Sayonara 2019. Welcome, 2020. These Are My Goals
2019 is standing on its lifetime boundary edge. It is never to be seen again, it is almost gone and shall soon be forgotten.
And I could not be happier about it!
It is said that a picture says more than a thousand words, right?
Table of Contents
2019: A Pile Of Rubbish
Summarising, the image shows exactly how my 2019 has been, a pile of total rubbish. Yet again let me tell you that I couldn’t be happier to see it fading away. I couldn’t be more excited to replace stink by the smell of roses…
Ok, perhaps I am “leveraging” it all a bit too much. After all, I’ve just been the only blogger around the entire world who has lost money during a great 2019 bull run in the stock market?
It seemed I went against the stream, indeed, as my portfolio value decreased by – 27%, while the S&P 500 increased + 29% at the time of writing – sniff sniff.
However, this is not a blog post to reanalyse why that happened – I mentioned it many times during the year. I am writing this because I want to stop smelling unwelcoming aromas, while I see 2019 falling off the cliff, wearing a large grin on my face and having a crystal clear vision in my mind of what I want for 2020, reinforced by a set of goals that will make the next 12 month a pleasantly smelly time.
Cheers!
A Quick Look At My 2019 Goals
On my first portfolio update, I set a series of goals for 2019. Even though I completely gave up on them after this, I think it is still a good idea to face it by looking back at them and write some reflections to work as a proper farewell.
These were my “2019 goals”:
Increase portfolio value between 180,000 – 200,000€
The current value is 106K €
RUBBISH 🙁
Increase passive income to 700€/month
I gained 602€ on my best passive income month.
ANOTHER RUBBISH 🙁
Read at least 12 books
I read only 9 books.
HOLY RUBBISH! 🙁
Become fitter, reduce body fat to 15% (21% now)
What if I tell you that my body fat is 30.3%?
SUPER RUBBISH! :((
Improve my writing and speed
ACHIEVED 🙂
Write 20 blog posts
I wrote 36 posts.
ACHIEVED 🙂
Earn my first blog income and donate it to a charity
ACHIEVED 🙂
I failed on 4 out of my 7 goals in 2019. There is definitely some room for improvement, Tony, but hey! it could’ve been even worse! 😛
Now that there are no more “algos” on the way, in 2020 I plan to focus more on my goals and do much better than in 2019.
So, it’s time to look forward and write my new set of goals to lead 2020 in the right direction.
Leaving The Stink Behind: My Goals for 2020
It’s widely said that we need goals to succeed. We need something to focus on our attention. Without focus, how can we get things done? It’s all about taking baby steps, one at the time, until we get there, achieve something and then move on to archive something else, but always following a plan that leads to accomplishment.
If we keep going on, these accumulations of achievements will bring us success at whatever we initially started the whole journey for, it’s the matter with lack of persistence what makes us fail.
The destination of my journey is the accumulation of wealth up to the point where my investments provide me with the necessary flow of passive income to allow me to feed my lifestyle. I set this point to be one million, which is way more than what I need but provides me with a margin of safety and financial tranquillity.
Every goal is a baby step and every year a new game level, that’s the way I see it. My game last for 10 years, where now just 9 are left.
This year I am going to split my goals into different areas: Financial, health, personal development and spiritual.
Financial Goals
Increase Net Worth Up To 478K Euros
Following my One Million Journey plan statement, I should have accumulated a net worth of 478K Euros by September 2020. Following the latest Q4 2019 net worth update, the value is 443K Euros, which means it needs a 35k further increase to meet the target. It seems reasonable to me.
Increase Investment Portfolio To 140K Euros
Again, if taking the numbers out of my plan statement, my portfolio value should reach an approximate value of 140K Euros in 2020. At the time of writing the value is 106K Euros, which means it needs a 34K Euros further increase.
Reach and Keep a 50% Average Savings Rate
My 2019 average savings rate is 45.8%. In 2020 I would like to increase that ratio to 50%.
Increase my Payslip Gross Income by 10%
My total gross income from my day job was £30,750 in 2019. In 2020 I would like to increase it by 10% and get approximately £33,825. There are plans with my current employer to expand the designing team (currently just me) and promote me to Head Design Engineer or team leader. In exchange, I need to keep improving my services, or put differently, improve quantity without losing quality.
Increase my Passive Income by 25%
As I am still quite at the beginning of my journey, passive income is not my main focus. I am in the wealth-building and accumulation phase, and even though I have some tax advantages as a foreigner living in the UK, some passive income from my overseas investments is taxed. Therefore, my main focus now is to accumulate wealth faster. Paying huge amounts to the taxman isn’t too exciting.
However, as I invest via ETF’s, my monthly contributions to my S&S ISA will provide me with an increase in my tax-free monthly passive income besides the compounding increase on my peer-to-peer lending overseas investments.
My current TTM (Trailing Twelve Months) average passive income is 416 Euros. Adding a 25% increase equals 520 Euros/month.
Health Goals
Reduce weight down to 80 Kg
In 2019 I did something great, I stopped smoking. But guess what? Since then I have not stopped putting weight on. My journey is about accumulating wealth not weight! I originally thought that with some exercising and especially running would buffer the increase, but I am afraid it did not work like that. My current weight is 91 kg. In 2020, I would like to pay more attention to this and get back to my normal weight levels of 80 kg. Not to say that I would also like to get my body fat at my normal level of 20%.
Average resting heart rate of 60 bpm
If something has really improved in 2019 is my resting heart rate. Starting with 72bpm and ending up with 62 bpm, I have seen a 14% improvement. In 2020, I still want to keep special attention to this since some of my family members had serious problems with this organ. I am happy to keep it around the 60 bpm mark.
Walk or Run 10.000 steps per day
Translated in an annual basis is 3,650,000 steps or 304,166 steps a month. Up to date, I have made 2,390,536 steps. I am short by over a million! This goal is certainly challenging but not impossible.
Personal Development Goals
Most of my personal development goals are based on reading books or writing on the blog.
Read 12 books.
Read the biography of someone successful (Elon Musk?).
Read at least 3 investing books.
Read a book or take a course on marketing and sales.
Read at least 3 personal finance books.
Read a book about confidence and take the necessary actions to improve.
Write 40 blog posts.
Spiritual Goals
Meditate 10 minutes every day
Everyone knows about the benefits of meditating in a daily basis. One of my spiritual goals this year is to get back to the habit of meditating every day, even if it is only for 10 minutes in the morning to start off with full of optimism and sharp focus.
Finish my 1000 Euros donating goal
In 2019 I promised I would donate 100% of my blog income to a charity. My target was 1000 Euros, but I fell rather short. I approximately earned 300 Euros, so in 2020 I would like to donate 700 Euros.
That’s all amigos. These are the set of goals I plan to focus on in 2020.
Now, I would love to hear from you.
What are your goals for 2020?
Share this:
20 Comments
Leave a Reply
ABOUT ME
Hi there! It's Tony here and I am hoping to post my journey towards one million euros.
NET WORTH GOAL
A great set of goals. I’m a big fan of acknowledging misses and appreciate how you own those for 2019. I bet it will lead you to dramatically more success in 2020! 50% savings rate is huge, and you seem to be already right on the edge. I can’t wait to see that number over 50 in next year’s update.
Hi, thanks for stopping by and dropping a supportive comment. Truly appreciated 🙂
I like your goal categories and I wish I’d also be more aware of my health and plan something to improve it. And 4 out of 7 is not that bad for 2019 🙂
It’s never too late to start a health plan. However, by just stop smoking, you will improve your health considerably and there’s not much of a plan required rather than just stop 🙂
Thanks for stopping by.
Nice..it made me think also about what i want to achieve this year..
😀 thanks I am glad it was somewhat helpful to you. Any particular aspect you’d like to improve in 2020?
Hi Tony,
Not the best year, but I enjoy reading your blogs, so keep it up.
I would like to give you a friendly peace of advice for your goals. Try to shorten the list or by distinguishing between between “my goals are” and “I would like to”.
I used to work a lot with goals myself (set 27 goals in 2018, reached almost all of them).
Now, I set two goals for 2019 and just a few for 2020. It feels a lot more healthy. I have never been happier. Striving to reach all the goals made me really unhappy.
I would say work on your health by creating habits that you can maintain, don’t start the 10.000 steps of this 10 min of that.. it’s not going to work nor going to make you happy.
Good luck!
Robin
Hi Robin, thanks for the comment and for your piece of advice, it’s useful.
I am rather happy with my set of goals, moving and exercising every day improves my mental condition, I take the 10K steps per day as a reference, or as you say, “I would like to”. Same goes for the 40 blog posts.
Anyway, I am quite amateur in many things and goal setting is one of them. Next time I will split goals as you suggest.
Thanks for telling me about your personal goal-setting experience background.
Checked your blog and it looks good. It must be very well-written as Google does an excellent job at translating it in English.
Good luck with your 2020 goals. Meditation is a good thing, I try that my self for few years, but could not have it each day ? Going fot it right now. I would also recomed you cold showers. Great stuff, especialy if combined with light exercise and meditation in the morning ? ou and congrats on 50% saving rate. With such your doomed to be financialy free in 10y or so.
Hey P2035,
My girlfriend keeps saying about the cold showers too, but just to think about it I freeze entirely, remember that I am a Spaniard 🙂
Thanks for the idea and supportive comment 🙂
Try switching to colder shower when you do it regulery. Dont go for all cold at once, yes that too hard and even not good for you. This has to be done step by step ? Im doing that myself after some break due to nasty flue. Only after 2 week today I have done fully cold shower.
That makes to me. OK, I’ll give a try and see how it goes! 🙂
Hey Tony
I wish you a fantastic NEW YEAR!
Wow, that’s a great set of Goals, I like it! It’s important to take a holistic approach, you set targets for your Health, Finanicals etc. That’s what it’s all about, wellbeing and the pursuit of our dreams.
Have a powerful start and all the best!
Cheers
Financial Shaper
Hey Financial Shaper thanks, I wish you a fantastic year and great start you too 🙂 Keep rockin’ it!
Hey Tony
Good luck with your 2020 goals!
I am, however, with @Robin – setting fewer goals worked much better; I got too distracted when I had a lot of goals.
I’m still working on my goals, just can’t seem to sit down to right up the post!
Thanks weenie, I’ll take it into account, I guess that no pursuing any goals last year made me push myself too much.
Had the same thing, it’s an important post so it’s worth to spend some extra time on it, as you’ll be following it the whole year.
Would love to read your thoughts on the books you read this year! Look forward to updates on your goals–they are all really great goals! Cheers! Dragon Gal
Thanks, Dragon Gal. So far I am doing well but I think I set the bar a bit too high, albeit I enjoy the challenge. We’ll write some comments on my read books, thanks for the idea.
[…] to have a look at how I am keeping on with my 2020 goals. As Peter Drucker said 40 years ago, what gets measured gets […]
[…] to have a look at how I am keeping on with my 2020 goals. As Peter Drucker said 40 years ago, what gets measured gets […]