At the start of 2018 I set a variety of goals for myself and posted quarterly updates on my progress. The rationale was that making my goals and progress public would keep me both motivated and accountable.
This did not turn out to be the case. I ended up failing to achieve almost all of my goals.
After some time to reflect, I believe this is because my goals were a bit too aspirational. I bit off more than I could chew. Some of the goals were just too difficult to achieve and some goals were more or less mutually exclusive. Looking back at my goal setting process in 2018 I realize that I was setting goals that were too ambitious, with the hope (dream?) that somehow writing my goals down would help them to manifest. Clearly this was not the case.
So, while I have many faults, one thing I can say about myself is that I learn from my mistakes, and I’ve definitely learned from my poor goal setting in 2018. My goals for 2019 are more achievable, better aligned with how I’d like my life to look, and better coordinated.
So without further ado, here are my goals for 2019:
Let’s break down the goals:
Financial
Goal 1: Generate passive income of more than $85,000 for the year
Last year the goal was to hit $70k in passive income (which we BARELY missed), so this is a 21.4% increase over last year. While that sounds like a huge increase, I think it’s achievable for a few reasons.
First, we have about $500k in cash. Putting this cash to work at a 3% rate of return would get us an additional $15k in income by itself. I don’t expect that we’ll be able to put all of that cash to work, but hopefully we will be able to put at least some of that cash to work.
Second, I expect to get a 6-7% return from organic growth – rental increases and dividend raises.
Third, our rental income was absolutely miserable last year. One of our properties was vacant for a few months AND needed thousands of dollars in repairs and upgrades to make it rentable. We’ve not experienced poor performance like that since we bought our first rental properties in 2012. A reversion to the mean would give us somewhere between $3k-$5k by itself.
Fourth, I expect that we’ll continue to save and invest money that I earn. If we are able to save $50k and receive a reasonable 3% yield we’ll pick up another $1,500 in passive income.
Q1 goal: $21,000
Q1 actual: $20,834
For Q1 we are pretty much on track. We missed our Q1 goal by .8%, which is pretty much a rounding error.
Status: On track
Goal 2: Net worth of $5.64M
Our long-term goal is to grow our net worth by 8% per year with the plan for me to retire (or at least be financially independent) when our net worth hits $10M. We started 2019 with a net worth of $5.22, which means we should hit our $10M goal in just under 9 years.
To create the quarterly “check points” I just assumed a simple (non-compounding) 2% growth per quarter.
Q1 goal: $5.32M
Q1 actual: $5.64M
Well, this is a welcome surprise. By the end of the first quarter we’ve already hit our net worth goal for the year! A combination of a healthy stock market and solid income at work has allowed our net worth to grow by 8% in just 3 months.
The big question is whether or not we’ll be able to maintain this net worth at the end of 2019.
Status: On track
Goal 3: Investigate additional real estate investment(s)
This is a goal I’d set for 2018 and completely failed on. Frankly, this should take very little work – I just need to do some research into the crowdsourced real estate options and decide if I want to go down that path or if I want to buy some more single family homes as rentals.
Q1 goal: Start research
Q1 actual: Research complete, rental properties identified
I’ve done my initial research and I’ve decide that, at this time, I’m going to stay away from the crowdsourced real estate investments. The reality is that the business models have not yet been proven. All of these companies (RealtyShares, FundRise, etc.) were created after the Great Recession. None of them have been tested in adverse conditions.
In addition, I don’t understand why a solid real estate investor with a proven track record and a solid identified investment would go the crowdsourced route. That sort of investor would either pursue “traditional” funding through a bank or through a private investor. As far as I can tell, going the crowdsourced route means the investor is giving up at least a portion of the potential upside of their investment. That makes no sense to me. The whole point of borrowing to purchase real estate is that you get to capture all of the upside, while still having the ability to walk away from the loan (and property) if it comes to that.
The reality is that it appears to me that the people (and deals) getting funded on crowdsourced real estate sites are not “first tier” investments, but people or projects that can’t get funding the traditional way.
So, after doing quite a bit of research over the course of Q1, I’ve decided that we’ll stick to the traditional real estate investment route and purchase some additional properties.
We’ve identified 2 properties in Houston, TX and I hope to close of them by the end of April.
Status: On track
Work
Goal 4: Income > $300,000
This is a reasonable goal, as our income (excluding the single large commission check I’ve received every 5 years) averages about $300,000/year. So, I just need to have an average year in 2019 to achieve this goal.
I’ve set the quarterly goals to be simple linear progression – I plan to earn 25% of my yearly income each quarter.
Q1 goal: $75,000
Q1 actual: $96,392
The first quarter has been great so far. I’m well ahead of the pace needed to hit $300k for the year. Unfortunately, the summer can be a bit slow from a commission standpoint (people are on vacation and less likely to start new projects), so it’s probably good that I’m getting a fast start.
Status: On track
Personal
Goal 5: Read 1.5 books per month
My goal in 2018 was to read 1 book per month, and I failed pretty miserably (I only read 4 books all year). Given that failure, why did I INCREASE my goal for 2019?
Simple – I read some great books at the end of 2018 and I remembered just how much I love sitting down and getting into a really good book. For the last few years I’ve kept a list on my phone of all the books that I wanted to read. Anytime I got a book recommendation from a friend I’d add it to the list. If I stumbled across a really positive book review I’d add that book to my list.
Unfortunately, I was adding books to my list but never reading any of them. So in early April I pulled up the webpage for our local library and went through the 65 books on my list to see which were available at the library. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that just over 40 of them could be checked out through the local library cooperative. I added all of those to a watch list at the library (making it dead easy to request any of the books).
So I put some books on hold, picked them up, put them on my nightstand, and something magical happened. At night, after the kids have been bathed/read to/put to bed, after the dishes are done, and after the mail has been sorted, I suddenly have a desire to sit down for a few hours and read rather than watch a movie or play on my iPad.
Looking at the list of books, about 80% of them are non-fiction (mostly books about finance/investing), and 20% are fiction or stories inspired by real life events.
How am I doing so far?
Q1 goal: 5
Q1 actual: 0
Ok, so the grand total of 0 books read in Q1 doesn’t exactly inspire confidence, but I didn’t start working through my “to read” list until April, and I’ve already read 2 books and I’m partially through 2 more.
This is a goal I’m absolutely convinced I will hit this year.
Status: NOT on track
Goal 6: Perform a muscle up
If you don’t know what a muscle up is, it’s basically a gymnastics movement that’s a combination of a pull-up with a dip. They can be performed on either a bar or using gymnastics rings. Here’s what a muscle up on a bar looks like:
And here’s what a muscle up on the rings look like:
Both of the above qualify as “strict” muscle ups. That is, there’s no body swing (or kip) used. Here’s an example of a kipping muscle up:
As you can probably guess, the kipping pull-ups are much easier than strict muscle ups.
For this goal I’m going to count any of the above muscle ups as a success.
I selected this goal because it’s a bodyweight exercise (which I’m generally good at because I’m on the skinny side), it looks impressive, and doing muscle ups is a great workout. In addition, it coordinates well with my goal of getting down to 10% body fat by the end of the year (lower body fat makes bodyweight exercises easier).
I expect that achieving this goal will require both strength work as well as skill work. You obviously need quite a bit of strength to perform a strict muscle up, whereas the kipping muscle up is much more about timing, coordination, and skill.
My plan to achieve this goal is to work on strength for the first half of the year, then start adding weekly muscle-up practice sessions for the second half of the year.
Q1 goal: Complete a pullup with bodyweight + 45 lbs
Q1 actual: Complete
The first step was easier than I thought it would be. I ended up being able to do 3 pull-ups with 45 lbs tied around my waist.
Status: On track
Goal 7: Do yoga once per week
Most of my workouts are either weightlifting or some sort of weightlifting/cardio combo (Crossfit-style workouts). While these workouts have kept me in pretty good shape, I still have some areas I need to work on.
Over the last 3-6 months I’ve been trying to get some more variety into my workout routine, so in December I hit a few yoga classes at our gym. The results were eye opening for me. After just 1 class it was clear to me that I have some major deficiencies in both flexibility and balance. I was clearly one of the least flexible people in the class, and any pose that required us to balance on one foot was very difficult for me.
To address these problems I’m going to try to get to a yoga class at least once a week, starting in Q2.
Goal 8: Body fat of 10%
As I mentioned above, I’ve been pretty thin my whole life. When I was on the wrestling team as a freshman in high school I was 6’0″ and I wrested in the 119 lb weight class. Now I’m 6’4″ and bounce around between 185-190 lbs.
While I’m thin, I’m not super lean. Mostly that’s because for the last ~30 years of my life I’ve been trying to GAIN weight. It’s amazing what weightlifting combined with constantly easting past the point of being full can do – I’m 65 lbs heaver than I was in high school.
However, this constant push to gain weight means I’ve never really “dieted” or tried to get really lean. Last year I had the goal of getting down to 10% body fat, but I realized it was at odds with my strength goals so I effectively gave up on this goal and concentrated on the strength goal.
I started the year at 12.7% body fat, so I only need to drop 2.7% of my bodyweight in fat. Given a weight of 185 lbs, that’s almost exactly 5 lbs of fat.
In 2019 I’m going to really work on eating lots of vegetable and only eating until I’m full. Given my body type and metabolism, and combined with a bit more “cardio”, I suspect this will result in me dropping enough fat to get down to 10% by the end of the year.
Q1 goal: 12%
Q1 actual: 12.9%
Hmmmm. My body fat % went the wrong way in Q1, but in my defense, I really only started my improved diet in April. I suspect that I’ll be on track by the end of Q2.
Status: NOT on track
Goal 9: Row 2,000 meters in 7 minutes and 20 seconds
In my opinion, rowing is the most awesome/awful cardio in the world. It works pretty much every muscle in your body, and it does so with no impact on your joints. I have a Concept 2, Model D, which uses a fan to provide resistance. This means that the harder you row, the more resistance you get. This makes the rowing machine perfect for sprints and interval work.
The Concept 2 Model D
Because rowing is such a good workout, and because it’s an exercise that fits well with my body type (I’m 6’4″, and being tall is a big advantage in rowing/crew), I’ve decided that I’m going to spend more time on the rowing machine this year. Of course, “more time” isn’t quantifiable, and I want to row with a specific but achievable goal in mind, so I’ve decided that I’m going to try to knock 20 seconds off my 2k rowing time (the 2k is the “standard” test for rowing).
I haven’t done a 2k time trial in a while, and my previous best was 7:47. That time is ok, but nothing special. My goal is to knock 27 seconds off that time and get down to 7:20 (with the possible goal of getting to 7:00 in 2020).
I like this goal because it dovetails nicely with some of the other physical goals (reducing body fat and being able to perform a muscle up).
Q1 goal: 7:38
Q1 actual: 7:35
I tried to hit the rowing machine 1-2x/week in Q1 either as part of or in addition to my other workouts. I did a variety of lengths – some sprints, some longer distances, some as part of a Crossfit style workout. I then did a single 2k row at the end of Q1 and was pleasantly surprised to have knocked a full 12 seconds off my 2018 best.
Status: On track
Blog goals
Goal 10: Post 1.5x/week
In 2018 I’d set the goal of posting 2x/week and I didn’t even get close to achieving that goal. I just don’t have the time to write 2 quality blog posts per week.
In addition, my inspiration seems to come in waves. I’ll go through a period where I’m getting lots of good ideas (usually from conversations with clients or due to something I’ve read). I tend to work on lots of different articles at once (right now I have something like 30 articles in some stage of being written, from just a title to an outline to nearly done), but I don’t always do a good job of pushing any given article all the way to being complete.
So, my goal for 2019 is to work harder on staying motivated and carving out 30-60 minutes per day to work on an article. If I can do that, I think it’s reasonable to be able to publish 6 interesting articles per month.
Q1 goal: 18 articles
Q1 actual: 8 article
Well, the year isn’t off to a very good start, but I’m pretty confident I can get back on track for the rest of the year.
Status: NOT on track
Conclusion
That’s a total of 10 goals that I think are achievable, measurable, and interesting (at least to me). Last year my goals were more aspirational than achievable, and many of them were mutually exclusive. I believe my goals for 2019 are better coordinated – losing body fat will make it easier to do a muscle up, finding a real estate investment for some of our cash will make it easier to achieve our passive income goal, etc.
Looking at the list, 5 of the 10 goals are personal goals, 3 are financial, while I only have 1 work goal and zero family goals. The reason for this is simple – I want my goals to be quantifiable, and I had a hard time setting quantifiable goals in these other areas.
I certainly have other work goals (and a number of family goals), but they don’t lend themselves to being tracked and measured (how do I quantify trying to be more attentive when I’m with my kids)?
So, for now, I’m focusing on the goals that can be tracked.