Before we say a final farewell to 2015, I want to make a full record of how the year progressed, including what went well, what didn’t go so well or didn’t even happen and also the unexpected things that came our way!
As with most goals (plans) which cover an extended period of time, circumstances and events can and will conspire to knock you off course. My goals have been no exception to this, but, having said that, I’m happy with the outcome of the year and am already looking forward to doing it all again and better in 2016!
Goals That Went Well
Reading – I originally set out to read 18 books over the course of the year, but didn’t manage to fully achieve that number. However, I was able to read or listen to 10 books over the course of the year, which is worthy of a mention.
Attend A Personal Development Seminar – happily achieved this goal in April, when I attended a weekend coaching training session.
Generate an extra £10,000 of income – this goal was revised well before the end of the year to a much lower goal. Overall, I managed to generate approximately £2,500 of additional or unexpected income, which came in quite handy!
Increase our net worth by 15% – we didn’t get to the 15% unfortunately, but maybe this was somewhat ambitious. In the end this has come in at around a 9% increase. I’ll be looking to improve on this in 2016.
Practice my morning meditation routine – this has been a big success in 2015 and has also been a practice which has helped to keep me grounded through the ups and downs life has thrown my way (there have been a few!). I now consider meditation a regular and important part of my lifestyle and would recommend it to anyone!
Set up and launch my Achieve Your Best Life YouTube channel – I met this goal with hours to spare when on New Year’s Eve I posted my YouTube video . This was definitely one of the scariest things to have done (I’m ever-so camera shy!). But, now it’s done, I’m pleased to have achieved this milestone. I’m also pleased to have had some lovely feedback, thank you 🙂 .
Post Content to My Website – I haven’t quite achieved the number of blog posts in 2015 that I would have liked, but I’m not going to discount the fact that I have actually posted 48 blogs, compared to 42 that I posted 2014!
Continue and complete our 12 UK Cities in 12 Months Bucket List Challenge – this goal has been the highlight of the year. We completed the challenge in December with our 12th city visit to Liverpool. The twelve cities we visited were: Bristol, Gloucester, Salisbury, Wells, Canterbury, London, Lincoln, St David’s, Worcester, Edinburgh, London (again!) and Liverpool!
Take a 2-week summer holiday (location TBD, but somewhere hot!) – this goal didn’t work out quite as planned as I had hoped that we would travel abroad when I envisaged ‘somewhere hot’. As it turned out, we took a week-long touring trip to the Lake District (now very sadly flooded) followed by Dumfries and Edinburgh in Scotland. Luckily the weather was lovely and we enjoyed ‘somewhere hot’!
Maintain and improve regular contact with family and friends – I’ve been very lucky to have enjoyed the company of lots of my family and friends this year. I’ve also managed (for the first time), to send birthday cards at the right time!
Contribute to local causes by sponsoring local activities and events – I’ve sponsored a number of charitable activities in 2015 and am pleased with how this goal worked out.
Goals That Didn’t Go So Well
Complete A Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Course – I decided quite early on that this goal wasn’t resonating with me despite having been very keen to take the course at the beginning of the year. I’m still very interested in this area, but I’m now looking at something broader (more news about that in a later blog!).
Weigh 9 stone 4 pounds (130lbs) and maintain – this one has been a rollercoaster. The year started well with enthusiasm and weight coming off regularly, but by March weight-loss had stalled and from there I never really seemed to recover my motivation. Things got worse as the year progressed as we were busy with unexpected projects and my time was truly stretched in other areas. I’ve ended the year somewhere very near to where I started!
Participate in a fitness related charity event – this goal was shelved for health reasons and I’ll revisit it in due course.
Grow my website subscriber list – I don’t think I was prepared for the amount of research and subsequent work that was required for this goal. This is an area I will need to revisit and chunk down for future progressing.
Write my second eBook – no visit from the ‘muse’ in 2015. More thought and planning required for this.
Take a trip to New York to celebrate our 27th Wedding – change of focus meant this one was shelved for 2015.
Unexpected Successes!
Review my Bucket List regularly for opportunities to take action – whilst I didn’t regularly check out my Bucket List, we moved house in 2015, which was on the List. This wasn’t really planned, but seemed to happen at just the right time!
In September I decided to embark on a 10-week Coaching and Mentoring course, which I successfully passed with a grade of ‘Excellent’!
So WOW! What a year, is it any wonder that I was struggling so much with setting goals for 2016?!
So now it’s onwards into 2016…February kicks off in just a few hours! My next blog will have details of my goals for 2016 and once again I’m hoping you will share the journey with me and also share your goals for 2016!
You have always inspired me a lot. I am not a great planner n execution kind of guy, still on hindsight I find myself achieving. When we limit our goals n follow them dogmatically real change start happening. I highly feel that is secret. Thanks for inspiration
Hi Titu…thanks for taking the time to comment.
I’m so pleased that you’ve been inspired to take action! I’ve noticed your recent travels and have enjoyed seeing the photos – it’s always good to see others’ travels and to be motivated to find out more (I did a little bit of research after seeing your photos of Shimla!).
I hope you have big plans for 2016 and wish you much success!
Well done Nicola. Onwards and upwards as they say. The YouTube channel is certainly a new venture. Full respect for that – hope it goes well. Setting goals and reviewing them is always a bit scarey. I remember doing it when I went through my “little episode” a few years back. What happens is that the environment around you changes that means that some of the goals become meaningless, and others are missed due to lack of foresight/knowledge of what the changes in context mean, but hey ho, that’s life I suppose. After reading this I will revisit #hospitweet and see what needs to be done. Some of it pretty obvious I’m sure. Perhaps the time that’s passed and knowledge gained will lead to better goals for 2016.
Always look forward to reading your posts. Thanks.
Thanks for your comment David – very encouraging! YouTube was by far one of the scariest things I did last year, but I’m glad I did it and I will be building on it for 2016.
I agree about the environment changing and therefore the need to revise goals becomes almost inevitable. It’s also cathartic to revisit, revise and update the goals now and then.
Enjoy your revisit to hospitweet :).
I love your new blog theme, btw, it’s striking and beautiful. My readers can check it out for themselves here: http://moments-like-these.com/ . It’s well worth a visit!