I have just spent the past two hours talking with my daughter and we were discussing our goals and careers.  It was a really interesting conversation seeing that we are in a very different place in life now than we were a couple of years ago.  She has completed college and is working at a good job in her field.  I have a kind of cool job and for the first time in my life I see a path being created for me in a career direction that will be successful.  All I have to do is keep working at it.

Therefore, it’s time to get back to the goals.  It’s okay to fall off track every once in a while, but then we have to get back on track.  I’ve been semi off track for the past week, partially due to a family emergency.  But, now it’s time to get back on track.

So, how do we go about measuring whether or not we’ve made progress towards our goals?

First we have to look at our big goals:

I want to build a career that can accomplish the following:

1. I need to create enough of an income to pay down and off debt, making a decent living, and save for retirement.
2. I need to be able to work and travel between our kids simultaneously while still having part of the year at home to “live off of the land”.  Freedom and flexibility are the key words.
3. I need to move work towards more physical activities or at least a balance between physical activities and sit down activities in order to live a healthier lifestyle.  I also need time to work out/get more exercise, create healthier eating and sleeping habits, and relaxation.
4. I need to develop at least two different forms, if not more, of residual income.
5. I need to be able to “give back” to society whether in the form of free services, money to donate, or find other ways to give back.  But, in order to give, one must get above their own circumstances and that takes time, effort, and planning.

Then we need to identify the smaller, shorter term goals that lead to the larger, longer-term goals.

1. Finish dissertation in order to move towards the next level of my career.
2. Being able to work and travel between the kids simultaneously means completing my dissertation and then stepping out into a newer career.
3. More physical activities balancing types of work between sit down thinking and physical labor working.
4. Developing residual income takes some research.  Research is where I need to begin here.
5. Giving back . . . this is a much longer term goal, not one I can focus on today.

So, building my new career depends a lot on completing my dissertation – so what shorter term goals do I need to build to accomplish this?

I need to complete my proposal:

• Edit Chapter 1
• Edit Chapter 2
• Update references
• See what feedback I get and update accordingly
• Put all three chapters together in one document, add cover page, table of contents, possibly abstract, and references
• Create a power point presentation
• Turn the project into my Chair and Committee Member and IRB.

Health and more physical activity:

• Walking 12000 steps per day at least 3-4 days per week.
• Start working on Jillian this next week
• Keep sugar intake down
• Watch food intake.

Research for residual income:

• Wouldn’t hurt to purchase Warren Buffets book
• Continue researching rental areas and properties.
• Begin researching penny stocks
• Begin researching regular stocks
• Continue looking into residual income opportunities.

So, where did we line up this past week?

• Completed editing Chapter 3
• Walked at least 3-4 days last week – achieved 18,930 steps in one day.
• Lowered sugar intake by about 75%.
• Ate more fruits and salads.
• Did some research on properties, houses, what rentals go for in the area I’m currently searching, and what the property taxes are.

This was last week.  Looking forward to next week.  No walking outside tonight due to the weather – 82 degrees with 81% humidity and a rather severe thunder storm expected.  Have to go look and see if it began yet.  The lightening was beautiful a half hour ago.

Good night and have a wonderful, healthy, and productive week!

The process of writing goals and objectives seems so easy.  After all, don’t most of us do this every new year’s eve? I’m going to lose 10 pounds.  I’m going to go to the gym every day.  I’m going to get better grades in school.  I’m going to work hard and find a better job.  Many people write yearly goals that become forgotten in weeks.

There have been several studies on goals and why people are not able to achieve them.  Long term goals need to be reasonable, reachable, and followed up with shorter term goals connected to objectives and action items that can be achieved.  The goal of losing 10 pounds is not huge; however, without an action plan and some level of accountability it may not happen.

The long term goals, objectives, and actions need to connect to smaller goals, objectives and actions that lead to accomplishment.  For example, the concept of building residual income is not new to many people.  However, it is fairly new to me as I never would have considered it before.  So, how does a person take steps towards building residual income?  What are the short term goals, objectives and actions that lead to the long term goals, objectives and actions that equate to success?

Research! One has to take the time to understand what the processes are before one can write the goals, objectives and actions that lead to the overall goals.  With a very little bit of research, I have learned about penny stocks, investing via an investment broker, and real estate renting and sales.  These are potential extra sources of income that have different ways to pay out.  Penny stocks pay out when they are sold.  Investing via an investment broker can be a retirement option or if one is good at trading over time, that could be a residual income.  Real estate might be a better source of regular monthly income without a ton of work involved on a weekly basis.  These are just some ideas.  I will be looking into more over the upcoming weeks.

Sometimes we put living on automatic pilot; acting without thinking, not having a plan, not considering the long term consequences, and eventually the consequences catch up with us.  For some people that may mean going from one relationship to another watching things get worse every time instead of better.  For other people it may mean falling out of healthy habits and getting stuck in a rut of unhealthy habits.  For others it may mean being stuck at a job or career and not being able to move forward.  And for others yet, it may mean being in a rut of not being able to save money to get ahead. We all have our vices.  We all have our challenges, our struggles, and our issues.  Well, I have mine too.

I am writing this blog for a small number of reasons:  1) I have goals that I want to achieve by making small changes one step at a time and blogging may be one way to hold myself more accountable, 2) as I do succeed and document how I came to succeed, hopefully that can positively influence others to find and work towards their dreams, and 3) to document all of the successes and failures along the way as an experiment and learning tool – as I would suggest for anyone striving to make changes for his/her future.   So, I am writing this blog for myself first and for anyone and everyone else after that whom it might help.  It all begins with the first step and following a sequence of steps after that regardless of what life throws your way.

As I am writing this, I realize that I have been working fairly consistently for the past 31 years towards these goals, but was lacking any real long term direction or insight as to where I was going.  I have always had the short term goals, but have finally developed the ultimate long term goals needed to plan that path.

There was a lot to learn to get here and there is a lot more to learn to get to the next level.  But, the first step (somewhere during my college career) was learning about my own values.   While I currently have long term goals developed, those goals may change.  What I do what to know is that those goals are based upon MY values.

My values: God, family, freedom, flexibility, health, financial independence, education, money, simple living, love, sharing, caring, respect, trustworthiness, honor, honesty and so on. . .  That is a good list to begin with.  This gives me a basis for my life goals and a strong foundation and center for decision making.

The greatest want I have ever had was to spend as much time with those I love and care about as possible.  However, I have spent much of my youth working two and three jobs trying to get my financial head above water.  So, basically I have spent my life treading and sinking in the financial waters of the world.  And, all that I accomplished was to work through my youthful energy to focus on barely making a living.  Had that energy been more focused and disciplined, much more could have been accomplished.  In time, I would like to rewrite all of this, research various successful people’s paths, and understand the thought processes of those who continually struggle in order to help some people move forward – once I get a handle on it all.

With that all being said, the way I am going to move forward is by deciding what I want to achieve – regardless how simple or complicated.  So, first a description of the overall picture:

I want to build a career that can accomplish the following:

1. I need to create enough of an income to pay down and off debt, making a decent living, and save for retirement.
2. I need to be able to work and travel between our kids simultaneously while still having part of the year at home to “live off of the land”.  Freedom and flexibility are the key words.
3. I need to move work towards more physical activities or at least a balance between physical activities and sit down activities in order to live a healthier lifestyle.  I also need time to work out/get more exercise, create healthier eating and sleeping habits, and relaxation.
4. I need to develop at least two different forms, if not more, of residual income.
5. I need to be able to “give back” to society whether in the form of free services, money to donate, or find other ways to give back.  But, in order to give, one must get above their own circumstances and that takes time, effort, and planning.

When I consider what values of mine these ideals encompass, I am looking at the value of God/faith, being financially independent, family, freedom and flexibility, health, education, simplicity in living, loving, sharing, caring, respect, trustworthiness, honor and charity (though this list could go on).  So, I believe I am on a decent path.

For other people, the goals will be different.  I know people who are happy working 40 hours a week and living life around that.  There is nothing wrong with this at all. That is their way of living, this is mine.

But, how does these goals get accomplished. . . especially at my age?  We will begin to identify this in the next post.

This blog will ideally have new posts on Wednesdays and Sundays of every week.  This first post identified the overall life goal(s).  The next set of posts will break down this goal into smaller goals and objectives that cover a 5 year plan, a 1 year plan, a monthly plan, and a daily/weekly plan of items to accomplish to build towards the life goal.  Following that will be the successes and failures of working to accomplish these plans. This will offer information on identifying personal strengths and weaknesses and how to work with, over, and around the strengths and weaknesses.

This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.