2022 Goal Setting

Happy New Year! Almost exactly a year ago I suggested that New Year’s goal setting was a more reasonable practice than making resolutions. I am sticking by my guns! Being goal oriented is in my DNA as a former career Soldier.  The very nature of goals makes the annual practice much more realistic than a bunch of quickly forgotten resolutions.

Before setting goals for 2022, it is important to measure achievement of 2021 goals. This is the whole purpose of goal setting! Despite some of the common challenges we all experienced living in this pandemic world, 2021 was a blessed year for our family.  I fully understand just making it to see 2022 in good health is a tremendous gift, but I’m very thankful to have achieved most of my 2021 goals.

My first 2021 goal was to improve my health which I defined as losing a minimum of 30 pounds and getting my cholesterol score under 200. I was partially successful achieving this goal. My cholesterol is under 200 but my weight is roughly about the same as this time last year. Although I initially lost some weight, I quickly found it again!

The second 2021 goal was to continue building my writing skill which I measured success as self-publishing a book and continuing to blog.  Very happy to have achieved this goal, both releasing a new book in June last year as well as keeping up a weekly blog! Writing has been a great gift and pastime. I blogged how the “writing solution” is very therapeutic for me on a personal level a few months ago. 

Lastly, but most importantly for 2021, was supporting my high school senior son as he applied for college. I am very proud to report, our son got his early decision application in on time and just last month was accepted to his first choice university! Unspeakably proud of this young man for the work he put in to gain acceptance at a school I certainly couldn’t have dreamed of attending when I was his age. Achieving this goal was a little more work than I thought it would be! I shared the challenges of college admissions a few months ago as I helped him prepare his application.

So as I type on this first day of 2022, where do I go from here? I think putting my 2021 goals in a blog, certainly helped add some incentive to achieve them! While I plan on going into a maintain phase on some of the 2021 goals such as keeping up the writing, there are a few new ones this year I’d like to share.

Improve my health. I know, sounds familiar, but I really can’t mess around this year. I am very blessed to be in good health but a few pounds overweight. Losing 30lbs would get me to a weight that will help me stay healthy and active enough to hopefully chase some grandkids around in a few years.

As I plan to achieve this goal, I think the key is to increase daily physical activity to burn more calories.  I maintained my strength training last year but have all but skipped out on the cardio. I’ve got to get the cardio back into my exercise regimen this year!

I think turning my back on cardio is me reveling in being retired military. I hated running while in the Army! I did love the way it made me feel afterwards and the generally positive effects it had on my health, but I am not a runner. Very fortunate to have had a profession for 24 years that forced me to do cardio! But now that profession is gone and I’ve got to motivate myself. Will really have to dig deep on this one.

My second goal for 2022 is to improve balance. Never thought as a military retiree I would say this as balance is one of the things many of us struggled with while serving.  I am finding balance is proving just as difficult as a civilian again.

Note I left the words “work-life” out of this goal because I am quickly learning as a civilian it is more than just work that makes a hectic life. It’s the 99 other things we cram in our day to day that gets us out of balance. Last year I did make one major step in achieving more balance by changing jobs primarily to improve quality of life.

But that was about it. Seems like 2021 I just pressed down on the gas harder and piled more on my plate. I shared in blogs some of the big events like helping our oldest with college application and completing an investment property build.

This is a hard goal to quantify the measure of success but I’ve got to let off the gas and focus more on “living” than “leading” or “investing”. Part of this will be to try to find a new home for our family. Terrible time to buy but hopefully something will come along. Reprioritizing will be a major task to achieve this goal. 

Lastly, I want to get a tighter control on some vices (read bad habits). I shared last year that one must control vices in order to be financially successful. Thankfully, I’ve been able to keep my habits in check over the years.

I won’t share the details but there are a few things I need to tighten up on in my life. We all have these habits, vices call them what you will. The real challenge is do we have the will power to either kick them or control them adequately? I feel like if I clean up a few detractors in my life, it will positively impact the outcome of my first two goals! We will see.

I’ll end this blog as I started it, wishing all those who may be reading the happiest, healthiest and prosperous of New Years. I am very much looking forward to continuing the “writing solution” in 2022 and sharing what I learn about leading-investing-living along the way!

Check out my book, Millionaire on a Worker’s Budget: Five Financial Truth’s to Build Wealth on sale now at Amazon! 

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