How Did I Do On My 2011 Goals?

By Gjosefsberg @gjosefsberg

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.
### In the next post I’m going to list out my goals for 2012.  After that, the real work begins!