When 2018 started, I wanted to focus more on goals and see what I could achieve. I’ve set goals in the past but it’s always been a “one-and-done” thing. I’ve never tracked my goals very well.
This year, I’m using Asana to track them and I’ve created SMART goals (maybe not to the “T” but they’re definitely more specific, measurable, attainable and timely than before…).
After each month, I hope to write a short summary on what I achieved, where I fell short and what new changes I’ve made.
For reference, I’ve broken up my goals into sections: Emotional, Financial, Intellectual, Physical, Professional, and Spiritual
Achievements
Here, I’ll share the goal for the year, and then the achievement of the month after the arrow.
Financial:
- Goal — Earn $3,000 from Side Hustle -> earned $2,800.98 in Jan.
My timelines to hit this goal is March 18th, 2018. That means one of the “sub-goals” or, sub-tasks in Asana terms, was to save at least $1,000 by the end of January.
I ended up saving $2,800.98! Blew it out of the water!
Intellectual:
- Goal — Read 10 Books -> read 2 books in Jan.
I aimed to read at least one book a month to hit this goal. This month, I finished two books — “The Queen’s Code” by Alison Armstrong and “Two Awesome Hours” by Josh Davis.
Physical:
- Goal — Lift 1.5x Body Weight -> hit 155 lbs for bench, squat and deadlift
Now this goal is pretty tough. I made good progress this month though. I lifted 155 lbs for bench, squat and deadlift for 5 sets of 5 reps. This means I’ve lifted 1x body weight more or less. On my way there!
Spiritual:
- Goal — Meditate for 365 days-in-a-row -> currently at 188-day-streak
I started using an app called Insight Timer to meditate back in July and since then have kept a streak up of meditating every day. Even if it were only 5 minutes that day. Usually though, I do anywhere from 20–45 minutes. Next month, I’ll hit the 200-day mark!
Challenges
Intellectual:
- Goal — Build PWAM App
- Goal — Complete all Twilio Quest Missions
- Goal — Finish freeCodeCamp Certificate
I think I was a little ambitious at the beginning. I had all these ideas and projects I wanted to complete. After speaking to a few mentors, I’ve decided to narrow my focus.
Now, my only coding goal is to finish Thinkful’s Flex curriculum. It’s quite lengthy and hard to judge how long it will take. For that reason, I’ve removed these other goals and plan to focus on that — at least for the first half of 2018.
However, I still want to complete all Twilio Quest Missions and finish my freeCodeCamp certificate. Those will probably come after June.
I’ve also abandoned the PWAM app due to various reasons.
Physical:
- Goal — Gain 10 lbs of Muscle
I’ve always struggled to do this. However, I finally feel like I’m making real progress. This morning, I weighed in at 162 lbs. Keep in mind, I’ve never hit 160 before and this was the first time — after 3–4 weeks of constantly being stuck at 159 lbs.
I’m really excited to keep this going next month.
Professional:
- Goal — Write and Publish 12 Articles
If we break this down, it’s 1 article/month. Easy right? Theoretically, yes.
I decided this month’s would be a guest post on the Learn To Code With Me Blog. I wrote the article, they gave me feedback, but now, we’ve decided to go a slightly different direction with the article. So this weekend, I’ll be writing the 2nd draft. It’s not an issue just more of “hey, this happened” :)
So that being said, I’ll be publishing two articles in February!
Updates
Emotional:
You’ll notice in the screenshot, there is no Emotional section. That’s because I was struggling to figure out what those should be. I’ve finally come up with one — “Become marriage-ready”. What does that mean or look like?
I’m still figuring it out…
But as I turned 24 on January 11th this month and my relationship with my girlfriend is becoming more and more serious, I’ve been thinking a lot more about being “marriage-ready”. The gist of this is being the best husband, partner and best friend I can be.
I plan to use lessons I learned from “The Queen’s Code” and feedback my girlfriend has shared with me.
I’m still figuring out the small, actionable tasks I can perform on a monthly basis to complete this so stay tuned.
Well, that’s all for this monthly goal update! See you next month on March 1st!
