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Fiery Millennials

Financial Independence from a millennial's point of view.

2018: The Year of Being

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I dubbed 2017 the Year of Car­ing and thought it worked well, so I decid­ed to con­tin­ue the theme into 2018!

2018 is my Year of Being.

So.… what does the Year of Being mean?happiness project

It means I’d like to do the fol­low­ing things:

Be Happy

I want to do more things that make me hap­py and less things that don’t make me hap­py. It sounds sim­plis­tic, but still some­thing I want to work on. I’m a fair­ly hap­py per­son by nature so this one might be eas­i­er for me than for oth­ers. I have sev­er­al books on hap­pi­ness queued up to read includ­ing The Hap­pi­ness Project by Gretchen Rubin. If you’ve read some­thing on hap­pi­ness that’s made an impact on you, share it in the com­ments below!

Be Healthy

This is a mul­ti-faceted goal. It means doing some things less (like eat­ing processed foods laden with sug­ar) and doing oth­ers more (work­ing out). My cur­rent envi­ron­ment is not con­ducive to doing either. I have start­ed this by only buy­ing healthy food at the store which is a good first step. Do you know how hard it is for me to turn down Christ­mas can­dy on sale for 60%??? But I resisted.

As for work­ing out, I try to do body weight exer­cis­es as often as I can, but space and time are at a pre­mi­um. Liv­ing in a very small stu­dio means less floor space to be able to do things like pushups, sit ups and all the oth­er ups. I also real­ly can’t join a gym as I will be mov­ing in 12 weeks. There­fore, I’m look­ing to start the bulk of this goal when I move. I’ve researched the near­by fit­ness options and was over­whelmed with choic­es. Nin­ja war­rior gyms, yoga class­es, and more. How­ev­er, I dis­cov­ered a place that has a pool. And in that pool are Mas­ter Swim times. It’s basi­cal­ly a swim team for adults. I swam from ages 8 to 18 and love it. The thing about swim­ming is it’s lone­ly and dif­fi­cult to do your­self. Sure, there are places out there that will cob­ble togeth­er sets togeth­er for you, but it’s not the same as hav­ing some­one else come up with them and super­vise your time in the pool to ensure your strokes and such are opti­mal. It is only a mile or so away so I’ll be able to get addi­tion­al exer­cise on the way to and from as I ride my bike.

This goal also encom­pass­es less alco­hol and caf­feine and bet­ter sleep­ing pat­terns. I do my best work when I get a sol­id night of sleep so I will be look­ing to pin my sched­ule down to the best times.

swimming

Be Kind

I like to think I’m fun­ny, but too often recent­ly I’ve noticed my humor can come at the expense of oth­ers. Most of the time it’s in a teas­ing way, but there have been times where I’ve missed the mark and said some­thing I lat­er regret­ted. Hence, be kind. I want to sup­port peo­ple, and lift them up. I don’t want to put down peo­ple or say unkind things. It requires watch­ing what my brain is think­ing and cut­ting it off before the ugly words make it out of my mouth. We’ll see how I do with this one.

Be Thoughtful

This kind of goes along with the pre­vi­ous goal, but it’s dif­fer­ent. Too often I do things impul­sive­ly so I want to slow down in 2018 and put more delib­er­ate thought into my life. Why am I doing ____? Why did I do ____? Where do I want to go in life? How can I get there? I want to plan a bit for the future so I can be more proac­tive with things instead of react­ing to events.

Be Motivated

I real­ly strug­gle with this one. I feel like I’m on the ground floor of life, just wait­ing for things to break and push me to high­er ground. But things aren’t just going to hap­pen my way. I need to work on things and improve to move up. Moti­va­tion is that thing deep down inside of you that makes you do things you would­n’t oth­er­wise. Crazy things like buy a rental prop­er­ty, start a blog and pod­cast, and want to retire early.

Some­times I wear down and don’t want to do much of any­thing. It’s unfor­tu­nate because life does­n’t stop even when I want to. So in 2018 I will be work­ing on my moti­va­tion lev­els. I want to move from the sloth end to the Elon Musk end of the spectrum.

Screen Shot 2018 01 07 at 12.45.37 PM

Be Present

Too often I find myself tun­ing out and not being present with those in my phys­i­cal sur­round­ings. I espe­cial­ly want to be present when I’m spend­ing time with loved ones. It’s hard to put the phone down and for­get about what’s hap­pen­ing in the dig­i­tal world, but it is nec­es­sary. I owe it to friends and fam­i­ly to not waste their time and focus on our time togeth­er. If you see me this year and I’ve got my phone in hand, call me out. I’ll prob­a­bly need help!!

This would­n’t be a finan­cial blog if I did­n’t include a few finance relat­ed goals too! Just in case you were wor­ried.… I gotchu!

Break Even

This will be the first (of hope­ful­ly many) year of self employ­ment for me. I’m going to have to hus­tle to build up a decent rev­enue stream. I plan on at least break­ing even on my bal­ance sheet. I like to spend mon­ey so I’m going to need to reign in that side of me and light a fire under my butt to bring in some cold hard cash.

Speaking Gigs

I want to start speak­ing to var­i­ous groups and peo­ple about per­son­al finances. There­fore, my goal this year is to email 10 dif­fer­ent peo­ple about speak­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. I already have 2 out there and will be work­ing on a third short­ly. Notice how this goal isn’t “Get 10 speak­ing gigs” because that’s some­thing I don’t have much con­trol over. Instead, I can email at least 10 peo­ple and try to get gigs that way. That way my goal isn’t tied to oth­er peo­ple.… but just to me.

Get Editing Gigs

I would like to start some free­lance work in 2018. I don’t nec­es­sar­i­ly want to write for peo­ple, but I would love to edit things for peo­ple. I real­ly enjoy tweak­ing the writ­ing of oth­er peo­ple to make it the best it can be. I have a hard time read­ing fin­ished works with typos and gram­mat­i­cal errors. Despite the fact I write more casu­al­ly here on the blog, I do know how to write for­mal busi­ness pieces and con­sid­er it one of my strong suits.

So my goal for 2018 is to find and secure 5 long-term edit­ing gigs for var­i­ous clients. This will require more effort than the speak­ing gigs, but I have a feel­ing they’ll be more lucra­tive in the long run.

Conclusion

Notice how none of my goals are tied to the mar­ket or my net worth this year. With the uncer­tain­ty around my income and a mar­ket hit­ting rou­tine record highs, I don’t want to set any goals around that. Instead, I set goals around things that are under my direct control.

If you would like to hear more about my goals in my own words and voice, LIVE!, my co-host and I did a spe­cial New Year’s Eve episode on Fire Drill Pod­cast in which we cov­er our indi­vid­ual goals for 2018 and goals for the pod­cast. Give it a lis­ten below and if you like what you hear, sub­scribe to our pod­cast in your pro­gram of choice (iTunes, Google Play, Stitch­er, etc).

Thanks for read­ing! What are your goals for the year? What do you think about my goals?

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I am cur­rent­ly lis­ten­ing to the book The Future of Hap­pi­ness by Amy Blank­son. It’s about the inter­sec­tion of hap­pi­ness and tech­nol­o­gy. Giv­en your ‘be present’ goal I think you might enjoy it.

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  3. Good luck with the “being” goals Gwen. I also love edit­ing so let me know if you find a good way to do it. I’ve looked at Fiverr and Upwork etc and the com­pe­ti­tion is so ram­pant and fierce that it seems impos­si­ble to get a job with­out offer­ing your ser­vices for pennies.

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    • I’ve only looked at UpWork so far but yeah I agree, com­pe­ti­tion looks fierce. The Uni­verse will provide!

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  4. That’s a good book, we’ve both read it and it’s on our shelf. It’s good to keep in mind as you go for­ward. I’ve read some oth­ers, but I’ll have to get back to you on those. 

    As for work­ing out, just let us know… we have all the Insan­i­ty stuff, just let me know we’ll fig­ure out a way to get it to you. It’s great, all body weight and does­n’t take a lot of space. 

    Present is some­thing that we both need to work on. And we’re get­ting there, progress.

    Any­way, keep it up. This should be a great way to keep track of a fun excit­ing year.

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    • I wish I was vis­it­ing you so I could bor­row it! Gah. I have Insan­i­ty and some oth­er BB video pro­grams, but the lack of space is an issue for those 🙁

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  5. I’m glad to see you’ve set goals for the year. Hav­ing moti­va­tion, struc­ture, “con­struc­tive” rou­tines, and resilience will be espe­cial­ly impor­tant over the next sev­er­al months. 

    I would add the audio­books: The Hap­pi­ness Advan­tage: The Sev­en Prin­ci­ples of Pos­i­tive Psy­chol­o­gy That Fuel Suc­cess and Per­for­mance at Work by Shawn Achor and The Art of Excep­tion­al Liv­ing by Jim Rohn to your list. Shawn has a great TED talk that sums up his ideas if you want to Google it. 

    Good Luck!!!

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    • Thanks for the sug­ges­tions Ryan! I’m look­ing for­ward to April to begin set­ting con­struc­tive rou­tines in life. My rou­tine right now is not quite so constructive…

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    • Haha thanks for the reminder, Angela! I guess you’re right. I’m def­i­nite­ly in the upper ech­e­lon for a lot of dif­fer­ent stats!

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  7. Love it! I am also inter­est­ed in doing some free­lance edit­ing, so I look for­ward to read­ing more about that. Also, kudos to you for want­i­ng to do the speak­ing gigs. I much pre­fer hid­ing behind a key­board and screen. 🙂

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    • I’ll be sure to doc­u­ment the process for every­one. Thanks for com­ment­ing, Cody!

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  8. Con­sid­er­ing the per­son­al finance com­mu­ni­ty is full of a bunch of over­achiev­ers, I would def­i­nite­ly say you are being too hard on your­self 😉 But in real­i­ty, the only worth­while mea­sur­ing stick is the one you hold against your­self. “Bet­ter than oth­ers” does­n’t do any­thing for any­one; it just puts oth­ers down. In your effort to “Be Kind,” con­sid­er extend­ing that kind­ness to your­self, and make sure you’re giv­ing your­self kudos for your successes.

    Great goals for the year!

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    • You know, fun­ni­ly enough you’re not the first per­son to sug­gest that. Must be some­thing to that! I love the quote “The only per­son you should com­pare your­self to is the you from yesterday”.

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  9. Great goals Gwen! I rec­om­mend “Stum­bling on Hap­pi­ness” by Daniel Gilbert. Good stuff there. 

    I look for­ward to fol­low­ing your progress and draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from your insights. Hap­py new year to you and yours.

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  10. Gwen,

    Excel­lent goals for 2018. I real­ly appre­ci­ate that none of your goals have to do with the mar­ket or net worth. Aside from my goals of max­ing out retire­ment buck­ets, I have lit­tle set goals for the mar­ket or net worth as well. I am sure you could have been moti­vat­ed enought to have made a fine med stu­dent!!! I hope you the best in 2018 with writ­ing, speak­ing, work­ing out and being kind! We could all be more kind!

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  11. I love your goals! It’s going to be a good year indeed. 🙂 I can’t wait to hear all about your adven­tures in the new loca­tion plus work­ing for your­self. You get ’em! 🙂

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  12. Hey Gwen, It’s pret­ty easy to get intro­spec­tive this time in year in the frig­gin’ ice box of the Twin Cities, no? Sigh. At least we’ve “warmed up” into the 20s the last few days. Just get­ting out for a run improved my men­tal state on Sunday.

    I checked out The Hap­pi­ness Project from our library a cou­ple years back and had trou­ble fin­ish­ing it. I’m not sure what turned me off since I rarely don’t fin­ish a book I start. At any rate, I did stum­ble across this very insight­ful arti­cle from the NYT a few days back. Changed a lit­tle of my per­cep­tion on the “hap­pi­ness” equation:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/01/upshot/finding-purpose-for-a-good-life-but-also-a-healthy-one.html

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  13. Being present! Thats one I’m work­ing on too.

    It’s soooo tough when you have a business/hobby that’s online. There’s that extra ‘pull’ to check your views/comments/social media. In addi­tion to not being present it’s also a bit of a time-suck, I prob­a­bly waste a good 30–60 min­utes per day just check­ing stuff.

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  14. Great arti­cle Gwen! Do you know what the dates are for the 2018 Chataquas? I’m real­ly inter­est­ed in going but I haven’t been able to find any info.

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  15. The Hap­pi­ness Project was very tedious and bor­ing for me and in the end I couldn’t even fin­ish it. It was rec­om­mend­ed to me by a friend so I guess it helped her. I wasn’t any hap­pi­er because of it and I am a gen­er­al­ly hap­py per­son and feel quite in con­trol of my des­tiny. I’ve been read­ing you for a while now and wish you suc­cess in your adventures.

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  16. Hey, Gwen. Here’s one tip that I stum­bled upon that made me hap­pi­er: Just get rid of the things in your life that you know don’t make you hap­py. For me, one of things that did­n’t make me hap­py was the news. Once I cut the cord and con­fined my online read­ing to finan­cial blogs, things start­ed to get very rosy in my life. Yes, I’m a total igno­ra­mus now with­out the news. But I’m a hap­py igno­ra­mus. Any­way, love all the com­po­nents to your Year of Being. Best of luck.

    P.S. I love your sense of humor. When­ev­er we meet, it will be an hon­or if you mock the crap out of me. Cheers.

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  17. I’m actu­al­ly cur­rent­ly read­ing the Hap­pi­ness Project. I’m on Sep­tem­ber and so far I love it! I plan on writ­ing a post about it, par­tic­u­lar­ly where she speaks on Hap­pi­ness and Mon­ey (July). There are some very action­able items I’ve gleaned from her book so far that I think make a big dif­fer­ence. For exam­ple, I’ve start­ed imple­ment­ing the “if it takes less than 1 minute (or 2, I stretch it a bit) do it now.” It’s helped me just get all of the men­tal and some­times phys­i­cal clut­ter out of the apart­ment to keep me more focused as opposed to think­ing of all the things I still need to do. Can’t wait to hear what you think of it.

    Best of luck on your goals and Hap­py New Year!

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  18. A great book on all things health is: “How to Eat, Move, and Be Healthy”, by Paul Chek

    It encom­pass­es diet, exer­cise, envi­ron­men­tal stres­sors. Super well round­ed and infor­ma­tive read. Very straight for­ward has great ques­tion­naires to ass­es your cur­rent health and great guides to get you in any shape you want to be in. The book is in it’s 10th year of pub­lish­ing now and if you look at the stuff he has been writ­ing about, he was/ is way ahead of the curve. I.e. qual­i­ty food, pri­mal move­ment, rest, etc. It’d made a pro­found change in my life… and I don’t have to pay/ go to cross­fit any­more (although I miss the camaraderie).

    We live in a small house with lim­it­ed space, so I bought sec­ond hand dumb­bells, a qual­i­ty swiss ball, rub­ber band things you can wedge in a door for pulling exer­cis­es. I did splurge on a few ket­tle bells.

    Any­way keep up the good work!

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  20. You know I also read anoth­er book by this Paul Chek dude I liked. Hope I don’t sound like an infomer­cial haha! 

    It’s called the 4 doc­tors you’ll even need. It’s based on some­thing Hip­pocrates posit­ed: that we have 3 spheres/ inter­nals doc­tors that need to be addressed. I.e. Dr. diet, rest, hap­pi­ness, then the author added move­ment since we are a most­ly seden­tary society.

    The gist is good food and rest effect our emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal well being (duh!) and that hap­pi­ness is a bal­ance of find­ing your val­ues and see­ing if you are aligned to them.

    Keep on keep­ing on!

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  22. Just found your blog, the whole FIRE con­cept is inter­est­ing. I’ve always been fru­gal and had side hus­sle so am on tract to retire rel­a­tive­ly ear­ly but wish I would have had the vision at your age!

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  23. Lots of nice goals here to mimic.If you don’t mind, I am going to adopt your goals as well for the reminder of 2018. Thanks for sharing

    Reply

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