Isn’t it strange how somethings just don’t turn out the way you planned? I mean, I went into 2019 with a full plan. I updated my life plan according to the book “Living Forward” by Michael Hyatt. I set up my 2019 goals and was very specific with the things I wanted to accomplish in 2019. HA! Not sure WTF happned. LOL
Fast forward, now it is December and lately, I have been looking back over the year and realizing the majority of the goals I wrote out, I did not accomplish at all. I am looking at myself wondering where did I go wrong? It is that time to start my planning for 2020. I wonder if this year will be like last? The big goal categories i wrote for 2019 are below and then I had smaller goals underneath each of these to get to these big 4.
- By December 31, 2019, I will have reached my goal of weighing 190 pounds. – I weigh 223
- By December 31, 2019, I will have maintained all my financial goals and added additional funds. I didn’t add any additional funds to my retirement, but I did buy 2 new rental properties, paid down my HELOC, and flipped 3 houses. NONE of this was part of my plan – more on this
- By December 31, 2019 I will have accomplished all my work & Income goals. – now I did blow this one out of the water. I had my best year ever!
- By December 31, 2019 I will have accomplished all my Personal goals – HAHAHAHAHA – below are those goals
- I will continue to write, per The Miracle Morning routine, in my journal. – I have done a fair bit on this
- I will find ways to bring our family unit close by continuing to encourage/sponsor family breakfasts, hikes, dinners, camping etc. NOPE
- I want to improve personal relationships with friends – do game night and dinner with friends bi-weekly- NOPE – i feel like we alienated most of our friends and have become recluses this year.
- Read 1 fictional book/ month and 1 motivational book per month – eh, if you call audio books “reading”
- I will complete some much – needed trips –
- May – Portugal trip – looking at home – NOPE
- March – October Monthly Camping Trips – NOPEish we went on 4
- Buffini trips
- October Monterey Success Tour – NOPE
Ya this year did not go as planned. AT ALL. I am frustrated with myself that I did not manage these better.
So here is what went right even though it was not in the plan. As part of my financial goals this year, I wanted to meet with Steve Goorman, the owner of my company and someone I admire a great deal. He is a self made man and has built a great mortgage company. I wanted to pick his brain about how I could recruit loan officers to my team and build additional income that way. This is not go as planned at all.
I met with Steve, and instead of him imparting amazing wisdom on how I could build my team, he told me to read the book, “The Richest Man in Babylon” I did and It changed the entire course of my year.
The book talks about utilizing your home and building your wealth through the equity. I promptly went out and bought our first rental property in Idaho. I never thought I would enter this market again since we had just a bad experience with rentals the last go-round. But we did and now we have 2 rentals. Both have 25% equity in them and I am about to buy another. This one will be a duplex and will double as a 2nd home for Kerry when he is in Idaho working in real estate and working on our flip properties. DID NOT PLAN ON THIS AT ALL!
Kerry and I have made the goal that we want to buy 2 more rentals before June of next year. Ok, that may be my goal as I am the money guy, but it is so doable. This will be a huge part of our retirement. We have been working with our dear friend and realtor, Tracy Bixby, on the rental acquisitions. She has a certain model for us to be successful when buying these rentals. She tells us when they are good and when she does not recommend them and I totally trust her.
Our flips have been good for us as well. I have been able to use the profits to pay down the equity line on the house. I will continue that strategy in 2020. My intent is to have the entire HELOC paid of this coming year!. We are picking up these houses so cheap and are turning a decent profit on them. This current house we are working on is the bane of my existence though. it is a nightmare and way too much of a project. However, we are powering through it and should end up with about $30 grand once it is all said and done. At least I am crossing my fingers this is the case.
The 2nd thing that has done right this year is my income at work. When 2019 started, I was scared to death. Rates had started to go up and my business totally dropped off. I was not closing very many loans at all and it was freaking me out! I even when tax exempt so I could keep as much money in my pocket as possible and not stop the momentum of what I had been doing with my retirement plans.
However, I kicked ass this year at work. In fact, it has been my best year ever. in 2019 I built an income goal with my business coach at Buffini & Company and then I went a bit further and made a stretch goal for myself. I blew my stretch goal out of the water! BOO YA!
So I have set my sites even higher for 2020. If I am to accomplish all that I have set out to do for my plan for retirement, I really do need to kick it in gear and make 202 my best year ever!!! There is no time to fuck around! and trust me, this year I have done a lot of fucking around. My Morning Game is for the birds! I need to straighten this up!
I don’t want to have another year become a “good” year in spite of my fucking around. I want to control the outcome as best I can and feel good about the strides I have made in all aspects of my life. I want to direct my future and not leave it up to chance.