Tag: habits

What Life Looks Like, Revisited

There has been a lot of changes since my initial “What Life Looks Like” post. I was rereading it, looking at the goals I had, and the goals I have now, and I noticed that a number of things have changed in the two years since that post. Many of the goals I blew through, others I’m still working towards, and some I’ve put completely on the back burner.

Here’s my current worksheet.

1 Year / Jan 2024

CategoryGoalProgress
CareerPet Store, XXK/Year101%
Blog 200 FollowersI think like 45?
HomeCondo, Owe $204K~208. On pace? by EOY.
New BathroomsCompleted.
HealthWeight: 220#~240.
Body Fat %: 1822.3
CrossFit 5x a Week5-6 times a week.
Occasional WeightliftingEvery Sunday
1.5 Miles Running Daily0 miles daily 😦
Biking 20 Miles biweekly0 miles biweekly. 😦
Finance401K fully fundedContribution on track to max out
After-tax investing $XX/month160% of goal per month
FamilyZoe in College, HappyZoe enrolled at WSU
Lydia driving, some sort of athletics. High School, Maybe a running start?Lydia in Drivers Ed. Aerial Silks 2x a week!
Emerson sports?, High SchoolEmerson fencing and rowing.

I made this sheet in January of this year, and I’ve done fairly well against my goals!

Met Goals

Career – Salary. I am right where I wanted to be at the beginning of the year. I got a decent review, and a solid bump in my salary that tipped me over the edge in April.

Home – New Bathrooms. After 17 years in the condo with 3 kids, 3 dogs, and up to 2 cats (RIP Edgar… we still miss you), the house was in some dire need of some TLC. The bathrooms were the next big thing, and it’s GREAT to have them completed!

Health – CrossFit and Weightlifting. It is just a daily habit now. It is awesome and I love it.

Finance – 401K and investing. I’m on pace to fully fund my retirement plan, and I’ve done a TON of work to REALLY ramp up my investing to nearly 160% of my monthly goal.

Family – Everyone’s doing pretty much exactly where we were hoping they’d be. Emerson has fencing and is rowing in high school. Lydia’s finally started driver’s ed, and does her aerial silks athletics twice a week, and Zoe is enrolled for her first semester at WSU.

Not Yet Met Goals

Blog – Follower Count – Blogs likely get more followers when they don’t get updated for a year. Gotta get back on the horse here.

Condo – Mortgage – I’m on pace to be close here, but the bathrooms were more expensive than I had anticipated. It’ll be a photo finish at the end of the year.

Health – Weight & Body Fat % – I’m headed in a good direction here. I’m down from my heaviest on the year (265… ugh), but even when eating mostly clean, it’s still a struggle.

Health – Running and Biking – I was doing well on this one. I was going about 2-3x a week, and had built up to some real distance. My longer runs were in the 8-10 mile range but I started getting some pretty severe hip pain afterwords. The biking just is not that interesting right now. I might just sell the bike to clear up some space.

Things that Changed Since 2021

When looking back at my old “2024” post, I wanted to be further along in my writing. I feel like had I stayed at the Credit Union, that would be a possibility, but a job change moving over to learning whole new stacks and languages required my research time to get good. On the plus side, I’m a decent Python, Kotlin, and Java programmer now, and I’m not so bad at AWS and Terraform.

I do not really include local travel goals anymore, unless they would require real planning. A trip to Walla Walla or Chelan only requires a little coordination with a hotel or AirBnB that allows for dogs. I would still like to get to New Zealand, but that’s still very much in the 3 years or more away.

I also changed my investing amount significantly. In 2021, I was working on pushing my “months ahead” forward in YNAB. After making a fair amount of progress on it (getting to nearly 4 months ‘ahead’), I started wondering if keeping all that cash on hand was truly necessary.

Now I feel like having much more than a month’s worth of cash on hand seems to be ‘enough.’ We are investing about 15% of post-tax income now.

The three and five year goals look very similar.

3 years / Jan 26

CategoryGoal
CareerHappy in my job. Knowing what I’m trying to do, and who I’m helping. Current + 10% a year?
Blog, 2500 followers
1 Book Written (Published? I dunno.)
HomeCondo. Owe $170K on it.
Health210# Maybe down to 1 blood pressure pill
5x a week CrossFit + occasional weightlifting, running for 10-15 miles weekly.
TravelNew Zealand
FinanceRetirement accounts funded to legal maximum.
Investing 2.5x current per month. (Somewhere between 35-40% of income?)
FamilyZoe and Lydia should be in College?
Emerson doing at least one sport

5 Years / Jan 28

CategoryGoal
CareerHappy in my job. Knowing what I’m trying to do, and who I’m helping. XXK + 25% a year?
Blog, 15000 followers
1 Book Written and Published
HomeCondo. Owe $135K on it.
Health200#
CrossFit, weights, and running. Generally quite active.
FinanceRetirement accounts funded to legal maximum.
Investing 50% monthly post-tax income.
FamilyAll kids in College?

The reality is that in the next 5 years, it is going to be a lot of the same. Aggressive pushes on salary goals and investing goals. Ideally, we will get to investing half of our post-tax income within 5 years time.

My health and maintaining a regular active lifestyle is probably the highest priority item. I am continuing a slow burn on the weight loss. I plan on working more on my writing, and within 5 years get a book published, but the health is definitely the higher priority.

Frankly, the blog followers number goal I might just drop entirely, as I cannot exactly control that. I have thought about making a “number of posts” goal to replace it, but I have yet to pull the trigger.

Finally, the family goals are very fungible. For example, Zoe seems to be interested in health care (specifically and oddly, mortuary science.) That requires a degree of some sort, but if the other kids wanted to join the military, or go to culinary school, or work to be an apprentice welder or plumber, I could not object.

The ten year goals are even more unspecific.

CategoryGoal
Career2 Books Written and Published
Advanced Degree?
HomeNot living in the condo. Mount Vernon / Bellingham?
Health180-190#
Generally active.
Still living with the same heart I was born with.
FinanceRetirement accounts funded to legal maximum.
Investing >50% monthly post-tax income.
FamilyHappy and Healthy

The big thing to notice is the drop on the salary goal. I don’t expect a drastic change from the 5 year goal in terms of an amount (although that could happen?), I’m just not pushing for it as hard.

I have been thinking about persuing an advanced degree, so that is a new goal development.

Paying off the condo remains on the 10 year goal, although with the Seaview property not available, we will likely look north. Heather likes Bellingham, and always has. I’m more fond of Mount Vernon, but something in Skagit / Whatcom county area of Washington seems like the most likely location.

The health goal adds a pretty heavy goal, and one that largely reflects something that happened a long time ago. Assuming I keep things going, and keep up the healthy habits, it should be attainable.

Those are my updated goals. The nearer ones are again more specific, and more easily actionable, and SMART folks will notice each of them generally has a number associated with it so I can figure out whether or not I’ve achieved it.

I hope this post inspires you to think about your own goals!

It’s Only Embarrassing If You’re Embarrassed

I recently got an email from “Tony” asking if he could write an article on my site. He wanted to write up an article (“no charge”, he assured me) about entrepreneurship and tools.

An ad.

My immediate thought was a bit of shock… has my blog gone viral? Do I have enough traffic to warrant someone thinking they could successfully advertise on it?

A graph showing my blog's views and visitors per day in bar form, over the month of July in 2023. It is NOT impressive, showing a max of 6 views on July 14th.
Blog stats clearly showing it has NOT gone viral.

After looking through my old blog posts, I revisited that old recognizable feeling of “wait, didn’t I used to do this?” And frankly, I was embarrassed.

Once again, had I let something that I love to do fall off the planet.

In my old job at the Credit Union, I used to write an all-engineers email every Friday morning. I would start it on Wednesday and then spend hours Thursday evening finishing it.

Yet once again, I couldn’t seem to break away for 20 minutes a day to write down what’s happening.

I do best in routines. I eat the same foods for breakfast / lunch, and only change up dinner because my wife doesn’t particularly appreciate eating the same things every day. I go to the gym on the same cadence every week: 4:30pm on Monday / Tuesday, and 11:30am on Wednesday through Friday, Saturday 9am, and Sunday 11am.

If something I love to do is not in my list of habits, I lose track of it.

Now, it seems I have fallen out of something I once identified with. Something that shows me to be a fraud, or not what I claim to be.

Even worse the shame remains because even while writing this I fear that I’m attempting to, once again, restate the lie that I am something of a creator. A writer.

As if doubling down on it as an identity will make blog posts happen.

I mentor folks in my job. Every day. Literally my favorite part of being a Staff engineer.

I would allow absolutely none of the people I mentor to be as harsh about themselves.

No negative self-talk: a rule I read and remember from Pete Carroll’s Win Forever. A rule I demand entirely from my mentees.

I’ve never been so much of a rule-follower.

I choose to NOT be embarrassed by these things.

Did I fail to document my learnings while working at a pet store? Yep.

Have I failed to document much of anything while working at the pet store? Yep.

Do I still have the voice I once had? Of course I do.

I’ll tell Tony that I’ll pass on the free article. I think a DYI approach to blogging might be a better way to go.

Checking In : Don’t Break the Streak

Well, since the don’t break the streak post, I have continued on my streak of hand release push ups. I’m currently on 40 days.

In order to move the chain up a bit, I’ve been adding one rep every 8 days or so. Today I did 3 x 16, and tomorrow should be a level up day.

It still takes about 5 minutes. The first two sets go fairly quickly.

One thing that keeps this one up is it’s time scale. 5 minutes, maybe a few more if I pad the rest session. Knowing ‘alright, it’s only 5 minutes’ makes it easy to quickly get through.

It’s certainly had some positive benefits as well. Push ups in WODs in CrossFit classes are SO MUCH EASIER right now.

The kids make a bit of a show out of it too. Nothing like being in the middle of a push up, and have a 120lb 12-year-old boy sit on your back and say “Keep going Dad!”

Don’t Break The Streak!

Here’s a quick accountability trick that I’ve been using to help me some of my fitness goals. It’s called ‘Don’t Break the Streak’, and it goes like this.

There’s something you want to improve. For me, it’s push-ups.

  1. Print off a calendar, and hang it someplace conspicuous.
  2. Do SOMETHING every day to get yourself better, and once you do it, check off of that calendar.
  3. Your goal is to make the streak of ‘checked days’ as long as possible.

This gives you a quick visual indicator of your improvement. A steady streak of Xs through days that you can count.

Your job is keep the streak alive, and make the snake as long as possible!

Just like the game.

My Long-Term Goal: Be able to do 50 real push-ups in less than a minute. Given where I am in my fitness, that’s a LONG-term goal.

My Daily Habit: 3 sets of 12 hand release push-ups with between 30 seconds and 60 seconds rest between them. The whole thing takes about 5 minutes to do.

My streak: 6 days (so far).

My Three Everyday “Must Dos”

If you wrote down everything you did, every day, what do you think it would tell you about your priorities? Would you be happy with how you spent your life?

The daily must-dos become the habits that help us get good at what we’re doing. I have mentioned my mechanism for getting things done in this blog before. Go check it out, if you haven’t read it already!

Here are the top three daily things that always end up in my “Must Do” column.

Check The Budget

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

I did not grow up with an over-abundance of money. My family did not really talk about money all that much either, viewing it as a constant sort of stress. It has always been a weird point of pride and identity too, where someone “from money” was someone to look down your nose at.

After a life changing event in the mid-2010s, I decided to change that, focusing on taking the mystery away from money. Now, every day I go through my budget and make sure my dollars are going to where I prioritize them to go. I use a tool called You Need A Budget to do so.

There are plenty of YouTube videos are available out there about the YNAB product, but if you watch the ones from Nick True, you’ll get a good idea on how the product works.

Crossfit, or other workout

Photo by Victor Freitas on Pexels.com

Is Crossfit problematic right now? Yeah, very much so. They have some corporate housecleaning to do, because there is no room for racism and sexism in the gym. Taking care of yourself and your body is for everyone.

That said, there has never been anything I’d consider even remotely negative about my local box. When I was 320 pounds, they were kind, supportive, and helpful. They did not try to sell me a bucket of supplements. They challenged me, and made those challenges doable for someone in my shape and size.

They are people that are striving to be active, kind, and full of life. That is precisely the sort of person I want to be.

So despite how much I hate Burpees, I hit up my Crossfit WOD everyday. If you live in the Kenmore area, come visit us at Crossfit Kenmore.

Write for 45 Minutes

Photo by Retha Ferguson on Pexels.com

I graduated with an English degree, so you’d think this would be something I could do easily, but like anything else, it has to be maintained. I use OneNote for my note-taking, falling in love with it when I used my old Windows Phone in 2009. I remembered being able to speak into my phone, even back then, and have it transcribe my language with an accuracy of about 90%.

I was amazed. I was also a nerd, so I started nearly every transcription with “Captains Log, stardate… “

Most recently, I have been taking up the task of blogging for 45 minutes every day. Fleshing out my thoughts onto a screen isn’t exactly the same as paper, but it does let me combine with other creative work. For example, my blog post about learning a new programming language is the basis for a talk I will be doing on soon to a new Python User’s Group.

Consider what these top three things tell you about my priorities. Everyday I prioritize writing, taking care of myself, and the family finances. These are not all of my priorities, of course, but they are the “must dos” every day. When you look at your day, what are your “must dos?”