How to Stick With a Goal and Reach It

We've been inundated with guests for the past couple of weeks but now our house is blessedly silent (not that I don't like having guests but it can be a bit much when our guest rooms are booked solid for weeks on end).  Oddly enough the refrain we heard most from all of these guests was "I wish we could retire like you guys did".  At which point I silently calculate one couples $400k+ income per year and another guy's $120k+ income per year and his multi-million dollar net worth and have a difficult time keeping a straight face.

So this is how to retire early (or take that trip around the world you've always wanted or build that bug out cabin you've always wanted, etc).

• Step 1.  Decide what your big goal is.  If you don't have a goal to focus on or have a variety of "I would like to do/haves" in mind you will be too unfocused to accomplish anything of significance.
• Step 2.  Get out of debt ASAP.  You can do SO MUCH MORE when you aren't dragged down by the weight of debt (ie: imagine your life if you had no credit card payments, no car payments, no house payments, etc).
• Step 3.  Be ready to give up stuff.  And it really is stuff that keeps you from reaching many goals.  If you must have the latest sports car, eat out every night, have a huge house with an equally huge house payment, or you keep yourself running on the treadmill of life (carting your kids to five separate activities each week or appointing yourself oversee-er of your dysfunctional family to the point that you can't even leave them for a week-long vacation for fear that someone will end up in jail/in court/in other versions of trouble) then you will not get off the hamster-wheel of "normal" life to do something decidedly abnormal (like achieving a kick-ass goal).
• Step 4.  Be ready to stop being "normal".  As Dave Ramsey says, "normal" is broke and in debt.  Normal is also doing what everyone else is doing and to veer away from such things is (negatively) interpreted as being abnormal (and we all want to fit with the status quo right?  Uh, no). 
• Step 5.  Think strategically about how you can reach your goal.  For example, we wanted to retire early.  Now there is no way we could reach our goal when we were living in an expensive area (Seattle), had a huge house (and a huge house payment), had new leased cars sitting in the driveway, and had credit card debt.  There was also a growing business to consider, the kids to consider, and a necessary income that was needed during our goal-reaching phase.  The totally radical answer to reach our goal quickly was simple (and simply insane according to some people at the time): we sold our assets (house, business), paid off our debts, returned the cars at the end of the lease period keeping one older paid off car, saw that the kids were situated (easy since they were all adults and gainfully employed), and learned to live (very) frugally on a small military pension.
• Step 6.  Face the fear and march through it.  Some of the insomnia-inducing fears we considered: will we end up homeless (we did, it wasn't so bad), what will our friends think (initially that we were crazy but we left to travel for about a year before officially settling down and retiring; we didn't see them so their censure ended up being a mute point), can we reduce our income to an eighth of what it originally was and still survive (yes, with ease it turns out), and what if something catastrophic happens (the catastrophe in question was rather nebulous but doing something so radical tends to bring the worst "what-ifs" to mind). 
• Step 7.  Have a fall-back plan.  This was rather simple and not well thought out but we did have a lot of friends and family who would open their homes to us should we literally end up "living in a cardboard box" homeless.  We had a good-sized emergency fund so worst case scenario we would be able to rent an apartment and "start over" if needed.  We also had a small yet consistent income (a pension, income from some freelance work) which meant we wouldn't end up with absolutely no money to sustain us.
• Step 8.  Let your goal evolve.  Our goal, in theory, was to retire early.  Along the way we decided to travel for a bit since another goal had been to travel in a more extended fashion than what a few weeks a year allowed.  After months of "hanging out" and traveling from here to there, extended travel kind of lost its luster.  At that point we just happened to be in Las Vegas for the WSOP and some friends mentioned that houses were a steal in the city (this was shortly after the housing market bottomed out, hitting Las Vegas harder than most other cities).  Again, a bit of strategic planning allowed us to come to the conclusion that we could buy a house and by living frugally would not have to work, thus meeting the goal of retiring early.  Goal achieved!
• Step 9.  Realize that you might reach your goal and find that there were some unintended consequences.  Don't get me wrong, retiring early is nice.  What we hadn't anticipated is that when you are retired and have absolutely nothing to do, you may become bored very quickly.  Becoming un-bored generally requires an expenditure of money (a quick trip to Europe, a fancy restaurant meal, or tickets to the newest big show on the Strip).  Again, by going into strategic thinking mode answers to the problem can be found (ie: enjoy free or low cost activities, work a single short-term gig to acquire the money needed for a larger purchase like a big trip, think about dipping your toes back into business, etc.).
• Step 10.  Realize that you can always go back to "the way things used to be" (although why anyone would want to do that I have no idea).  Should this goal have crashed and burned, hopping back on the hamster wheel of "normal" life was an option: find a place to live, get jobs, rack up the credit cards again, lease a new sports car, etc (although why anyone would want to do that I have no idea).

That's kind of the tldr; of goal achievement.  To see how others have done similar, life-altering goal achievement projects, check out these links:

• Family on Bikes
• Married With Luggage
• MMM
• Art of Non Conformity 

Goal Setting 101

As I get ready to head across the country to do a marathon, I realized that my training for said marathon is much like reaching any sort of goal whether for a physical challenge, a big prepping goal, building up an emergency fund, becoming a doctor or jet pilot, etc.  Here's how:

1. Begin with the end in mind (probably one of the biggest advances in goal management in recent memory, thanks to Steven Covey).  You need to know specifically what you want to achieve so you will know when you have reached your goal.  Obviously this end product needs to be specific (I want to run a 26 mile marathon, not I want to be able to run far).
2. Give yourself a reasonable, yet specific, amount of time to reach the goal (I will participate in the XX marathon on XX date).  If you say you will reach your goal "sometime" that time may never come.  Likewise, if you set an unreasonable timetable (I will go from couch potato to marathoner in two months) you probably won't reach your goal either.
3. Make daily, reasonable progress towards your goal.  Get off the couch, walk around the block.  The next day do a half run, half walk around the block.  Lather, rinse, repeat; extending your efforts a bit each day.
4. Seek help if needed.  The type of help needed, of course, depends on the goal.  If you are training for a marathon you may consider retaining the services of a running coach to help you improve your distance running skills or pick up a running partner to help keep yourself motivated.
5. Exert gazelle intensity and effort towards reaching your goal.  Goals that make you say "meh" probably won't be achieved.  Ditto for goals that you only work hard on occasionally thinking you will make up for the missing effort later.
6. Keep only one or two goals on your radar at a time.  It is much easier to focus on one or two goals until they are achieved rather than dispersing your effort among a dozen or more goals at the same time.
7. Reach your goal.  Of course, with a major goal that requires major effort, there is the possibility that you could fail and not reach your goal at which point you would need to regroup and redouble your efforts (after figuring out why failure occurred) or throw in the towel and work on a different goal.  Either one are options; sometimes goals don't work out as you have planned, other times they loose their importance and your enthusiasm, but at least by making the effort you will benefit in some ways.  On the other hand, you may reach your goal and completely amaze yourself with what you have accomplished.

The Power of Goal Setting...An Example

Just a quick example of what can happen when you set a goal and reach it: The Family on Bikes just arrived in Ushuaia after a three year, 17,000 mile bike ride from Alaska. Do you have a goal? Is it big enough to be interesting as well as challenging? What are you going to do about it? Make it happen or make excuses?

The Value of Setting (And Reaching) Goals

For the past few days I was out of town, participating in a marathon. I actually finished (!), however I realized that I am not as young as I used to be. I used to be able to participate in hard-core physical activities for hours on end and have no repercussions. My feet today, however, are screaming in pain and I am barely able to walk. Bummer.
The best part is that this was one of many goals that I have set for the year and I accomplished it. I have found over the years that having a list of goals to accomplish has not only provided direction for my life but has also greatly increased the chances that I would be successful in the things I want to accomplish.
With a list of goals, I can plan out my year, or at least the high points, and the list also serves as motivation to actually get the things done that I want to achieve. One of the best things about having written goals is that there seems to be more accountability than just having a number of good ideas in your mind. There have been many times when there was a particular activity/event coming up and I would literally have to pull myself out of bed on the morning of said activity and drag myself to where ever it was I needed to be. If I didn't have a concrete goal set in writing, there is no way that I would have gone to the trouble to attend said event/activity/class. Afterwards, though, I am always happy that I made the effort to achieve the goal no matter how lazy I was before the fact.
If there are things you want to accomplish, no matter how large, small, or improbable, write them down, set a time frame, and get busy working towards your goals.
On a side note, don't worry about the money when it comes to goals. If people looked at only what they knew they could afford/achieve they would not reach very high. As many philosophers have noted, once you set your mind of something, the universe has a way of making things happen.

New Year's Resolutions

Judging by the poll going on in the sidebar, most people don't make and/or keep new year's resolution so this may be an unnecessary post but should you decide to set some goals for the coming year, here's some ideas:

1. Learn something.
2. Make something.
3. Add a new income stream.
4. Get outside.
5. Survive on your own.
6. Develop a skill.
7. Become debt free.
8. Travel somewhere.
9. Help someone.
10. Set and reach a huge goal.

If you set one specific goal in each of the above areas, it would definitely make for an interesting year, the things you learn will most likely impact your survival/preparedness abilities in a positive fashion, and you will finish up the year on a better footing than when you started (as far as getting out of debt and having more income are concerned at least).
Happy New Year, thanks for reading the blog and website, thanks for commenting and adding interesting info for our readers, and here's to a great 2010!

10 Things to Do by the End of the Year

Now is a really busy time of year, however there are a bundle of things that you should do now, rather than later...

1. Back up all of your files. I back up all of my business files at least once a week onto a thumb drive. Some people do this daily, depending on the quantity of work generated or the value should the files disappear into the ethers. Others do this not at all...these are the people having a meltdown at their local computer shop because their hard drive is totally toast and all of their family pictures, work, and important info has been lost forever. Get into the habit of backing up your files on a regular basis so that if your computer should die, you will still have most if not all of your important computer files ready to put on another computer and keep going.


2. Back up all of your contacts. Whether you use GMail, Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo, or any other email program, you need to export your contact information regularly as well. I export my contact list into a .csv file and keep it saved with my backed up files so in case my email server should implode, I will still have this important information.


3. Get your tax deductions in. If it looks like it will be a big tax year or you are just feeling generous, be sure to get your tax deductible donations and deductions in ASAP, at least by the end of the year.


4. Change all of your passwords. This is also a good habit to get into on a regular basis and what better way to start off your new year than with a whole set of new passwords?


5. Dump out the BOB and repack it. I did this a couple of days ago. I generally go through my BOB a few times a year in order to rotate the food, make sure the clothes are appropriate for the season, and refine my gear (I am on a minimalist kick and I want to be able to grab my BOB and RUN not grab my BOB and drag the thing down the street because it weights so much).


6. Get a calendar. Whether you use an electronic calendar, a huge wall calendar, or a pocket calendar, having something to write important dates in is an excellent way to stay organized. So far my calendar includes standing meetings for 2010 and a whole bunch of fitness activities such as bike rides, marathons, and other events I plan to participate in during the upcoming year.


7. Check all of your important documents that have an expiration date and note anything that will be expiring on your calendar so you will be able to renew them on time. Driver's license, passport, concealed carry license, credit cards, professional licenses...all of these things have expiration dates and can create a real problem if you let them lapse.


8. Make a goal list. Each year I make a list of around 100 goals that I want to accomplish each year. If you keep these sorts of things in your head, you are much less likely to accomplish them so take the time to actually write out the things you want to accomplish (work, financial, travel, health, family goals) then set about completing them in the new year.


9. Update important documents. The end of the year is a good time to look back over the past year and update documents such as your home inventory, your resume, and your Will to reflect any new changes in your life.
10. Start on your way to creating a "super abundance" in your home. Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to worry about buying laundry soap, toilet paper, shampoo, etc for an entire year? At the end of each year I try to purchase enough of the consumable products that we use on a regular basis to last for an entire year. It greatly streamlines your life when you have plenty of everything in your home. No more running out of important items, no more running to the store at the last minute because you ran out of dish soap, always having enough of everything on hand even if you have dozens of house guests visit throughout the year...all good reasons to stock your home well at the beginning of each year.

National Preparedness Month

September is National Preparedness Month. Here's some ideas to celebrate the month:

• Write a list of 30 preparedness goals, one for each day, that you will accomplish in September.
• Check your local Red Cross, Department of Emergency Management, fire department, or other agency for a preparedness-related class that you can take. This month there are a number of classes in our area including CPR course, HAM radio class, etc.
• Reinvigorate your fitness goals. I've kind of slacked off during August because I've been so busy. Starting September first I'm going to hammer away on the fitness front, at least for a month.
• Do some simple things: get your flu vaccine, change the batteries in your smoke detector, change your passwords, etc.
• Help others: deliver meals on wheels (it will help you to learn the roads of your city better, a preparedness bonus), volunteer to be the school crossing guard for your kid's school (you can keep kids safe while helping them learn to be more aware of their environment and safety), join your community's Medical Reserve Corps/Search and Rescue/emergency HAM radio team, etc.

10 Things to Do This Spring

Even though we are heading towards summer, the weather has been pretty crummy so I am considering the first week of May to be spring. Here's my spring "to do" list:

1. Plant some vegies. Whether you plant a multi-acre garden or a window box full of greens, growing your own food is a great skill to have and it will save you money as well.
2. Do some home maintenance. The roof needs cleaned, the gutters need cleaned, the yard needs a complete makeover...my home maintenance list is fairly lengthy.
3. Get outside and exercise. Every day. Being cooped up at home on the treadmill or at the gym gets old, especially after a number of months so now is an excellent time to get some fresh air and some exercise.
4. Dump out, analyze, restock, and repack the BOB. I do this about every six months as a habit.
5. Double my emergency fund. Actually since I don't have much in the way of travel or purchases planned until the fall, I figured that this would be a worthy (and possibly quite necessary) goal.
6. Attempt to stay home for an entire week. This simply never happens but the idea of a massive isolation and quarantine effort because of the pandemic flu got me to thinking. What would happen if we stayed home for an entire week? Would we have enough food to keep us amused and away from Starbucks/restaurants/carry out? Could we stand each other for a 24/7 stint with no other social contact? Would we save lots of money that we would otherwise spend on gas, impulse purchases, and my weekly run to the sporting good store? Would I be super productive work-wise? Should be an interesting experiment...
7. Go camping or backpacking. I haven't been out at all this winter and need a bit of nature.
8. Learn a new skill. I'm not sure which one but there are always a range of interesting courses available and I am always in a continual learning mode...you never know what skill will come in handy during a disaster.
9. Beef up my home medical kit. A simple flu has practically overwhelmed our local hospitals, not by those with the actual swine flu, but with people who have a sniffle and are panicked that they caught the real thing. Now during an actual, full blown medical emergency, hospitals will be truly overwhelmed. The more medical supplies I have available, the better.
10. Improve my health. Good health is one of the most important things that you can have during a disaster (or on a daily basis for that matter). I've been slacking a bit lately and need to get back on track.

DPT--Goal Setting

I am big into goals and big into lists. I haven't quite found the right combination yet--101 goals in 1001 days moved too slowly to be motivating and setting 10 goals and working on nothing else until they are completed was too limiting (I often accomplish 25 to 30 small things a day on a good day). I recently ran across this blog (http://www.magichundred.blogspot.com/), promptly wrote down 100 goals, and have knocked out five goals and made significant progress on others since I began this challenge last Sunday. Anyway, if you are into goal setting and want a challenging and motivating way to reach goals both big and small, write down your 100 goals to accomplish in the next 100 days and get busy!

DPT--Set a Goal and Exercise

You need to be as healthy and physically fit as possible because good health has a number of survival implications. For example, you may be able to get off meds for chronic conditions such as high cholesterol or diabetes (always a good thing during a disaster when medications may be hard to come by), you will be better able to haul your carcass out of a second story window during a fire or run from your neighborhood carrying a fully filled BOB, and healthy people tend to recover better if they are injured in a disaster or other type of accident.
Now having a routine exercise program can bore the socks off of you, especially if you are working out with no real goal. To "get in better shape" is too vague and unmeasurable to be very effective. The military has physical fitness goals in writing that recruits can strive for. The "Biggest Loser" has a competition to lose more than the other people to strive for. The runner has the New York Marathon to strive for. Get the idea? If you want to get in optimal (or even just better) shape, it is quite helpful to have a worthwhile goal to reach. A girl in our office is now working out with a group of beginners who want to enter a mini triathlon. Sounds like a big goal for someone who doesn't exercise but she is enthusiastic, she has a goal with a set deadline, and she has the group to help her be accountable. This is an excellent way to pull yourself back into shape. Consider setting a reasonable goal (ie: start off with a 5k run instead of a full marathon), work your way up to the condition necessary to be successful at your goal, then sent another, larger goal. You will thank yourself for this foresight should disaster strike.

The Power of Habits and Goals

Tell me what your habits are and I will tell you how your life is today and how it will most likely be in ten years. Your entire life revolves around your daily habits (which will lead you to your goals) so it only stands to reason that no goals and bad habits can lead to challenges, problems, and loss whereas a set of good habits and firmly entrenched, positive, goals will probably lead you to success, health, wealth, and all of those other nice things.
The reason I am writing about habits and goals today is because I decided to start my New Year's resolutions tomorrow, December 1st, instead of January 1st like everyone else. I guess it really doesn't matter when you begin to work towards improving your habits and moving towards your goals, so the sooner, the better right? I can't remember the day I began walking three miles a day on the treadmill, EVERY day, first thing, as soon as I roll out of bed in the morning; I just got tired of being out of shape, lumpy in all of the wrong places, and unable to look in the mirror without thinking that I used to have a rock solid body...and now look at it. Anyway, in an effort to develop some better habits and work towards some significant goals, I will start doing the following tomorrow:

1. Health: continue walking three miles a day, every day and NO MORE caffeine (daily exercise and cutting out Starbucks will go a long way toward improving my health)
2. Wealth: become debt free by April 30, 2009 (I'm close...just need to keep forging ahead)
3. Home: renovate home, yard, and out buildings by August 30, 2009 (the house is fairly new but hasn't had a lot of attention paid to it over the past few really busy years; by this summer I want it to be in pristine condition)
4. Travel: take four multi-country vacations by December 31, 2009 (one of my life goals is to visit all 315 countries/places on the Travelers Century Club list)
5. Serving others: serve others with a positive attitude whenever possible (I recently found out there is a difference between "helping" others and "serving" others)
6. Productivity: answer all calls and email daily (I'm lazy...I don't always do this but should)
7. Learning: study a different language each day of the work week--Spanish, Japanese, Tagalog, Chinese, Arabic (again, I'm lazy and while I have varying degree of fluency in these languages, I need to practice regularly...which I have been slacking on)
8. Preparedness: update the CNI website daily, update the CNI blog daily, participate in two preparedness training opportunities in 2009 (I haven't decided what these will be but a week at LFI, Tom Browns place, or Blackwater would be fascinating)
9. Business: either make my businesses a lot more hands off or sell them by December 2009 (another life goal is to have a very portable business--such as writing--so that I can travel and enjoy a wider range of learning opportunities)
10. Do a WOW project: this may be biking from Canada to Mexico, doing the 88 Shikoku Temple Trek in Japan, or organizing another huge family reunion (we do this every few years at some location around the world and usually have 30 to 50 family members and friends show up...it's just that it usually falls to the spouse and I to organize it...and like I said, I am a bit lazy...)

Anyway, those shall be my goals which will require a good set of daily habits in order to reach them. Have you made your list of New Year's Resolutions yet?

20 Things I Need to Do Before the End of the Year

Being a listy-type person, I keep myself organized with lists on a daily basis. Here's are some random things I need to do before the end of the year (some of which you may need to do as well):

1. Vote (I already voted by mail...this is a reminder for our readers)
2. Finish funding my Roth IRA (although this can be done into the next year for 2008)
3. Replace the batteries in my CO detector (tis the season for carbon monoxide poisoning)
4. Do all the year end/new year business stuff (box 2008 files, new 2009 files, all financials updated, etc)
5. Change all of my passwords
6. Do my annual home inventory
7. Break a bad habit (for me, this is a daily Starbucks Frap)
8. Get out of the country for a couple of weeks (the only way I get a vacation is to go where no one can find me and I am not online/available by phone/connected to CNN 24/7)
9. Do something odd (I've been kicking around an idea for a Dave Ramsey 'Plastectomy' video, I may even apply for Survivor or Amazing Race)
10. Surprise the spouse (sometime between our anniversary and Christmas I usually come up with a good surprise)
11. Flesh out a new business venture (I have also been kicking around a couple of new business ideas. My goal is to be able to support my lifestyle with passive income only so that is one of my main projects now)
12. Practice tracking in the snow when we get some; this may coincide with a ski trip
13. Start learning a new language (I'm debating between Arabic and Chinese)
14. Visit my son (he will be deploying to Iraq by the end of the year; even though he is well trained I wish I was going instead of him)
15. Find the perfect 2009 calendar (I don't do electronic calendars, I like to see a whole month at a time so I need the perfect paper calendar which I will use every day for a year--this is often more difficult to find than it seems)
16. Ratchet back Christmas exponentially (this holiday is usually an EVENT--food for half the community, presents for a very large and extended family--it's craziness. A more manageable event would be nice)
17. Find a beater pick up truck (a friend bought an old truck with a strong engine that looks like hell but functions fairly well for a grand total of $500. I want one too. I can think of a hundred and one uses for such a truck)
18. Revamp the storage system in my garage (I think a reworking of the shelving could yield more storage space for food, water, and supplies)
19. Stash more cash (always good to have lots on hand)
20. Review my investment portfolio when the market quits being so schizophrenic

Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Goals

Since I'm a listy kind of person, I need my daily, weekly, and monthly goals written down and posted front and center in my office in order to achieve them (but mostly so I don't forget what they are). Here's my preparedness/survival goal list:

Daily:

• Exercise for one hour
• Eat right (or at least try to...staves off medical bills and chronic health conditions)
• Take vitamins (and meds if you need to)
• Save money (even if it is just pocket change)
• Peruse the online preparedness/survival sites (there is always more to learn)
• Update the CNI website and write a blog post (I think everyone should blog because there is so much value in learning what others are doing as well as learning from their successes and mistakes)
• Do my preparedness goal (I try to set a preparedness goal to meet every day even if it is something as simple as cleaning out a closet in order to have more food storage space or getting the air checked in my tires)
• Set a preparedness goal for the next day (so I don't have to think about it the next morning and can plan ahead for how to accomplish the goal)

Weekly:

• Do my weekly grocery shopping and buy a couple of bags of additional food to add to my stockpiled food
• Practice a skill (this could be anything from shooting at the range to going on a day hike to orienteering, etc)

Monthly:

• Take a class (this might be a language class, a boating class, a HAM radio operators class, a motorcycle endorsement class, etc)
• Revamp my survival supplies (I pick a different area to review and update each month--car BOB, house BOB, stockpiled food areas, office BOB, water stores, etc)
• Do a weekend project (things that take a bit more time such as a camping trip, attending a preparedness conference, participating in a shooting match, setting up a HAM radio station, etc)

Day Zero 101 in 1001

I stumbled upon this website... http://triplux.stilljournal.com/dayzero/ and thought it was a wonderful idea. The purpose of this site is to get people to set 101 goals that they will complete in 1001 days (about 2.75 years). Anyway, I put together a list of my own--I didn't feel it was necessary to post it on the site--and surprisingly have started accomplishing the goals I have listed. Most are simple things that I needed to do but just never got around to (update my Will, have a vision screening done) and a few are longer term goals (become fluent in Arabic, renew my diving certification, summit Everest). Anyway, take a look at the site and think about all of the things you want to accomplish...maybe even make a list.