In December of 2016, I shared 13 steps to become mighty real on your goals. I followed my own advice and proudly put my goals on the wall. I claimed all you needed to do was to bring those wishes and desires to the light of day, and then they will become reality.
It’s 3 months down the road now. By the end of March, even the toughest New Year’s resolutions vanish somewhere in between our busy schedules. I bet most of you didn’t set goals, or even if you did, you can’t clearly remember what they were.
For the goals to become reality, I needed accountability. For me, this is what a quarterly review is for.
My 2017 goals
- Reach the next ranking level at a stock photography platform by the end of June 2017
- Find a think-BIG mentor by the end of Jan 2017 – someone who has achieved financial independence thinks big and loves their life (wow!)
- Learn to drive by the end of Feb 2017 – feel safe behind the wheel and can park + 1000km drive
- Write a fun and inspiring personal finance blog to document my financial independence journey – 52 posts by the end of 2017
- Fly a hot air balloon on my birthday in April
- Invest in 2 small real estate properties in Bulgaria
- Double my net worth by the end of 2017
Gosh! I have some pretty darn ambitious goals! Let’s see how things look 3 months down the road.
Progress on the goals
As expected, some goals became clearer, some faded out. Let’s have a quick review:
- ACCOMPLISHED Learn to drive – check it out here!
- IN PROGRESS Reach the next level on a stock photography platform. I did pretty badly on this one. My full undivided attention was on this blog and the 30 Day Personal Finance Challenge I started in January.
Now that I am much more confident writing the blog and I post once a week, I am back to my camera. I figured that in order to reach this goal, I need to make better and more pictures. I created an intermediate goal: Double my photography stock portfolio by mid-May. I need to produce, upload and get approved 322 brand new kick-ass pictures.
Depending on how well I do that, I will reevaluate this goal. - IN PROGRESS Write a personal finance blog – I am doing great here thanks to the 30 Day Personal Finance Challenge. As of today, I have written 41 blog posts. Now that I have quite some content, I am thinking of what can be the next step in the evolution of the blog. Any ideas?
- IN PROGRESS Fly on a hot air balloon on my birthday in April. I still want to do this. It will probably not be on my birthday, because it requires more planning, booking flights, accommodation, etc. My idea was to fly and photograph a sky full of balloons but I couldn’t find a hot air balloon festival for the end of April. I still have 9 months to make this happen. No pressure.
- ON HOLD Find a think-BIG mentor – I still want to meet a great mentor, but I realized this is not a goal I want to pursue at the moment. If somewhere along the way I meet someone awesome and inspiring – great! But I won’t try too hard. These things sometimes happen by themselves, without forcing it too much.
- CANCELED Invest in 2 small real estate properties in Bulgaria – I got this idea from the Secrets of the Millionaire Mind book. It might be a good one, but at the moment I don’t have the capacity to look for real estate. I will focus on building my stock market investments.
- CANCELED Double my net worth by the end of 2017. I am sure I set the bar so high on purpose to motivate myself. But at this moment I am more interested in developing my skills further, boosting my creativity and redefining how and what I want to work on.
I am left with 3 very specific, clear goals for the next 9 months.
The remaining 3 + 1 (on hold) goals for 2017
The point I want to make here is that everything changes. Some things get clear with time, others become obsolete. Having them out of my head and on paper helped me tremendously. Also, looking back and seeing what kind of person I was and how I was thinking 3 months ago, is an interesting introspective journey.
So, how are you doing with your goals? Do you know what you want? Do you know how far you are?
It’s not late folks! Today is as good as any day to define your goals and start working on them.
I will keep you posted on mine. Upwards and onwards!
