Goals: A Year Later
Dan on December 3rd, 2006
Seeing how it has been nearly a year since my first goal was posted I thought it would be suitable to review my goals. I haven’t looked at this list in quite a while and the results are mixed.
Goal #1: Sell One Item A Day
This goal was short lived. I did manage to sell off a lot of my extra junk over the past year, but not one item a day. I probably have enough stuff to get rid of that I could continue this. Not a high priority, but something I could start doing again.
Goal #2: Write A Blog Entry Every Day
This is another goal I followed for a while and then gave up. With polyphasic sleep I had plenty of time to blog. After I was done I lost all that extra free time and lost some of my interest in the site. I don’t plan on posting EVERY day, but I do plan on posting frequently again. I have plenty to write about.
Goal #3: Attempt polyphasic sleep for a minimum of one month
Goal #3 was accomplished. I followed polyphasic sleep for a month. When I went back to school I had to switch back to “normal” sleep because of my long schedule. Towards the end I was having frequent oversleeps. An interesting side effect I found over the past year is that my “normal” sleep went from 8 hours a day to 7 hours. Over the past month and a half or so it slowly increased back to 8 hours. I’m going to try to get another month of polyphasic sleep in once this school semester is over. That should give me time to work on some projects and possibly get that hour back again.
Goal #4: Between my personal net worth and the value of any companies I totally control I have a total worth of at least $1 million by the age of 30
Goal #4 was very ambitious. Making $1 million in 5 years is no easy task. Over the past year I’ve been met with a number of setbacks. My biggest investment had a bunch of issues. Overall I made quite a bit off of it but I was relying on it for income when they ran into trouble. They had to freeze accounts for a few months and I lost 40% of my principle. I was forced to take money out of my trading account to pay the bills. Fast forward to a month ago. I sold my investment property that never worked out. I paid off the bills, put some cash in my bank, and have the money to open another brokerage account.
I would love to have a high net worth at 30, and I think it’s still possible, but it is no longer as important to me. I will have that money at some point but it may not be as soon. I will outline what has changed in a future post.
Goal #6: Fix My Diet
Goal #6 was completed last year. I will be making another post about my diet and exercise but I’ll summarize here. Overall my diet has been good. Over the past month or two I haven’t been as strict but I still follow the basic guidelines.
Goal #6 2: Exercise
Apparently I numbered 3 of my goals 6. I never caught that before. Anyway, this goal was specific to my exercise goals. I met them. I was at about 10% body fat all summer. I decided I wanted to ease up on my food restrictions and bulk up so I started eating a lot more in October. My body fat is a lot higher now, around 17%. I plan on cutting in a few months and losing it all again.
Goal #6 3: Forex Investing
I had planned on developing a trading strategy and using it to earn a decent return. I did develop a few strategies that work but they require trading at times I’m not usually available. I haven’t made any trades in a while. The last few I made months ago were based on news trades and were profitable. I may do more news trading in the future. As I’ll cover in another post, I’ve taken an interest in economics and that can help predict the outcome of a news release.
Goal #7: 5 Year Financial Goals
These goals still stand. I’d like to have my income come from passive sources in 5 years.
Goal #8: Achieve a minimum GPA of 3.8 at my new school.
By the end of this semester goal #8 will be achieved. Last semester I got one B and the rest were As. I’ll probably get all As this semester, bringing my GPA up from 3.7 to 3.8 something.
Goal #9: Ambidexterity
I haven’t done much with this goal. I still write with my right hand at times when I’m bored in class. My handwriting is at a low elementary school level with that hand. Next time I’m at a store that has them I’m going to check out children’s handwriting books. This is a low priority goal so I haven’t put much effort into it.
There you have it. I’ll be outlining some new goals soon. The results from this past year have been mixed. How did your goals turn out?
December 12th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
I think it is good your priorities have shifted, though you have not laid out explicitly those new priorities. I have never had any doubt that you would be the most economically successful of the lot of us from high school, but I think having breadth in your goals gives you breadth in character. A million dollars is just a thing. Like a heavyweight boxer, if you want to punch your opponent, you’ll punch your opponent. If you want to knock him out, you don’t punch him, you punch the last row in the arena. Committing to something bigger than your goal makes transgressing your actual goal much easier. I don’t know much about business, where overcommitting can probably lead to poor decisions, but in personal motivation the only thing that can defeat your personal commitments is your own weakness.
I am glad to see you are updating your blog again. I read it often it for a while but when your updates lapsed, I stopped checking on a regular basis. Sorry we weren’t able to meet up over Thanksgiving, I wasn’t able to get out of the city. If you’re around over the winter, I haven’t any work after the 21st as of yet. Let me know.
Cheers, Dan.