2011 Year In Review- Progress Against My Goals

Back on January 8 I outlined my goals for the year. Even thought the year is not through, we are nearing that time, and I feel like it's a good time to reflect on whether I have made sufficient progress towards my goals. Reviewing your action plan and your progress is the first step before you can lay out goals and an action plan for next year.

Goals:
1- Accelerate my new found love for my body
2- Live in another country
3- Help others more than they help me
4- Be more disciplined with my finances

Progress:
1- I did not reach my goal of doing a full set of push ups or pull ups, but I can confidently say that this has been the healthiest year of my life. I have continued to eat in a relatively healthy manner, choosing to cook over eating out when possible, and keeping up a regular (but not as intensive as I would like) workout routine.

2- For those of you who didn't hear through the grapevine, I had actually planned to move to the US within my company to take a new position. This is currently on hold for a variety of reasons, the largest being immigration has tightened up given all of the economic trouble down there.  At first I was really bummed about this, but I've since come to realize that where one door closes, many more open up. I'm not disappointed that I didn't achieve this goal this year, as it's truly a long term plan on this one.

3- This one has been a really funny goal. Reason being is that I'm not sure if it's achievable. I feel like I was very successful in spending an inordinate amount of time helping others, but somehow I wasn't able to tip the balance to me helping others more than they help me. I suppose it really is true that the more you give, the more you get back. In case you were wondering what I'm talking about in terms of helping others, I've reviewed and given feedback on approximately 10 resume's of folks who are looking for work, I helped an acquaintance get a well paying job at one of the big Canadian Banks, I made extra effort to ensure that all of the interns we had in our department this summer felt right at home even though they didn't report to me, and I prioritized helping others in my work group over doing my own work (even when this meant I had to work more hours to catch up). I'm not looking for an award here- but I want to capture this so that one day I can look back on it and reflect on the times and how I can get better in this area of my life.

4- Hmmm... the finance question. This one has mixed results, but only because my standards are high. I think overall I would call this bucket successful, as I refinanced some of my higher interest debt recently, and I have been saving about 10% of my income for the future. That reminds me, I probably need to write a post on why you should be saving because pensions are likely going to be something we reminisce about by the time I get there. I have definitely gotten more disciplined in sticking to my monthly budget, but there is more work to do. Some of the line items (eating out, booze) really could be reduced, and if I could do that successfully, I'd actually be helping out with Goal #1.

Overall, this year has been amazing. I feel like I have continued growing as a human being across all aspect of my life; economically, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Over the next 2 months (and 2 weeks of vacation during Christmas) I'm going to take a hard look at the year and my goals and figure out what 2012 needs to be all about.

I'll leave you with this thought, which was shared with me by Rafael Alencar while he was working with me at P&G. I am going to try and apply this to my goals for 2012.
"People often try to do too many things in 1 year, and not nearly enough in 5 years. You should have one or two small goals for the year, and 3-5 big goals for 5 years."

Think about it.