week—This one needs to stay on the list as it is not a habit yet.
  • Not buy any magazines—I’m going to keep this one until I can eliminate buying the Woman’s World.

Goal–Build my online presence

Progress

  • Post five book reviews at Amazon—I didn’t get any book reviews posted as I spent my time working on articles for KUDOS Power. I also wrote an article for More magazine that I’m waiting to see if they post online.
  • Comment on at least 10 blog entries around the blogosphere—This was pretty easy as I read a lot of good blog entries this week. I’m going to eliminate this one as a butterfly as it is ingrained.
  • Get listed on three more blog sites–No progress on this one.

Butterflies for the Week

  • Post five book reviews at Amazon
  • Get listed on three more blog sites
  • Write two more articles for online sites

Goal–Build KUDOS Power

Progress

  • Write five articles—I wrote four articles for KPI and two articles for KPO this week. Good progress on this one.
  • Find five sites to post articles on–I found a list of sites where you can post articles for free. I also found that I can post articles on More magazine and several paper magazine sites. This is definately something I will explore.
  • Reorganize the site for both individuals and organizations–Site has been completely redesigned.
  • Rewrite The Portable Coach–Did not do this one. Am going to postpone it until next week as I will spend time this week working on articles.

Butterflies for the Week

  • Write three articles for KPI
  • Write three articles for KPO
  • Write an article for More
  • Write an article for Divine Caroline
  • Rewrite The Portable Coach

Goal–Build better relationships with my family

Progress

  • One dinner or activity with John this week—I didn’t make it out with John this week
  • One dinner or activity with Cat this week—Did not get time to spend with Cat this week as she had layout for pacer every night this week.
  • One dinner or activity with Sean–Sean and I went to the Holocaust museum this week.

Butterflies for the week

  • One dinner or activity with John this week
  • One dinner or activity with Cat this week
  • One Dinner or activity with Sean

Wish me luck this week. I’ll check back in next Sunday.

Butterfly Bliss–Volume 2

For those of you who haven’t read about my butterfly challenge, I’m following the lead of one of the bloggers I greatly admire, Charley Forness at Scribe for the Tribe, and trying to make small changes every week in the hopes that the small changes will add up to bigger changes in my life. Last week’s article is here. This weekly checki n will include a report on last week’s progress and on my goals for next week.

Goal–Lose 30 lbs by 12/31/2009

Progress

  • Walk at least 20 minutes three times a week— I did a good job of this one as Cat and I took one walk around the neighborhood this week, we walked around the Forest Preserve, and we went to the zoo today and walked quite a bit.
  • Drink three bottles (aluminum ones) of water a day–I didn’t do such a good job on this one. Three days I managed to drink two bottles of water, but there is still a lot of room for progress on this one.

Butterflies for this week

  • Walk at least 20 minutes three times a week—I think I need to work on this as it isn’t habit yet.
  • Drink two bottles of water a day—I need to be realistic about this and acknowledge that I’m struggling. Hopefully, I can start drinking two bottles and then work up to three.

Goal–Have Sean’s tuition and the taxes paid by 12/31/2009

Progress

  • Cook dinner at home six nights a week to save money.–I did a great job at this one. We actually ate at home five nights this week (for us that is excellent) and when we did eat out were mindful about it and did not just go for junk food.
  • Update the budget in my online budget tracker.–I did update my budget for the week and know what I spent and what I’ll spend next week.
  • Cut my driving to use only one tank of gas a week–This one was actually the easiest of all my goals. I just filled up this morning, which meant that my last tank of gas lasted a little over a week.

Butterflies for the week

  • Cook dinner at home six nights a week to save money. This is really saving us money as I was spending over $100 a week on fast food. This is definitely one I need to keep.
  • Pack my lunch four days a week—I usually skip lunch, but that leads to me drinking more coke, which is also a waste of money.
  • Not buy any magazines—I usually buy two or three magazines a week, which is from five to six dollars wasted with information I could find online.

Goal–Build my online presence

Progress

  • Post five book reviews at Amazon—I actually posted four reviews, so I did make progress on this one.
  • Comment on at least 10 blog entries around the blogosphere—This was pretty easy as I read a lot of good blog entries this week.

Butterflies for the Week

  • Post five book reviews at Amazon
  • Comment on at least 10 blog entries around the blogosphere
  • Get listed on three more blog stes

Goal–Build KUDOS Power

Progress

  • Post three articles on KUDOS Power—I actually made two decisions that impacted this item. I decided that I would split my KUDOS Power entries into two blogs, one for individuals and one for organizations. There will be some cross over and I will post some entries on both blogs, but based on some guidance from the ProBlogger book, I decided this would give me the best possibility to grow my business. I also made the decision, that I was going to focus on writing articles and not posting them for a few weeks so that I have articles I can set to post on particular dates. This was a lesson I learned from this blog as I found when life got busy, I didn’t write so there were no new postings. Now I write blog entries ahead of time so that on days when I don’t have time to write, there is still new content.
  • Post three articles at free article sites with links back to KUDOS Power—Not done, because I don’t want to post articles on other sites until I formally launch KP.

Butterflies for the Week

  • Write five articles
  • Find five sites to post articles on
  • Reorganize the site in line with the above
  • Rewrite The Portable Coach

Goal–Build better relationships with my family

Progress

  • One dinner or activity with John this week—I didn’t make it out with John this week
  • One dinner or activity with Cat this week—Cat and I went to the forest preserve and the conservatory and went to the zoo with Sean this week.

Butterflies for the week

  • One dinner or activity with John this week
  • One dinner or activity with Cat this week
  • One Dinner or activity with Sean

Wish me luck this week. I’ll check back in next Sunday.

Butterfly Bliss

The Butterfly Effect, otherwise known as Chaos Theory, says that small events can trigger larger events. The most famous example used of the Butterfly Effect is that a butterfly flapping its wings in Central Park can impact the weather in China. Charley Forness over at Scribe for the Tribe has decided to apply the Butterfly Effect to life changes that he wants to make. His thought is that by making small changes on a weekly basis, they’ll add up to big results. This isn’t a list of tasks that you’ll achieve for the week, but a list of repeatable changes that you’ll incorporate into your life with the hopes of them becoming habits. Positive and directed life changes are one of the most blissful things I know as they make your life more positive and blissful.

I’ve been pondering Charley’s self challange all week and weighing whether or not I want to publicly declare my goals and put them out on the web for everyone to track my progress. I finally decided that one of my fundamental beliefs is that the best way to make change in your life is to write down what you want and publicly claim it. What could be more public than posting your goals on the Web for everyone to see?

So without further ado, here are my goals and my butterflies for the week.

Goal–Lose 30 lbs by 12/31/2009

  • Walk at least 20 minutes three times a week
  • Drink three bottles (aluminum ones) of water a day

Goal–Have Sean’s tuition and the taxes paid by 12/31/2009.

  • Cook dinner at home six nights a week to save money.
  • Update the budget in my online budget tracker.
  • Cut my driving to use only one tank of gas a week.

Goal–Build my online presence

  • Post five book reviews at Amazon
  • Comment on at least 10 blog entries around the blogosphere

Goal–Build KUDOS Power

  • Post three articles on KUDOS Power
  • Post three articles at free article sites with links back to KUDOS Power

Goal–Build better relationships with my family

  • One dinner or activity with John this week
  • One dinner or activity with Cat this week

I’ll report back on my goals every week so that you can all track my progress.