If you fail to prepare, you’re preparing to fail.
I saw this quote on one of my high school classroom walls. I think it was there to terrify us into studying for our exams, but it’s stayed with me since then.
I need to make a clear set of goals: both one year goals and five year goals, to keep myself motivated while being self employed, to ensure that I move closer to my goals and to get as close as possible to reaching my potential.
It seems fitting to write them, as a year ago it was when I decided I would move to Antigua, Guatemala. So let’s see where I would like to end up in the next year.
My 1 year goals:
1) Buy a Car
Right now, as I write this, I’m sitting in Cafe Barista in Guatemala City. It’s 9:30am, and I had booked a shuttle to collect me here at that time, but they’ve decided they’ll leave at 11 instead. So I’ll be home by 1pm, when I left my boyfriend’s house at 8am. It’s an hour long drive by car. I’m ready to adult and having a car is a big part of that for me. While it will be a pretty big expense, I think it’s worth it as I’m saving a lot in tax and my time is valuable too.
I do have a scooter in Antigua, which only costs me around $3 a week in gas, however I want to be able to explore more of Guatemala, take my dog on trips, visit my boyfriend in the city and so on. A car will give me so much more freedom.
2) Develop a Yoga Habit
For the past two months, I’ve been busy trying to find a schedule with my puppy. I’m not going to lie, it’s hard work. 530am wake ups, waking through the night, barely any time to myself to do my things. I’ve put my things on hold in order to care best for her, but now it’s time to swing the table around. I LOVE yoga, it provides me with such great balance in my life. Recently I’ve been doing it a few times a week in my house, but I’d like to start going to the studio.
3) Grow My Portfolio of Blogs
I own a network of blogs. I’d like to be buying, and working on, 1-2 blog a month.
4) Save 70% of My Income
I haven’t calculated how much I’m saving regularly. Mostly because my money was a little weird leading up to now. I had a lot of tax bills I hadn’t really delegated enough for and had to pay a lot on my student loan. But with that out of the way, I can easily save 70% of my income. For the month of September I’ve already pushed $20,000 NZD into savings. Wow!
5) Move Houses
I’m tossing up whether to move into a larger house in Antigua for the purpose of Airbnb. It’s a little hard, because for a house within a decent distance to do Airbnb will be around twice the price. If I Airbnb well, I think it could pay for my entire rent. However, it seems like a lot of work, when maybe my time would be better spent investing in my online businesses. I’m not too sure about this idea, I guess I’ll just search for houses and see what comes up. I’d also like to have a home office.
6) Start my New Blogging Venture
I want to start a podcast/new lifestyle/hack blog. I plan to start content before I go to NZ, rolling out some on the plane. I’ll look to start podcasting when I get back from NZ. I can’t wait!
What are your 1 year goals? I’d love to hear about them.