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Lifestyle New Year’s Resolutions

December 30th, 2011

Last year I decided to go against the grain and bypass listing my resolutions for that year. While not entirely a flop, last year my unwritten resolution goals were not fully accomplished either.

Surprisingly, I learned a lot from not having written goals, and the depth of my understanding goes all the way to the core of the way I live my life. It really was a liberating experience, and served as a kind of burning it all up and starting from scratch kind of experience. Now that just ashes of my understanding exists, it’s time to form a new base for my life going forward.

So without further ado, here are my Lifestyle New Year’s Resolutions:

Expect the Unexpected – I’m planning on move quickly around any impediments, take advantage of the positive opportunities, and crush and destroy negative or harmful barriers. I will no longer let unexpected happenings cause me to freeze into periods of inactivity.
Enforce My Body Weight to Stay Within an Acceptable Range – There are few things in life that I have absolute control over but for the most part, my weight is one of those things in life that I can directly control by eating properly and exercising. Based on previous experience, my target weight range will be 185 to 215 for the next 20 years. Currently my weight is 245, so I need to lose at least thirty pounds in 2012 and preferably the sooner the better.
Expand My Online Activities and Understanding - I want to continue to learn more about the online environment that I blog in and further my online activities so that I”m more in touch with what is happening. I also want to continue my tech understanding of the structures that make this world tick, with the end goal of becoming more of a webmaster type of person.
Enjoy My Life More – In my family it’s all about our kids (and it still will be), but I now realize that I’m more than just a family COG, working my life always so my kids can have a better life than I am having. I need to develop new and exciting interest if not for my sake, then for my kids. I’ve learned that they see and absorb when I do and expand on the base that I provide. At some level I knew this, but I didn’t have enough money to do much back then. While I’m still not wealthy, I plan on using some of the dividend money that I collect to do more “me” things that will enrich both my life and the live’s of my kids.
Experiment and Think “Out of the Box” More – Last year some of the enthusiasm and “Out of the Box” thinking that I had initially when I started blogging fell by the wayside. To counter going stale, next year I plan on altering my posting schedule so that I post every other day instead of trying to post daily like I did at the beginning and middle of last year, and do and track my experiments with more vigor.

The above five “E” Goals are my primary “hard” Lifestyle Goals. I also plan on doing some minor, more checklist style of goals.

Buy a shotgun (maybe two), and go skeet shooting (if I can find a place)
Save at least 20% of my income
Buy either myself or my wife a new (well really used, but newer) car. Probably a Toyota Sienna.
Get Passports for the entire family
Go on a big vacation for the year (hopefully Hawaii).
Double my blog traffic (current traffic is 400 daily visits). Not sure how yet, but hopefully I’ll figure it out soon!!!
Have a more positive effect on my surroundings and friends.
Organize my life more by buying a tablet, iPad, or smart phone/iPhone/iPod Touch

And now to wait for the new year! Hopefully it will be my best every!

Here’s wishing you the best too!

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Posted in Resolutions

Tags: A new start improving your life New Year Resolutions New Years Resolutions

FINANCIAL NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS

December 30th, 2010

Financial New Years Resolutions

Writing New Year's Resolutions

Written by moneysupermarket.com

It’s that time of year when everybody starts thinking about 2011 and I’m sure we’re all hoping for a fantastic year, but nobody knows what surprises lay just around the corner, only time will tell. The beginning of a new year means a new fresh start, and with this new start many people like to set new years resolutions. If there’s any of you that don’t know, a new years resolution is a sort of commitment, where you can set yourself a set of goals that you would like to achieve in the new year.

I read a recent article that said around 50% of people are confident that they will achieve their new years resolutions when they set them, however only 12% actually achieve what they set out to do. Bearing these figures in mind, I thought I would set myself a challenge to actually commit to my objectives this year so that I can join the 12%.Combining new years resolutions with my interest in finance I thought I would detail some key areas where I will be focussing my goals in 2011.

My budget

A budget is one of the most important financial tools when looking after your finances. If you have an effective budget that does what it’s supposed to, then that’s the first step to controlling your finances and not letting your finances control you. The basic principle of budgeting is to identify where your money is being spent, and to do this effectively you have to be thorough to identify all your expenditure. For a budget to be successful, set yourself some small and simple steps until you understand the basic principle, then you can build your budget so that it’s a more robust financial tool.

My debt

A friend of mine said to me that getting into debt is so much easier than getting out of it and boy was he right! When your goals are financially motivated and you have debts that are costing you money, tackling these debts should be your immediate focus. If your level of debt is quite low then look at setting up a debt repayment plan for the new year and make sure you tackle any high interest debts first as they will be the most damaging. Paying back whatever debts you may have will also improve your personal credit score which is an added bonus.

My savings

Before you think about saving money, you should ensure that your debts are paid off first. Once your finances are at a level you are happy with, then you can look at starting to save. Make sure that when you want to save you have the best savings account to do so. If you live in the US then the Lifetime Savings Account offers great rewards on your spending, and the equivalent for people in the UK is a cash-ISA account, before you commit you should do your research and find out what the best option is for you.

Throughout the year, it’s important to ensure that you remain positive when trying to achieve your goals. I will do this by evaluating my progress from time to time, and by braking up my goals into more short term and long term aims. It’s a great way to remain focused.

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Tags: new year resolution resolutions

Holistic Approach to New Year Resolutions

December 29th, 2010

I admit it, I failed on most of my New Year Resolutions!

I started out strong, but then ran out of motivation. 2010, while a good year financially for me, was a bad year on a developmental level.

That’s why I decided to buck the trend of stating a defined list of resolutions and instead go for a more Holistic Approach to my New Year goals.

Before I go to explain what I mean by taking a holistic approach to my New Year goals, let me review the results of my 2010 Resolutions:

Losing Weight While Saving Money - While I didn’t get bigger, I also didn’t lose the desired weight. So I stalled on this particular goal. This was my biggest disappointment!
Stop Being a Pack Rat – This resolution I was able to conquer! This is the only resolution that I was able to beat!
Maximizing Who I Am – This is my biggest defeat. I didn’t maximize who I am at all!

So in conclusion, in 2010 I started with high expectations, but I ended up disappointed.

A brand new plan, the Holistic Approach:

By Holistic Approach, I basically mean that I’m not going to compartmentalize my life into individual buckets! Instead I’m going to create everything as just a typical part of the process, and consider everything as a entire system. That way I just don’t do well in one area while neglecting the other areas.

Next, I will try to optimize the process so that it can be accomplished and in such a way that it’s bearable or at least tolerable.

So for example, I really don’t like the previous resolution of “Losing weight”. So I will enhance my experience by listening to a song that will get me pumped up and make me want to work out!, or workout with friends, or maybe my kids…

A bonus is that I have every trick and can use new ideas to accomplish goals at my disposal!

I admit, I’m kind of winging it here, this will be an entirely new way to approach my goals. This will be a lifestyle change for me, or at least I believe that it will!

-MR

If you are interested in seeing a more traditional and enumerated New Year’s Resolutions, check out the list at the Financial Samurai’s site called Financial Samurai Goals And Resolutions for 2011. It’s very impressive!

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