Recapping Goals: When Life Gets In The Way

During the first week of January I revived this blog. In that first post I wrote about the goals that I wanted to accomplish in 2014. We are now 2 months into the year, and I think that it is time to revisit those goals.

I setup goals that I felt would really push myself. I wanted 2014 to be a year of real, personal growth. I am not doing as well as I had hoped. The last 2 months have had some personal hardships that took away my focus and greatly affect my motivation. But some areas I did very well in.

Here’s the replay:

1. Create 3 apps. Zero apps so far. I don’t even have one in the queue yet. I started on one but got frustrated by an incomplete API that I was trying to connect to. That’s always a risk when you create an app that relies on somebody else’s product.
2. Blog once a week. So far I have been nailing it! I has not been easy and this week was particular difficult do. But looking back at my homepage, I am pretty proud that I have stuck with it so far.
3. Read 24 books. I read Tribes, The Oath, Paddle Your Own Canoe, and I am half way through Trident K9 Warriors. Not too bad, but I do need to keep on top of this before it snowballs.
4. Journal every day. Also accomplished, though admittedly one day this week I only wrote “I don’t feel like writing anything today.” Hey, it counts. It’s within the rules that I setup for myself. If I was not so lenient I probably would not have made this far and would have been discouraged.
5. Lose 12 pounds. I’m at 156 pounds right now, still shooting for 148. Most of that was lost during January. February was my birthday, so I ate too much in celebration and flatlined for the month. I’m going to have to push myself harder in March.
6. Review my goals monthly. I’ve been doing this, but I think I could be more intentional about it. The Buffer Blog had a post this week that said to schedule 30 minutes on the calendar at the end of every month to review your goals. I am going to try doing this and be more intentional in my review.

Rolling With It

Even though I am falling behind on the apps—an already ambitious goal—I am still going to try do this. And at the same time, I have given myself permission to not work on it this month. I think I really need to take a month off to rest my mind. Instead I am going to be spending some time on more fun projects: moving this blog over to the new Ghost blogging platform and learning some graphic design.

Life changes and as such you need to be able to re-evaluate goals and adjust accordingly. I’m staying ambitious and looking forward to moving more quickly and efficiently at the start of next month.

A Slight Reframe

I saw an interview with Grant Cardone on the Eventual Millionaire blog where he says to multiple your goals by 10. You very often fail to reach your goals. So set them high and you are likely to actually surpass your smaller goal. I creates a mental shift in planning such that while reaching for a larger goal you effortlessly pull yourself past the original smaller one. I’m not stretching myself that much, but I am encouraged as set ambitious goals.

Recapping goals is very important to do on a monthly basis, so how are your goals coming along? Have you stuck with any of them? Take a look at the interview with Grant and let me know how that affects your planning and mentality.