Solo 017: Reflections on 2017 and Goals for 2018

Reflections on how I performed against my goals in 2017 and my big goal for 2018!

! I've been big on goals lately and over the past week or so, I've been reflecting on my goals for 2017 and setting new goals for 2018.
A year ago, I took a course on goal-setting (Michael Hyatt’s Best Year Ever) and set some ambitious goals for 2017, made them as “SMART” as possible, committed to them and even posted about it (you may recall my post from a year ago about goals). It has now been a year so I wanted to post an update with reflection and new goals for 2018 (warning, long post):
For 2017, I committed to practicing my Miracle Morning and to meditating and exercising every single day. I also committed to reading at least 25 books, a sales target at work and to leading my first mastermind group this year. I set a large financial goal in terms of income and net worth. And finally, on the personal/family front, I committed to more quality time with my wife and kids (at least one date with Cortney each month and one adventure with the kids every weekend).
Now that 2017 is over, I can say that I did not achieve all of my goals, but I'm happy to say I performed well on most of them. Here is the recap:
-I meditated every single day in 2017, save one (currently on a 265 day streak).
-I worked out or did some form of exercise almost every single day (I think I missed 10-15 days out of the year) and am nearly as strong as I was in college
-I read 30 books (will do a separate post on books later) this year and learned (and implemented) a TON of stuff on various topics.
-I led my first paid mastermind group for dads (thanks to Larry Hagner for putting his trust in me) and have another one starting on January 29th.
-Cortney and I worked on improving our relationship and I'm pretty sure we went on at least one date every month except December (whoops).
On my financial goal, I completely missed. I didn’t hit my sales target at work and made a lot less money than I hoped. Our childcare expenses went up and we did not make nearly as much progress financially as I wanted. We did reduce our debt (and pay off our auto loan) and our overall net worth increased (mostly because of the record highs in the stock market) but our personal finances did not improve as well as I hoped they would.
Two surprise accomplishments for the year that I didn’t expect:

I started a podcast (The Entrepreneur Hot Seat) on May 1 and have made tons of awesome connections as a result.

I said I would somehow quit my job by the end of the year to become a full-time performance coach or entrepreneur and I actually did leave my job on October 1, and it was to join a new business (APG) that wasn’t even on my radar in January. Funny how life works.
I'm proud of what I accomplished in 2017, especially because I believe I did it while still spending a lot of quality time with my kids. I also learned from my failures. And I know we still have a long way to go to achieve our financial goals and a lot of work to do in 2018. I still struggle with finding balance, avoiding distractions, saying no to things, communicating effectively and investing my time in the right places.
My biggest goal and new theme in 2018 is on growing my business, increasing our income, paying off debt and improving our financial situation. I plan to do this by committing big time to my business and limiting distractions (like Facebook, haha), taking risks and trying new things. And I hope to do this without sacrificing my health, fitness or time with family. There are always trade-offs to everything we do and how we spend our time and I know everyone struggles with this balance. I'm on this journey as well.
I'm so grateful to have Cortney Fielding and my kids with me on this journey and also for the support of so many friends (I want to tag them but I am afraid I'll leave some out) and especially Vincent Pugliese and our Freelance to Freedom Mastermind Group.
I still have a lot to learn and things to...

Reflections on how I performed against my goals in 2017 and my big goal for 2018!

! I've been big on goals lately and over the past week or so, I've been reflecting on my goals for 2017 and setting new goals for 2018.

A year ago, I took a course on goal-setting (Michael Hyatt’s Best Year Ever) and set some ambitious goals for 2017, made them as “SMART” as possible, committed to them and even posted about it (you may recall my post from a year ago about goals). It has now been a year so I wanted to post an update with reflection and new goals for 2018 (warning, long post):

For 2017, I committed to practicing my Miracle Morning and to meditating and exercising every single day. I also committed to reading at least 25 books, a sales target at work and to leading my first mastermind group this year. I set a large financial goal in terms of income and net worth. And finally, on the personal/family front, I committed to more quality time with my wife and kids (at least one date with Cortney each month and one adventure with the kids every weekend).

Now that 2017 is over, I can say that I did not achieve all of my goals, but I'm happy to say I performed well on most of them. Here is the recap:

-I meditated every single day in 2017, save one (currently on a 265 day streak).

-I worked out or did some form of exercise almost every single day (I think I missed 10-15 days out of the year) and am nearly as strong as I was in college

-I read 30 books (will do a separate post on books later) this year and learned (and implemented) a TON of stuff on various topics.

-I led my first paid mastermind group for dads (thanks to Larry Hagner for putting his trust in me) and have another one starting on January 29th.

-Cortney and I worked on improving our relationship and I'm pretty sure we went on at least one date every month except December (whoops).

On my financial goal, I completely missed. I didn’t hit my sales target at work and made a lot less money than I hoped. Our childcare expenses went up and we did not make nearly as much progress financially as I wanted. We did reduce our debt (and pay off our auto loan) and our overall net worth increased (mostly because of the record highs in the stock market) but our personal finances did not improve as well as I hoped they would.

Two surprise accomplishments for the year that I didn’t expect:

I started a podcast (The Entrepreneur Hot Seat) on May 1 and have made tons of awesome connections as a result.
I said I would somehow quit my job by the end of the year to become a full-time performance coach or entrepreneur and I actually did leave my job on October 1, and it was to join a new business (APG) that wasn’t even on my radar in January. Funny how life works.

I'm proud of what I accomplished in 2017, especially because I believe I did it while still spending a lot of quality time with my kids. I also learned from my failures. And I know we still have a long way to go to achieve our financial goals and a lot of work to do in 2018. I still struggle with finding balance, avoiding distractions, saying no to things, communicating effectively and investing my time in the right places.

My biggest goal and new theme in 2018 is on growing my business, increasing our income, paying off debt and improving our financial situation. I plan to do this by committing big time to my business and limiting distractions (like Facebook, haha), taking risks and trying new things. And I hope to do this without sacrificing my health, fitness or time with family. There are always trade-offs to everything we do and how we spend our time and I know everyone struggles with this balance. I'm on this journey as well.

I'm so grateful to have Cortney Fielding and my kids with me on this journey and also for the support of so many friends (I want to tag them but I am afraid I'll leave some out) and especially Vincent Pugliese and our Freelance to Freedom Mastermind Group.

I still have a lot to learn and things to improve, but with strong support and accountability from these people, I believe that almost anything is possible! Her's to an awesome 2018!

If you have reflections on 2017 and big goals for 2018, I would love to hear about them and know how I can help.

PS: I put together a presentation on goal-setting that I gave last week and have shared with others. If you'd like to see it, let me know.