I came up with 15 resolutions and to keep myself honest, today I post an update.
Resolution Dilution?
It’s human nature to lose enthusiasm for goals after the initial excitement wears off. However, it’s important to persevere. How many great things were accomplished in a month or two? Stick to it and build a habit!
One way to keep yourself motivated is to hold yourself publicly accountable. And while I feel a little selfish for this post (why should you care about my weight loss or small business goals?), the reason I’m publishing this is that knowing I have to tell all of you keeps me motivated.
Goals…
1) Be
- Mrs. 1500 and I bought a business (see item #3).
- After a lull and lack of enthusiasm for writing at the end of 2018, I feel reinvigorated and have been putting a lot of time into this blog.
- Our girls are in Girl Scouts and it’s cookie season. This is a time suck.
2) Make a trailer park profit: FAIL! We have made $0 from our Elevated Living Estate. But, it’s only a partial fail. Our reserves have grown to $81,400. We’re keeping a load of cash to fill empty lots in the park this spring.
3) Grow a coworking space: SUCCESS! Running a small business with friends in downtown Longmont has been a lot of fun. I’ve been working on marketing including managing Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Googley stuff. We’ve been signing up about two new members every week.
4) Continue indexing: SUCCESS! We’ve been plowing every spare cent back into the markets. And this year, Mrs. 1500’s company started an HSA plan. Woot!
Note: I realize we’re not really retired, but the Mrs. and I are doing exactly what we want to do. I get to write this stuff all day and the Mrs. has her dream job. Plus, I can’t imagine ever not working. Waaaay too boring.
5) No more sugar: SUCCESS! It hasn’t been easy (see resolution #1, bullet point #3 above). However, the sugar lust mostly went away after a couple weeks of minimal intake.
6) Lose weight: SUCCESS! I started the year at 162.4 and am down to 158.2 (down 4.2 pounds!). I’m close to a two-decade low. My goal of 150 by the end of April is definitely possible.
And I’d be lower if I didn’t have a poor start in January. We were on vacation for about the first third of the month and I let myself go. My beer total in January was 43. Not good. But I recovered in February (16). In most months from here on out, my consumption will be even less. It’s just not worth the empty calories and shitty sleep. Less is more.
7) Get resting heart rate down
8) 5K in under 27 minutes: TBD. I’m scheduled to run the 5K at the Berkshire Hathaway meeting on May 5th. Wish me luck.
9) Squat my body weight: TBD. I’m up to 140 and my weight is 158, so have less than 20 pounds to go. I’ll focus more on leg strength training after I’ve run the 5k.
10) Resume weight training: SUCCESS! My stupid shoulder is finally better. Only took 4 months! I’ve modified my workout so that I’m more careful with shoulder exercises (barbells instead of dumbbells) and so far, so good.
11) Be more stoic: SUCCESS! I’ve let silly people bother me. Why should I care when someone cuts me off in traffic or a stranger makes up stuff about me on the internet? If I think about them, they’ve won.
I don’t care what you think of me. I don’t think of you at all.
Coco Chanel
12) Declutter my mind: FAIL! I’m still distracted by internet noise. Must. Be. Better. The struggle is real. Screw you Twitter.
13) Launch a webcomic: FAIL! March. I hope…
14) Declutter our home: SUCCESS! We’ve been carrying boxes out of our home weekly.
15) More dinosaurs: TBD!
Tally:
- Success: 8
- Fail: 3
- To be determined: 4
You?
Did you make resolutions? If so, how are they going? If you’ve fallen off the bandwagon, there’s no better day than today to get back on.
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Hard to complain about a couple of failures. Everything is pointing in the right direction! Nice work!
These weren’t specifically resolutions, but I started intermittent fasting (16/8) in late December and stopped eating meat in mid-January. So far so good. 16/8 fasting was easier for me than 12/12 just because of our daily schedule. I haven’t missed meat. I’ve lost 10lbs and am down to 145. I weighed about 135 when I graduated high school 31 years ago. To be 10lbs heavier than I was when I graduated HS is pretty good. I wrote about these changes but no photo evidence was provided. I told people that if they were looking for bare-chested photos of a middle-aged dude flexing in a Guy Fawkes mask they’d have to go to your site.
Great list! I think taking a look at these once a month is a great idea to gauge progress. I made a list of 2019 perspective goals at the beginning of the year and promptly forgot about it until reading your article. Thanks for the reminder to revisit these things! My brain has been getting pulled into distraction, procrastination, and anxiety lately, so rereading and re-implementing the perspectives I’m working toward will hopefully get my head back in the right space. March 1- Official Restart New Year’s Resolutions Day?
Good on you… keep it up. The 5k should be a good one, maybe I’ll get to join you? And actually I wouldn’t wait on the squats and stuff till after you run. The squats and that will strengthen your legs for running and eliminate some of the IT band stuff you’ve gone through. Stronger legs = less painful running.
Otherwise, I’ve done pretty well on my intermittent fasting since the beginning of the year, at least until our trip. And I plan to continue that.
Otherwise all is good. Can’t wait for the next update
“And actually I wouldn’t wait on the squats and stuff till after you run.”
The issue is I hurt for like 3 days after I do squats/deadlifts, so it interferes with my running. Maybe the pain lessens over time?
My overriding (modified) resolution is to beat Carl in overall step count for the year! 🙂 Fiiished February with at least 20,000 steps each day. Still rolling….
Whoah, I have some big catching up to do…
Oh. Gawd. Cookie season. (can I tell you a secret? I HATE GS cookies). I had to sell them every.single.year until i was 17. Let me tell you, a 14 year old aint moving as much of those over priced sugar death bombs as a cute 6 year old.
I can’t stand any of those cookies anymore. So just load up on beer- and maybe you will get sick of it…kind of like Brewster’s millions.
Good luck with all the other goals. You have the whole year for them.
Cathleen Cooks Stuff recently posted…1 pot roast=5 dinners
One resolution was to maximize 457s. We did that for the wife, but mine hasn’t gone through ?. That’s ok, because I’ve shifted my goal…I am looking at taking about three months off this year now (inspired by Jillian – I’ve got parental leave so I’m gonna use it). I need to pull my head out of my arse, do some personal work, and I also have a side business that I want to give some undivided attention to. I’ve been biting heads off at work, and it’s almost time to go. I also have Legos to build. I have all my sets – and instructions – from childhood. They’re just a little jumbled.
Nicely done on lowering beer consumption. Getting older isn’t for wusses. Even two beers slows me down the next day. I’ve started drinking box wine so I can have just a little with dinner every night and then saving beer for the weekends (mostly). Seems to be working out well, mostly…discovering “Samoa This” didn’t help, however; neither did my yearly purchase of hopslam…
Samoa This and Hopslam are both worthy choices! I’ll have some more temptations to you soon…
“It’s just not worth the empty calories and shitty sleep”
I just started this book called “The Alcohol Experiment” yesterday and it’s foundation is that building (or demolishing) habits aren’t about will power because the cognitive dissonance we are constantly battling with habits will always win. THUS, to overcome our own brains, it’s suggested we focus on the negative side of the habit we are trying to break (or positive if we are trying to create a new one, but the book happens to be on going alcohol free for 30 days). I’m only on about page 10 because sleep was much more important to me last night so I can’t officially promote the book and tell you it’s worth the read, but the concept seems pretty logical.
I think you’re doing awesome; anyone who can have success and particularly lose weight in the gloomy month of February seems like a super hero to me! Now that it’s March and the sun will come back into our lives, there’s so much potential! I think maybe I should make March my month for setting new goals 🙂
Keep it up! You and the Mrs are doing amazing things!
Thank you for the kind words FFM!
Yeah, it’s definitely harder to be active in the winter. As I gave out of my window now, it’s pouring snow. I don’t quite feel like going for a 3-mile walk which would result in me slipping and falling on my ass at least 40 times.
The Alcohol Experiment sounds interesting. I haven’t had a dry month in a while and it sounds like a worthwhile experiment.
Great Job! Keep it up!
1) Back on the triathlon training plan. SUCCESS! working out everyday but Friday.Hope to keep injuries to a minimum.
2) Nutrition Management – Using MyFitnessPlan app and it is awesome. Tracking intake and exercise and trying to stay at 2000 calories a day. Loving scanning barcodes of the food I eat to get nutritional info.
3) End my Fully Loaded Pepsi habit. Went from 2 -20 oz, bottles a day to 1 per week. I would say that is a success.
3) Weight – Started 2019 at 230. Down to 221. Goal 200. SUCCESS!
4) Weight training – FAIL. Still need to fit it into my training day.
5) Read 1 book per month. – FAIL.. I have picked up a HS Thompson book and am hoping to finish it soon.
6) Learn Foreign Language – FAIL. Looked into Babbel but have not pulled the trigger.
7) More Travel – Success! Austin in February. Scottsdale in March – Brewer spring training! SUCCESS!
John Massie recently posted…Week of December 3rd
I’m most impressed with point number 5: No Sugar…that’s quite the impressive feat. Great job!
I’ve got a list, but its accomplishments pales in comparison to yours and the others on here. I did bench press yesterday for the first time since before shoulder surgery in November and was released from doctor’s care a full 2.5 months early, so I’m happy about that. I’m also investing/saving right below half our bring home pay and should end the first quarter over the 50% mark now that we’ve made some adjustments. Looking at some potential properties for a co-work space site, along with a couple of side hustle cash-flow opportunities as well. Life is great, which is the most important part of all!
Thanks for your sharing, it’s really nice. Personally, I practice yoga daily to form a good habit for myself.