Three year goals: round 1 wrap up

Back in early 2021, I started a new three year goal cycle (following, as always, the 12 Week Year planning cycle).

I only succeeded on 2 out of 7 yet it feels like a very successful three years across nearly all aspects of my life. My takeaways from this are:

• I’m more likely to succeed on a goal that affects someone else directly, not just myself. Without them knowing it, my wife kept me accountable for one success, and my kids kept me accountable for the other.
• Long term health goals are unnecessary and just make me feel guilty if I don’t achieve them and relieved if I do. I have the structures in place nowadays to lead a healthy lifestyle (although I didn’t when this three year cycle started, at least not on the diet side of things) and I don’t need goals for motivation.
• I want to want to be a writer but I’m not sure if I want to be a writer.
• Career paths are unpredictable and a failure to achieve a long term goal there often just means that priorities changed.

Here’s how it went:

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I want our house to be organized, presentable, and well maintained, with all major problems fixed.

• Contributes to: “I want to have a house and cars that we are happy with without being overly flashy”

How it went: SUCCESS! Here’s all the stuff we did (minus some stuff I’m probably forgetting):

• Replaced all the carpet in the house
• Turned the nursery into an office
• Replaced our broken living room window
• Cleaned out and organized our garage
• Cleaned out and organized our pantry
• Replaced our back door
• Got a new fridge
• Got a new oven/stove
• Got a new washer and dryer
• Fixed our stupid wobbly kitchen sink
• Fixed our stupid wobbly kitchen faucet
• Put a big swing in the backyard
• Threw out our huge broken trampoline
• Replaced the broken blinds with nice curtains
• Got a new kitchen table and chairs
• Replaced our dining room table and chairs

(I’d still like to redo our kitchen cabinets but I’m not letting perfect be the enemy of good here.)

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I want my kids to have more hobbies which I can participate in.

• Contributes to: “I want our kids to become happy and successful and compassionate adults.”
• Contributes to: “I want my kids and their kids to want to spend time with us.”

How it went: SUCCESS! We have video games and soccer now, and in general I feel pretty well connected and involved with each of my kids.

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I want to self publish a book from my blog posts.

• Contributes to: “I want to be known as an author.”

How it went: FAILURE! I have one draft of one chapter. I have some soul searching to do here. I don’t think the life of a writer is what I want for myself after all.

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I want to complete my 40-before-40 list.

• Contributes to: “I want to regularly have new experiences and adventures.

How it went: FAILURE! I’ve only completed 19 out of 40. But I still have more than two years left!

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I want to run a half marathon in under 1:40.

• Contributes to: “I want to finish a marathon in under 3 hours.”

How it went: FAILURE! My PR is around 1:51. Making it to 1:40 is still possible in theory at my age but realistically I don’t think I’ll be devoting that amount of time to training.

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I want to weigh 150lbs with 10% body fat.

• Contributes to: “I want to look the most fit in a bathing suit out of anyone my age that I know.”

How it went: FAILURE! I did weigh before 150lbs at various times in those three years, but never with 10% body fat. It was probably more like 15%. At the moment, I’m coming out of a bulk at 170lbs and closer to 20% body fat and starting a cut, with the goal of getting down to sub-150 but with more muscle and less fat. We’ll see how that goes.

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I want to get promoted to a position where I’m leading other leaders.

• Contributes to: “I want to retire comfortably in my 50s.”
• Contributes to: “I want to be known as an author.”

How it went: FAILURE! I did go from Senior Architect to Senior Eng Manager to Staff Eng Manager, but I’m not managing managers. These days, I don’t have any desire to. I’m satisfied and growing in my current role and I’d like to hang out here a while longer.