Monthly Goal Check-in #8 – @ 9/1/2016

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Well, it feels like I fell asleep on January 1st and woke up in September. Can you believe that 8 months are already gone? FOREVER. Like money, time can also be so very fleeting.

The unfortunate truth is that by now, most people have already given up on their goals, and that makes me sad ( 🙁 ). In my opinion that is because of several reasons:

  1. People don’t properly plan how they will achieve their goals.
  2. People don’t have the right accountability system in place.
  3. People don’t write their goals down, and then end up forgetting about them.
  4. People make less progress than they planned, they get discouraged, and throw in the towel.
  5. People set the wrong goals.
  6. People set too many goals. (I might be guilty of this one this year)
  7. People find all kinds of excuses to give up on their goals (and their dreams).

No one ever said it was going to be easy. Then again, nothing worth pursuing is ever really easy. You need to find the personal discipline and rely on pure grit to get you through the dip.

Have you ever heard the saying “3 feet from gold“? It is a story of a man digging for gold, his efforts were rewarded early on, but when overtaken by temporary defeat gives up “3 feet from gold”. The man decides to quit and sell his equipment to a “junk” man for a few hundred dollars. That junk man hires an Engineer and learns that the fault line of the gold ore was just 3 feet from where the previous man had been digging.

The junk man ended up extracting millions of dollars from the gold mine.

One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. Every person is guilty of this mistake at one time or another.

 


My Personal Accountability & Check-in

Below is where I stand with the 12 goals I set for 2016. You can see that I have added some additional color formatting to visually see the progress made in each passing month.

Goal Check #8 August 2016

My initial assessment when looking at this, is that I have made some really solid progress, but I’m still behind pace in a few goals. As you will read below, there are even several other goals that have become less important to me.

I will admit that I am probably guilty of setting too many goals this year. Typically, I try to keep it at 5 or less, but I was feeling super ambitious. I haven’t completely given up on anyone goal, but there are a few that I have moved to very low priority.

Let’s briefly take a look at each one:

Goal #1 [250 CrossFit/Hot Yoga Workouts or More, 46.8%] – Although I continue to make progress on this goal, I am significantly behind pace. This is something I take full responsibility for and realize that I am prioritizing other activities over working out. However, I have averaged about 15 workouts a month so far this year. I may not hit the 250 workouts, but I will complete far more workouts than I would have, had I not set this goal.

The career and financial goals have taken priority. As much as I hate to put my health aside, I saw a narrow window of opportunity that I had to take advantage of, and as you have all read it has paid off is spades.

Goal #2 [250 Days Eating Primal of nutritional consciousness or More, 29.2%] – As life began to normalize a bit in August, I was able to dedicate a bit of bandwitdth to being a bit more nutritionally conscious. I replaced 7 meals with Shakeology (the Healthiest Meal of the Day).

Goal #3 [Earn $270K in Gross Income or More, 88.5%] – I am convinced that we will blow this goal out of the water, even without a promotion to VP CIO. Mrs GYFG keeps killing it every month with her income. We are currently on track to now bring in $318K as of our September Forecast. This goal looks like it will be accomplished by October.

Goal #4 [Publish 52 new Blog Posts or More, 92.3%] – This goal is ahead of schedule. Based on the current pace, we could have this goal at 100% by the end of September.

Goal #5 [Pay Down Mortgage Principle by $25,000 or More, 100%] – As expected our recent refinance had us blow past our goal of $25,000. According to our accelerated plan we don’t need to make another additional payment until April of 2017 to stay on track for the 7 year and 3 month payoff of our mortgage. We are currently on hold with making new payments until then.

Goal #6 [Contribute $24,650 to Pre-Tax Accounts, 72%] – This one is pretty much on auto pilot. Not much to think about here.

Goal #7 [Vacation 21 days or More with My Wife, Friends, and Family, 90.5%] – I have two more days of vacation left before I reach this goal. We don’t have anything on the calendar until December when we go to St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. Nonetheless, this goal will hit 100%.

Goal #8 [Save 50% or More of After Tax Income, 100%] – This will be something that moves around each month. I just finished putting together my August 2016 financial report and that has us forecasted to hit 50%, but the reading for August itself is 32%.

Goal #9 [Write 12 Posts on Other Blogs, 25%] – Three guest posts have been submitted and published. Here they are if you would like to take a read:

1 – The AC Interview Series with Gen Y Finance Guy

2 – Financially Alert Friends – Interview #3 with Dominic @ Gen Y Finance Guy

3 – 10 Guidelines to Financial Independence with Gen Y Finance Guy

I am behind on this goal, and honestly I think I will be lucky to hit 50% before the year is up. But I will do my best and forget the rest…

Goal #10 [250 Entries or More in Wife Gratitude Journal, 22.4%] – No progress, I have tried to keep it very organic and writing things as they naturally come to me. I have 56 entries so far.

Goal #11 [Increase Net Worth by $112,000 to $430,000 by 12/31/16 or More, 100%] – I currently have us forecasted to actually increase net worth by $141,000 for the year, which would be an increase of 44% over our 2015 ending net worth.

Goal #12 [Earn $12,000 in the Blog, 33.3%] – This is a lifetime income goal. We have officially hit $4,000. Check out the details I share in my 2 years of blogging post.

Goal 13 – Earn VP Title C-Suite Position [Bonus Goal] – Now skipping VP and going straight to the C-Suite. I just found out that this is going to be announced in October, but the financial benefits will not be effective until January of 2017. The title with be Chief Information Officer, it comes with equity (not sure specifics yet), and a 40% bump in compensation.


That is where I’m at so far in 2016. I am very pleased with the progress I’ve made and am very much looking forward to updating everyone in another month. In the meantime, keep charging forward with your own goals. Don’t give in or surrender. Take it one day at a time. Measure your progress and I promise you will surprise yourself with what you can accomplish in month, quarter, and year.

Sometimes the progress we make doesn’t seem visible or worth the effort. But over time it really starts to add up and compound. Think about it this way…imagine you are trying to improve just 0.3% per day. That is not a visible amount of improvement, but it adds up to almost 1% improvement every 3 days, and by the end of the year you will have improved over 100%.

Onward & Upward!

– Gen Y Finance Guy


Oh, you’re still reading.

Do you want to help keep our lights on? You’re under no obligation, but if you were already thinking about it or were a little bit curious, why not help us out?

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Gen Y Finance Guy

Hey, I’m Dom - the man behind the cartoon. You’ll notice that I sign off as "Gen Y Finance Guy" on all my posts, due to the fact that I write this blog anonymously (at least for now). I like to think of myself as the Chief Freedom Officer here of my little corner of the internet. In the real world, I’m a former 30-something C-Suite executive turned entrepreneur turned capital allocator. I am trying to humanize finance by sharing my own journey to Financial Freedom. I believe in total honesty and transparency. That is why before I ever started blogging, I decided that I would share all of my own financial stats. I do this not to brag, but instead to inspire motivate, and also to hold myself accountable. My goal is to be a beacon of hope, motivation, and inspiration, for you, the reader, by living life by example and sharing it all here on the blog. My sincere hope is that you will be able to learn from me - both from my successes and my failures! Read More

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4 Responses

  1. The 3 feet from gold saying is so true. I’ve been having doubts about my blogging lately but I will never quit until I at least invested a year’s worth of time into my blog. Comes at a great time, thanks for the reminder Dominic!

    1. Finance Solver – Glad the timing was right for you and that it resonated with you. I totally agree that you need at least a year to give this thing a fair go. When I got into blogging I promised myself 3 years before I would decide either way.

      At the end of the day you have to ask yourself if you are committed or merely interested. Knowing this makes a huge difference and acts as a very good filter.

  2. First off congrats on the promotion. Sounds like you are doing awesome at work. Second I love that you set goals and are holding yourself accountable. This is so cool and love how you are tracking. I am definitely going to incorporate this into my goals next year.

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