Lifestyle Redesigned

Well I’m a little late in getting my new years resolutions for 2010 together, but at least they are finally done. I typically don’t do your standard new years resolutions, I think they are usually too general and too easy to break. Instead, I like to take a weekend and set out my goals for the year. Then I break them down into quarterly, monthly, weekly, and finally daily goals. I like to have a massive action plan to achieve my goals. It usually works for me. However the last few years I’ve been in a funk and have not set any goals for myself, and to be brutally honest I achieved next to nothing. The last two years passed by with next to no real accomplishments. This year is going to be different.

First I start off with my yearly goals. I try to break them down by groups. The groups for this year are financial, personal, health & fitness, things I want, and lifestyle. From there I brain storm how I want my life to be at the end of the year and come up with some specific goals for each. Goals that are too broad are way to easy to miss. For example ‘lose weight’ or ‘get in shape’ are too broad of goals. I want to lose 20 lbs of fat, gain 10 lbs of muscle, and be a ripped 185. I want to be in the best shape of my life. Those are specific goals. You can break them down further so you have something to achieve monthly and daily. You can put real milestones in place.

My Goals for 2010

Financial

• Make a full time income of 70K a year from my side work
• Quit my regualr job by Nov. of this year and go to contract work
• Save 10% of my salary for retirement
• Payoff all my debt / live debt free (aside from mortgage and car payment)

Personal

• Stay in better contact with friends and family (call or email once per week)
• Go out on one date per month
• Go out for happy hour/dinner/entertainment one night a month
• Get back into SCUBA (get my divemasters)
• Visit my family at least once a year

Health & Fitness

• Be in the best shape of my life by November (lose 20lbs of fat, gain 10lbs of muscle, and be a ripped 185)
• Hike at least 1 time a month
• Eat a clean and health lifestyle
• Cut down drinking alcohol – only with friends or on special occasions
• Quit Chewing tobacco

Things

• Buy a new car
• Travel to Thailand for an entire month

Lifestyle

• Always dress to impress at work
• Get a new wardrobe (after I lose the weight)
• Be well kept and stylish in my free time
• Keep a clean house (clean once every two weeks)
• Keep close cleaned and pressed (once per week)

The the nice thing about setting goals is that you can track of what you are doing to make sure you accomplish them. When you set your daily or weekly to do lists, each item should be helping you realize your goals. Your goals can also be interrelated. You can see a couple of mine, where I must accomplish one, before I can move on to the other. The other nice thing about goal setting is that the list is a living document. You scratch things off as you complete them, and can add more if time allows. You can also reflect back on them everyday and week to judge your progress. This isn’t a list to make at the begining of the year then file away never to be looked at again.

We’ll see how things go. I plan on having monthly and quarterly milestones to keep me on target. It is way to easy for the months to slip away. It is almost the end of January for crying out loud.