Goals

I made the following three resolutions for 2012.
1. Lose Weight.
2. Write a Book.
3. Make More Money Online.

These are fairly common resolutions. To improve my chances of keeping them I am making them SMART (specific,measurable,attainable,realistic,timely) goals.

Lose Weight

My goal is to lose fifty pounds by the end of 2012. That goal meets all the criteria for being a SMART goal. My plan to lose the weight is to join a gym and exercise three times a week, stop drinking soda, and eat healthier food. Just cutting out the soda should be enough to lose the weight since it is probably my largest source of calories. If things work out right I might hike two or three weeks which would also give a boost to my weight loss efforts.

Write a Book

My goal is to write a book and publish it on Amazon by the end of 2012. That goal also meets all the criteria for being a SMART goal. I might tweak that goal and make the deadline earlier. My plan to meet this goal is to write 10,000 words a week. Breaking that down further to five days a week of writing 2,000 words it should take me about two to four hours a day to meet this goal. I’m also going to include my writing for blog posts in this total. Since blogging is my job this is a realistic time commitment.

Make More Money Online

My goal is make more money online in 2012 than I did in 2011. I don’t have as much control over this goal as I do the other two but I think it still meets the SMART criteria. My plan to meet this goal is to post on my blogs more often which my writing goal will help me accomplish. I also plan to outsource some writing and carnival submissions and will consider more outsourcing. One more thing I intend to do is to make placeholder sites at least for all the domain names I currently own. My plan for meeting this goal isn’t as detailed as the others but I will likely make monthly goals during the year to help me attain this goal as well. Since I didn’t start using Crystal’s advertising services until almost halfway through this year and I also have another blog this goal shouldn’t be that hard to achieve but you never know what the year will bring.

I will have a post reviewing my progress towards these goals at the end of each month to help keep me on track. Plus I will likely make smaller goals to help achieve these goals during the year. If things go well I might make some smaller goals during the year that don’t have anything to do with these goals. If you have any tips or advice on what I should do to meet these goals please share them.

As the year comes to an end it is time to make resolutions for the new year. Last year I decided not to make any resolutions since I knew I probably wouldn’t keep them. I did make some monthly goals but didn’t do too well at meeting those either. I did have some achievements in 2011. I managed to pass the bar even though I’d been out of school for two years and didn’t take a bar prep course. I started making enough money online that I was able to live off my blogging income for the last half of the year. Also,my wife and I started a profitable offline business but I can’t take any credit for that since my wife did almost all the work in getting it started and keeping it running. This year wasn’t a bust but there is still plenty of room for improvement in 2012.

Here are my resolutions for 2012:

Those are my resolutions for 2012 and I will write additional posts where I turn those resolutions into S.M.A.R.T. goals. I will also likely make additional goals during the year. Are you making any resolutions or goals for 2012?

For the month of September I set goals of writing 100 posts/pages, running/walking 100 miles, and investing 100% of my extra money. We are now halfway through the month of September and I have written 21 posts, walked 19 miles, and invested more than 100% of my extra money. Overall, I’m not doing very well on my goals. The savings goal was easy to meet, I just had to move some money from my bank account to my stock account. The other goals require a lot more work. I’m not anywhere close to halfway on those goals. I thought I would be able to put in some big days in the last half of the month but that will be extremely difficult. We got our first client for our offline business and will have to travel out of state a few days in the next couple of weeks. Plus we are going to my enrollment ceremony and the Financial Blogger’s Conference. There won’t be a lot of time left for writing and walking but I’m still going to work on them and get as close to my goals as possible.

It has been a little while since I’ve written a goals post. Mainly because I usually didn’t meet my goals. I’ll be setting fairly easy goals for September so I should be able to make them.

Write 100 posts/pages. I have three blogs,write a weekly column,plan to write an ebook, and plan to launch a new blog. In order to do all of that I’ll need to write at least 100 posts/pages.

Walk/run/hike 100 miles. I’m planning on doing some hiking and once the weather cools off I want to start running again so it should be easy to meet this goal.

Save 100% of extra money. Money from blogging and mystery shopping is what I use to pay my bills. Any extra money such as Ebay sales,dividends, and interest will be saved.