Goals for 2016

Apparently I completely missed setting goals for 2015, because the last blog post I can find about goals was from March of 2014. Oops! Guess that means I didn't accomplish anything last year :)

Now now, that's not true. I in fact wrote two blog posts about life lessons learned (blog post 1, blog post 2), which are closely tied to my personal-improvement goal-setting of 2014 and prior years. I also actively pursued online dating, and have been in a relationship with a wonderful (and very patient) young woman for the past 9 months. For those of you who've been to my house and noticed my goals & timeline wall in my basement, well, eHarmony is checked off that list!

As I reviewed my goals from 2014, most of them were linked to personality traits - for example: anger management or maintaining a healthy life/work balance - and I believe I've accomplished the majority. A couple, such as punctuality and eating more healthfully, I've done less well at, so I'll continue to work on those.

For my 2016 goals, I'm leaning more heavily on the tangible, measurable accomplishments than previous years, though I still have at least a few personality-related improvements. Here we go:

• Aspire to live more like Elwood P. Dowd (see my "next decade" goals from Life Lessons part 2)
• Spend time with the people I want to spend time with, and learn to say "no" to other invitations
• Stand up for my right to "me time" and not overbook myself
• Continue to refine my budget, and be better at saying "no" to eating out; also, continue my trend of not buying alcoholic beverages when I'm out with friends (unless someone else is buying!), which easily saves perhaps $10 each outing
• Pay off more than half of my remaining car loan (~$13,000, so at least $6,500) by year's end
• Max out my 401(k) contributions for the year, or, purchase a rental property using that money as a downpayment
• Listen to 30 or more audiobooks, at least 5 of which are literary classics (aka, my typical Star Wars books won't count :). This should be very reasonable to achieve, since last year I listened to 60 audiobooks (and read 4 paperbacks). Considering my goal in 2010 was to read ONE book, I think this is good progress!
• Practice guitar at least once a week
• Exercise at least twice a week
• Lose 15 pounds - I'm currently at 155, and I'd like to be at 140 by year's end; this means eating fewer sweets :(
• Visit my friend in prison at least once this year
• Have an environmentally conscious yard, which will include lots of milkweed and butterfly & bee-friendly plants (this work is already planned for springtime)
• Have a clean basement by year's end; this means spending at least an hour each week working down there
• Try again to record a CD, which roughly means finish writing 1 song every month, and saving money from each paycheck for the recording process

Those are Jeremy's "official" goals for the year. Please help hold me accountable!