Every year I write goals for myself to keep me on the path of health, wealth and happiness. This year, I decided to review them early in December as I knew I would need to kick myself into gear on a few of them. I share them here to keep myself accountable and to give you some ideas on how I view this journey, I call my life! Back in February I wrote out my goals for this year in the post, “can you see your life?”. Check it out and then come back and see how I did!
HEALTH GOALS
Improve gut issues as evidenced by decreased symptoms – IMPROVED AND IN PROCESS
Get blood work and annual physical- SCHEDULED for March
Maintain weight under 139 pounds – DONE
Complete a Whole30 – DONE
Complete the Health Care Proxy forms – PROCRASTINATING!
WEALTH GOALS
New Vanguard account $3000 – This will happen this month
Contribute $2000 to existing non-retirement accounts – DONE
Max IRA $7000 – DONE
Max HSA $3400- DONE
Increase car fund by $2000- DONE
Maintain income at 2018 level- Looks like I will be short.
Set up beneficiaries for all accounts- PROCRASTINATING
$500 set aside for lightweight kayak -DONE
HAPPINESS GOALS
Travel south for 1 month to visit family and friends – DONE
Kayak in 5 new places – DONE
2 Bike/kayak/hike weekends away from home – DONE
Earn 15 CEU’s for my OT license- 7 earned 8 to go. I will be busy the next few weeks!
Health Coach 6 people (1:1 or group) – NOT DONE. I worked with 1 person
Read 20 books- DONE!
Keep a Gratitude Journal- DONE
Increase monthly visitor stats to blog by 10% over 2018 levels – NOT DONE
Post an average of 5 blog posts per month – NOT DONE (once again I tracked the lag and not the lead measures)
Some of my goals will be completed whether or not I write them down and stare at them every day. Maxing out my IRA, and HSA are simply my top priorities once I pay my monthly bills. Some of my goals are written down to make sure I pursue something that I think I want to do like my health coaching goal. I pushed myself a little to at least attempt to address this goal and although I didn’t meet it I am glad for the attempt. Not meeting my income goal is disappointing however I know why it didn’t happen and I made the decisions that led to it not happening. I can live with that!
For 2020, I am not sure how I will address my goals. I have set aside some time for some Strategic Planning and I will see what comes out of this. My honey and I want to travel south again to visit family and friends and to escape some cold and ice of winter in the Finger Lakes. We also hope to travel west this year to visit a bunch of National Parks.
As I wrote in my last post, my primary Occupational Therapy gig has dried up and I haven’t quite figured out how I will respond to this change. Luckily my other per diem job has had more hours lately and that has helped tremendously. Making sure my income is solid for the coming year is on my mind a lot but not in a nail biting anxiety driven kind of way. I just need to make sure my income in 2020 is enough to cover all of my expenses, max out my retirement accounts and cover taking 2 months away from home. I have strategized more complicated things than this!
Living a meaningful life doesn’t happen by chance. You have to know what you want it to look like and develop strategies to make it happen. I figured out what I wanted my life to look like about 7 years ago. Annual goals are just one of the strategies I use to keep me on my path. This is what I wrote down seven years ago – and it still rings true.
MY DESTINATION
- I want my home to be relaxing, simple, joyful and low maintenance
- I want to earn my living doing work that I find meaningful and that brings others to a better place/space
- I want to be debt free leaving my options for semi-retirement wide open
- I want to share my life with a partner that enjoys the simple things in life that I have to offer
- I want to spend my time doing things I enjoy with people I care about
- I want to do my part to leave this earth a better place then I found it
- I want to live below my means with a focus on people, relationships, the environment – not stuff
When you know what you want and why you want it – figuring out the how you are going to get it is fun. Challenging but fun! I have some strategic planning to do!
Lake Girl
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay