It is time to be looking at goals for the next year. Dan Miller suggests starting mid-November (so I’m a little late on this). I have not personally set goals in such a way before the start of the year, but there’s no reason to wait.
I am using Zig Ziglar’s Wheel of Life, as promoted by Chris LoCurto. I am identifying several specific things in each area to work on, setting specific goals. I will probably be adding to these and clarifying them more over the next couple weeks.
1. Spiritual
- Read through Bible
- Start and keep a prayer journal
- Participate regularly in the visitation program
2. Physical
- Exercise at least 3 times a week
- Stop drinking pop, except for special occasions
- Learn and adapt better eating habits
- Lose 20 pounds by February; another 20 pounds by April
3. Intellectual
- Read at least 20 books
- Continue taking college classes
4. Family
- Have at least 2 family “outings” a month
- Have a family vacation in the summer
5. Social
- Regularly post 3 times a week on blog
- Have 500 Twitter followers by June
- Invite another family over once a month
6. Career
- Build up “Qualiplicity” to $2,000/month by April
- Learn Ruby by April
- Get “Gradebook Flex” up and running by April
- E-books: “Founded Upon a Rock” by February; “Looking Unto Jesus” by April; “Nothing Undone” by June
7. Financial
- Make $100,000/year household salary by end of the year
- Have $12,000 emergency fund by June
Question: Have you started laying out and defining goals for 2013?
Joshua, those are great goals! I want you to achieve them all and tell us about the results. I have a suggestion: Organize them by priorities the Dave Ramsey way. A, B, C, D. If you don’t do that, you may find it hard to pick which one comes first.
Great job!
Thanks for stopping by, Todd! Thanks also for subscribing via e-mail.
I will definitely work on prioritizing them better. I’ll try to bring some updates as the year progresses (i.e. in April, when I have several things “due”).
Great job Joshua, and you are welcome. I look forward to reading your posts.
Thanks for the reminder, I have never developed goals based on the wheel of life up to this point. But this year is as good a time as any.
What is recommended for check points during the year? Do you set monthly or weekly targets to determine if you are on track or not?
Being an engineer, I could see putting this in a Microsoft project plan with goals to be achieved at various points to determine if you are ahead or behind schedule. The problem I run into with my team at work is just that, we get to the end of a project and realize it will be 2 months late. Ultimately that was my fault for not verifing the check points during the project and you realize it too late, the same would apply here I would think.