We’re two months into 2018 and the year has been going so well. Here’s a short summary of what I achieved, where I fell short and what new changes I’ve made in regards to my goals.
*For reference, I’ve broken up my goals into sections: Emotional, Financial, Intellectual, Physical, Professional, and Spiritual
Achievements
Here, I’ll share the goal followed by the related achievement of the month after the arrow.
Financial:
Earn $3,000 from Side Hustle -> succeeded + new stretch goal $6,000!
My original timeline was to achieve it by March 18th, 2018. I surprised myself when I hit this goal on February 7th. Instead of stopping there, I decided to set a stretch goal of $6,000–2x the original goal.
I have 17 days left and I’m currently at $5,470.48 — feeling confident I can hit the stretch goal!
Intellectual:
Read 10 Books -> read 1 book.
This month, I finished a book I had started in January called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. A co-worker lent it to me and she was switching jobs so there was pressure to finish it quicker than I thought but it was an insightful read.
The lessons I learned from it help me remember to be mindful and live in the present. I definitely recommend it. And since I am now at 3/10 books for the year, this goal will be less of a focus in March.
Finish Thinkful curriculum ->completed Web Development Fundamentals
At the beginning of February, I set a goal to finish the web dev fundamentals section of Thinkful’s curriculum. A lot of it was a review for me so it was easy. The last project was a quiz app, which I completed (at least the logic side).
I’ve decided I will mainly use the curriculum as a learning resource and skip most of the projects since I have other projects I’m working on.
Physical:
Lift 1.5x Body Weight -> hit 195 lbs for squat
I felt happy to hit this goal this month. Now, I have squatted more than 195 lbs once before in my life. However, now I’m working towards general strength rather than a single-rep strength. So when I squatted 195, it was for five sets of five reps. This is a milestone because 195 is roughly 1.25x my body weight.
Professional:
Land a job as a developer -> offered Front End Engineer position!🕺
🎉This is the biggest win of all my goals for the month of January.🎉
I had originally set the date for October, which meant either transitioning into more of a developer role at my current job or finding a new opportunity. I didn’t think it would happen this soon but an opportunity presented itself for a position at a local company as a Front End Engineer.
After meeting someone from the company at A meetup, he told me they were hiring. He said I could use him as a reference when I applied. Soon after, I met with the CTO, interviewed with the dev team and they offered me the position.
I am beyond excited to finally start a full-time career in web development. It’s felt like a long time coming and I can’t believe it’s finally here. My first day is Monday, March 5th🤩
Grow my Twitter Following to 2,000 -> currently at 916
I haven’t set clear intentions with this goal but to briefly summarize it I hope to improve my professional credibility via my social media following. Between January 1st and March 1st, I’ve grown my following on Twitter by 228 or 114/month. This is awesome! If I can keep this up, I’ll hit my goal by 2019.
I also had an idea of the strategy I want to take to keep this goal on track. Using Airtable, I plan to create a spreadsheet with useful content related to programming to share in tweets with my followers. I think this will serve value for my followers and the community and hopefully attract more followers.
Spiritual:
Meditate for 365 days-in-a-row -> currently at 216-day-streak
I mentioned previously that I’m doing the #100DaysOfMeditation challenge on Twitter and that I hoped to do at least 45 minutes a day. I have been consistent in meditating every day but the duration has varied. I usually hit my 45 mins four to five times per week. However, I’m really happy I passed the 200th-day mark this past month. Onward to 365!
Challenges
Emotional:
Become Marriage-Ready
The challenge I’ve had this past month is that I haven’t done anything. I need to add in a sub-task for this month of March to take time to plan for this goal.
Financial:
Cancel credit cards
I’m on the fence about this goal. I have two credit cards in particular that I’ve hidden and never use but I can’t decide if I should cancel them or not? I’ve been told mixed things.
On one side, I’ve been told keeping them open without using them is better for your credit score than canceling them.
I’ll need to do more research and come to a decision on whether or not I should cancel them.
Physical:
Goal — Lift 1.5x Body Weight (specifically bench press)
I’m struggling to make good progress on this goal. One milestone is to lift 1.25x my body weight, which is the equivalent to about 195 lbs. In January, I did hit three sets of five reps of 170 lbs.
My plan is to keep trying and count the small wins as they come.
Professional:
Goal — Write and Publish 12 Articles
I ran into the same issue as last month — I can make it the goal to write 1 article per month without challenge but getting it published in the same time frame is another challenge.
Fortunately, I’ve finished one article and it should be published in the month of March or April :) More info next month. I am behind on this goal though because I’ve only written one article in two months. I have a few ideas for this month but I’m waiting to see in which direction I should head.
Updates
Intellectual
Launch New Portfolio Build
I’m hesitant to place a completion date on this goal because:
I don’t know how long it will take.
I don’t know what my new job will be like so I may not feel up to coding as much as I currently am after work.
So the plan is to do this using Gatsby.js and NetlifyCMS so then I can start writing these articles on my personal website instead of Medium.
We’ll see what happens. Stay tuned for next month’s update!
We’re two months into 2018 and the year has been going so well. Here’s a short summary of what I achieved, where I fell short and what new changes I’ve made in regards to my goals.
*For reference, I’ve broken up my goals into sections: Emotional, Financial, Intellectual, Physical, Professional, and Spiritual
Achievements
Here, I’ll share the goal followed by the related achievement of the month after the arrow.
Financial:
My original timeline was to achieve it by March 18th, 2018. I surprised myself when I hit this goal on February 7th. Instead of stopping there, I decided to set a stretch goal of $6,000–2x the original goal.
I have 17 days left and I’m currently at $5,470.48 — feeling confident I can hit the stretch goal!
Intellectual:
This month, I finished a book I had started in January called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. A co-worker lent it to me and she was switching jobs so there was pressure to finish it quicker than I thought but it was an insightful read.
The lessons I learned from it help me remember to be mindful and live in the present. I definitely recommend it. And since I am now at 3/10 books for the year, this goal will be less of a focus in March.
At the beginning of February, I set a goal to finish the web dev fundamentals section of Thinkful’s curriculum. A lot of it was a review for me so it was easy. The last project was a quiz app, which I completed (at least the logic side).
I’ve decided I will mainly use the curriculum as a learning resource and skip most of the projects since I have other projects I’m working on.
Physical:
I felt happy to hit this goal this month. Now, I have squatted more than 195 lbs once before in my life. However, now I’m working towards general strength rather than a single-rep strength. So when I squatted 195, it was for five sets of five reps. This is a milestone because 195 is roughly 1.25x my body weight.
Professional:
🎉This is the biggest win of all my goals for the month of January.🎉
I had originally set the date for October, which meant either transitioning into more of a developer role at my current job or finding a new opportunity. I didn’t think it would happen this soon but an opportunity presented itself for a position at a local company as a Front End Engineer.
After meeting someone from the company at A meetup, he told me they were hiring. He said I could use him as a reference when I applied. Soon after, I met with the CTO, interviewed with the dev team and they offered me the position.
I am beyond excited to finally start a full-time career in web development. It’s felt like a long time coming and I can’t believe it’s finally here. My first day is Monday, March 5th🤩
I haven’t set clear intentions with this goal but to briefly summarize it I hope to improve my professional credibility via my social media following. Between January 1st and March 1st, I’ve grown my following on Twitter by 228 or 114/month. This is awesome! If I can keep this up, I’ll hit my goal by 2019.
I also had an idea of the strategy I want to take to keep this goal on track. Using Airtable, I plan to create a spreadsheet with useful content related to programming to share in tweets with my followers. I think this will serve value for my followers and the community and hopefully attract more followers.
Spiritual:
I mentioned previously that I’m doing the #100DaysOfMeditation challenge on Twitter and that I hoped to do at least 45 minutes a day. I have been consistent in meditating every day but the duration has varied. I usually hit my 45 mins four to five times per week. However, I’m really happy I passed the 200th-day mark this past month. Onward to 365!
Challenges
Emotional:
The challenge I’ve had this past month is that I haven’t done anything. I need to add in a sub-task for this month of March to take time to plan for this goal.
Financial:
I’m on the fence about this goal. I have two credit cards in particular that I’ve hidden and never use but I can’t decide if I should cancel them or not? I’ve been told mixed things.
On one side, I’ve been told keeping them open without using them is better for your credit score than canceling them.
I’ll need to do more research and come to a decision on whether or not I should cancel them.
Physical:
I’m struggling to make good progress on this goal. One milestone is to lift 1.25x my body weight, which is the equivalent to about 195 lbs. In January, I did hit three sets of five reps of 170 lbs.
My plan is to keep trying and count the small wins as they come.
Professional:
I ran into the same issue as last month — I can make it the goal to write 1 article per month without challenge but getting it published in the same time frame is another challenge.
Fortunately, I’ve finished one article and it should be published in the month of March or April :) More info next month. I am behind on this goal though because I’ve only written one article in two months. I have a few ideas for this month but I’m waiting to see in which direction I should head.
Updates
Intellectual
I’m hesitant to place a completion date on this goal because:
So the plan is to do this using Gatsby.js and NetlifyCMS so then I can start writing these articles on my personal website instead of Medium.
We’ll see what happens. Stay tuned for next month’s update!