PRODUCTIVITY & POSITIVITY

2022 Goals

Learning from 2021 and Becoming More Epic

Well, I’ll straight up admit I did a very poor job of tracking my goals and assessing my performance throughout the year. Lol, I can see how that sentence could be funny. How many of us “assess our performance” in our personal life?!

Looking at my Epic Life Planner worksheet, I can see that I fell short because it was for the most part, empty! But first, a quick background on what the heck an Epic Life Planner is. It’s a process I adapted from others where you pick 4 (and only 4) goals from your life bucket list. In other words, of all the things you want to accomplish before you die, pick only 4 to achieve in one year. Furthermore, those 4 goals should be in the different categories of:

• Adventure — Stuff like seeing the pyramids of Egypt or experiences like climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. My goal in 2021 was to visit Yellowstone National Park and go see the Northern Lights. We did Yellowstone and the Grand Teton, but the pandemic has still made it too difficult to go international. As compensation, we did go to Kauai, Hawaii which is the exact opposite of being in the arctic cold. I give myself a grade of B+
• Achievement — Something tangible you’ve produced through your effort, like writing a book or starting a business. My goal in 2021 was to continue elevating Venture Out into a bigger business. It started off very strong when I won a grant late the previous year and had assembled a small Avengers team to help out. Alas, I’ve struggled with finding enough time still to devote to it, in order to truly realize the potential here. I give myself a grade of C-
• Skills — Such as learning another language or playing a music instrument. My goal in 2021 was to practice mountaineering skills, improve my photography, and to learn more astronomy. On this front, I did not take a mountaineering course but did go on a great guy’s trip where we climbed two 14,000+ ft mountains! And absolutely got nowhere with photography and astronomy. I give myself a D-

Read the full instructions including a free downloadable spreadsheet to do your own Epic Life Planner, and be sure to tell me how it goes!

Taking in what I learned from 2021 by using the James Clear method, author of Atomic Habits, and the Tim Ferriss method, author of the 4-Hour Workweek, I’ve landed on the below personal goals for 2022.

• Venture Out (Achievement). Obviously this has to make the list! For 2022, the plan is to make the cost breakeven, maybe even finally break a profit!
• Reading (Achievement). Definitely one of the things that’s made me happiest in 2021 was that I’ve read over 20 books! Keep in mind that I normally read precisely 0 books per year! I definitely plan to keep this up and success will be anything over 15 books. Why less? Well, some of these upcoming books are THICK. Also, I’ve compiled a list of books I want to read in my library queue, so I’m definitely staying intentional with what books make the list. If you have any recommendations, send them over!
• Peak Performance (Skill). Ok, ok, it’s not exactly a skill, but my rationale is that if my mind and body is not in peak performance, then I won’t be able to enjoy adventures fully, to do extreme adventures, nor keep on adventuring when I’m old. So this year, I’ll spend more time getting my body injury free and my mind calmer. I’m off to a good start by hiring a new personal trainer that focused on simply getting my body working as it should and I’ll redouble my rehab effort to get my shoulder back in working order. Plus I plan to redefine what my morning routine consists of, since I’ve also been feeling the monotony of WFH.
• Outdoors (Adventure). I don’t know exactly where yet, given this pandemic continues with new variants causing uncertainty. So, I’ll simply say, when we get the opportunity to travel, I’ll push to maximize the outdoors. Maybe I’ll get a chance to take a mountaineering course, maybe it’ll be to a national park, or maybe it’ll just be in my own backyard camped out. The metric I’ll set to say success is 4 unique events, with some of them hopefully pushing the boundaries of my comfortableness.

The takeaway is easy, just have fun imagining what you could and wanted to always achieve in life. Then take one step toward it.