So apparently I didn’t actually make New Year’s resolutions last year, but nonetheless before I lay out some goals for 2011, I thought it might be interesting to look back over what I did manage to accomplish in the previous year first. I always tend to get a little hard on myself when I don’t meet these things, which is made all the worse because I also set extremely high expectations for myself, so I think it’s good to take a look back every now and then and consider the high points even if they weren’t necessarily expected at the beginning of the year…
Started blogging again on a regular basis
I honestly never realized how much I missed doing this until I actually started back up again … plus, it didn’t help that my blog was getting weighed down by all of those stupid LoudTwitter posts! The bottom line is that I think it’s really neat to be able to look back and see where I was a 6-months / 1-year / even 5-years ago, and jotting down my random thoughts via blogging makes that possible.Published my very first book
And some seven years in the making, no less! It’s hard to believe that I first entertained the idea of putting out a book of humor columns way back in 2003, but I suppose life just got busy and it took me a while to see things through. That said, I’m hoping that having the first behind me now will act as sort of a catalyst of more to come in the new year…Actually made money with my writing
Granted, I won’t be buying my first yacht with the proceeds from book #1, but it did get my foot in the door and some actual revenues for my taxes, which I’m sure the IRS will be happy to finally see after … well, a while! Again, I’m hoping that this year’s performance can if nothing else serve to get the ball rolling for more writing income in 2011.Went on three separate, very awesome vacations
What can I say – we work hard, we play hard! But seriously, my wife and I had kind of come up short in recent years of spending time together due to other obligations, so it was really nice to actually set aside some time for us for a change. I think we were gone for something like 5 weeks total – a long weekend in Seattle, about 3.5 weeks for our road trip, and then a week out at Disneyland for our anniversary. Good times, indeed…Paid off a boatload of debt
Now I’m not going to list numbers and we certainly could’ve done more if we hadn’t gone on all of the vacations, but it was still a fairly significant dent nonetheless and got us one step closer to being debt-free and saving for a house. In addition, we also started making regular contributions to an emergency fund, which also still has a ways to go, but I think is going to provide a vital security blanket when I’m finally ready to transition careers some day.
I suppose the more that I think about it, 2010 was really all about laying the groundwork for more things to come in the future. There are a lot of other things that could go on here as well if you wanted to talk about half-completed projects and things that didn’t go as planned, but I think as it is, this is a good, solid list of five accomplishments that I can be proud about looking back at the past year.
Now as for 2011…