So I recently listened to Tim Ferriss’s podcast Recommendations and Resolutions for 2016 and I figured it would be good to do a blog post on my goals and resolutions for 2016. Some of the things are more want to do and not so much goals, but I figured I’d write them all down anyway.

Personal Goals

Writing
Doing this. I went over a lot of the details in my last post, so I’ll keep it short. Basically, I want to be writing a blog post once a week and posting at least every couple days on tumblr. Along with actually writing, I want to get in the habit of being more active on social media. The goal of all of this is to keep a better log of my successes, failures, and struggles along the way. This will not only enable me to remember (or not have to remember) all the things that happen in my life, but hopefully I can end up helping others in the process.

Meditate
I have been trying to make this into a habit for quite a while now and it has never stuck. Seems like this is a pretty common problem… My goal for this year is to get it to stick. I’d like to meditate 20 to 40 minutes a day - 20 minutes in the morning and another 20 at night, if I’m not to tired.

Read 15 books this year
I have never been a big reader. I hated English class in high school, particularly the required reading and papers on the books we had to read. I think that may have put a bad taste in my mouth that lasted until just recently. That, and I had this notion that reading fiction was a waste of time. I had no problem reading text books (biology, physics, programming, etc.). My thought was, why would I spend time reading fiction if I could spend that same time reading something informational and actually learn something. I am just now realizing that reading fiction cultivates creativity and is not at all a waste of time. Anyway, thanks again to Tim Ferris, I have a gigantic list of book recommendations from his podcast guests. So, I would like to make a dent in that list this year. Here is the list if anyone is interested (disclaimer - it isn’t complete, but it is extensive).

Art / Drawing
This is one more nebulous than the others. I don’t really have a specific goal here… I just want to get better at sketching and using different mediums like charcoal and pastels. I’m not super interested in painting, I’m not sure why. The reason behind this is I have a very visually active mind and I have a semi photographic memory. Because of this, I will remember scenes from my dreams or scenes just created randomly in my head with pretty accurately. I think it would be really cool to be able to put these scenes onto paper. The problem is that I currently have very little experience with drawing, so I can’t really transcribe what is in my head in any satisfactory way. I would like to change that. Also, I have decided to post everything I do online to this tumblr blog. So, if you’d like, you can watch as my skill progresses and eventually you will be able to see inside my head (hopefully).

Spanish
Last year, one of my resolutions was to be fluent in Spanish by the end of the year. I am not fluent in Spanish. I did make some good progress though. I finally made using Duolingo a daily habit, unfortunately that didn’t happen until towards the end of the year (my Duolingo username is armueller for anyone who is interested). According to Duolingo, my Spanish fluency is currently 51%. So my goal this year is to make it the remaining 49%.

Cooking
This one is also not very specific. There is no specific goal here, I just want to become a better cook this year.

Working out
For the past couple months, I have been working out 2 to 3 times a week in preparation for this year’s Pan-Florida challenge. At first, I was really not looking forward to having to join a gym and go that frequently, but now I am actually starting to really enjoy it. I still skip some days if I’m just not feelin’ it, but for the most part I am enjoying it. So, now that I have gotten into the routine of working out, I have a couple of goals related to strength for this year, mostly related to having a better weight to strength ratio. I’ll just provide the names of the moves, if you don’t know what it is, just youtube it.
One arm pushups, at least 1.
Muscle ups, at least 1.
Freestanding handstand pushups, at least 1.
Pistol squats, at least 1 set of 15.
Leg raise to inverted hang, at least 1.
I don’t have any particular move to test back strength… if you have a suggestion let me know on twitter.

Pan-Florida challenge
The Pan-Florida challenge is a 160 mile bike ride over 2 days. I have never ridden a road bike before. My goal is to make it through and do reasonably well. Not first, not last. Also, it is for charity, here is a small excerpt from their site: “Our big bold goal for 2016 is to feed 500,000 meals to hungry kids”. Along with committing to riding 160 miles, I have also donated $50, If you are interested, you can donate here. If I had more money, I would donate more… alas, all I have is my nimble body. Even if you don’t donate I would still encourage you to check it out. I may dedicate a blog post to this sometime in the future…

Improve posture
This is more of a minor one, but important none the less. I have never really had good posture, and I want that to change. I just have to make sure I get in the habit of sitting up straight.

Business Goals

Flip 32 or more properties this year
This may seem like a pretty lofty goal at the moment… but I think we can hit it. Flipping 32 properties, cash in to cash out, means that we will have to acquire 5 per month. This month, we closed on one already and will close on two more next week. …So we have to pick up the pace. You may be thinking, wait, 32 divided by 12, you should only need to buy 2 or 3 per month… The tricky thing is that we want to be in and out of 32 by the end of the year. So if you budget in rehab time and time to sell (which can be up to 45 days now) we have have #32 on the market by early November. That means we need to buy #32 by early August, which ends up being 5 a month. In order to support 5/month there are some nice to haves that will, inevitably, become must haves. For example, getting an office and maybe hiring some part time help.

Looking Back

Originally I was going to include a retrospective on 2015 in this post, but it is getting late and I really just want to get this post out, so I’ll just have to save that for Friday.