Back in January I posted these goals as the things I wanted to accomplish in 2011. Looking through them now, I’ve accomplished a lot. Yes, some of these goals failed and some only partially succeeded, but I aimed really high in 2011. I also learned a lot about setting goals and creating plans; information which I am going to apply to 2012 goals.
Build a successful blogging business
I really enjoy blogging (I get to make money by talking a lot!) and want to continue building a successful side business with it.
- Subgoal 1 – Guest post on at least 3 A list blogs: I had a guest post on Get Rich Slowly and another on Silicon Valley Blogger. Both guest blogging opportunities taught me a lot and I’m glad I did them. The traffic bounce from both was great. 66% done.
- Subgoal 2 – Increase traffic to 1000 visits a day: Current traffic to my blogs is around 500 visits per day. I think this was a bad goal to choose as it’s more of a measurement of success than something I can actually influence myself. Goals like the guest posts above were more useful. 50% done.
- Subgoal 3 – Launch my His and Her blog, something I’ll tell you more about later. I didn’t do this one at all because I decided to launch a retail site instead. That retail site is now up and running and you can find it here: Diamonds or Dogs. I’ll write more about this site in later posts. 100% done.
Improve my overall financial situation
- Subgoal 1 – Payoff one school loan. 100% done.
- Subgoal 2 – increase money invested in stock market to 30k. 100% done.
- Subgoal 3 – Refinance townhouse. Tried to do this year but ran into a silly bank problem. Try again this year. For this year though this is a failure. 0% done
Have a successful year at my work
I keep my work separate from this blog so I will not go into too much detail here.
- Subgoal 1 – 5 employees. Honestly, this was the wrong choice of goals. I learned this year that having more employees doesn’t make you more successful. 100% done.
- Subgoal 2 – 5 specific work goals which I will not mention here due to confidentiality. 100% done.
- Subgoal 3 – Successful December release. Sadly, this was delayed until 2012. 25% done.
Personal Life
- Subgoal 1 – Married to a beautiful, sexy, athletic, intelligent, educated, dorky, witty, worldly, knowledgeable woman. 100% done. I love you honey
- Subgoal 2 – Trip to Israel with Julie. Planning this for 2012 instead. We did go on a big international trip but since that was our honeymoon, I don’t think I should count it. So we’ll go with 0% done on this one.
- Subgoal 3 – One trip just with my best friend. 0% done.
- Subgoal 4 – One trip with multiple friends. I had a great trip with the guys to Las Vegas. 100% done.
Improve Health
I’ve been steadily improving my health for the last 10 years. This year will continue that.
- Subgoal 1 – Go down to 180lbs. This one was an utter failure. Too many parties, too much work. I am right back where I started out 2011 at 230lbs. 0% done.
- Subgoal 2 – Run a marathon in under 5 hours. I trained for this and I think I had a good chance of accomplishing it but we ended up scheduling our honeymoon at the same time as the marathon so I didn’t run. 0% done.
Travel
- Subgoal 1 – 1 long vacation to a place I’ve never been to before. Spent an amazing two weeks in Croatia. 100% done.
- Subgoal 2 – 2 short weekend trips to place I’ve never been to before. One weekend in San Luis Obispo, one weekend in Mendocino and a bonus weekend in Capitola. 100% done!
- Subgoal 3 – 1 long camping trip. I really should have combined this with the relationship goal above but I didn’t. Either way, I failed both. 0% done.
Learn something new
- Subgoal 1 – Take a painting workshop – Been thinking of trying painting for years! I didn’t do painting but I did take a woodworking class instead and I’m now planning my first woodworking project. 100% done.
