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Have You Reached Your Goals

October 14, 2019

Back in January, maybe even March you made some goals for the year. Well, have you reached your goals for the year?? Have you even got close??

There is a short time to crank it up to get to the finish line. If you have been looking for a deal, you dont have much time left before the year is over.

So you are thinking to yourself, well what about you, Mister Frugal Real Estate Guy, have you reached your goals for the year?? I have to tell you that I have not, not all of them. Not yet. I have several goals for the year and I will tell you a little about them.

As I have mentioned before, I have a bunch of goals. Some for bike riding, weight, wealth building, building my business, rehab projects and a bunch of others that come and go. I want to talk to you about a few of the big ones in my life.

Biking

I have been bike riding since I was in middle school. Usually just a long ride every here and there. About 8 or 9 years ago, I started to ride more. My lovely wife bought me a nicer Fuji road bike. I really started to ride.

I would ride a longer ride every month or two throughout the year. That would translate to about 500 or 600 miles a year. While that is quite a few miles to ride in a year, it was not where I wanted to be.

Last year, 2018, I rode about 250 miles. I bought a house for my family and was doing a little work myself. I was watching the rehab which caused all kinds of issues for the rest of my life.

After realizing I only rode 251 miles, I had to make an outlandish goal for me, 3500 miles. If I could ride 3500 miles, I should be able to get my speed up from about 14 miles per hour, do some big hills and maybe take a few weekends out of town with the wife.

It is now mid October and I am at over 2100 miles. WOW!! While I am still not at my goal, I am doing WAY better than last year. I slowed down quite a bit during the summer heat. I just could not get out there in the 100 degree weather, I know EXCUSES, right?

1400 miles to go to reach my goal. That means there are about 10 weeks left in the year. Which means I have to ride about 140 miles a week. Probably not going to happen. BUT that does not mean that I am going to give up. I have ridden 125 and even over 150 miles per week for a few weeks in the spring time. It just means that I will have to concentrate my efforts.

And next year my goals will increase even more. I am sure that my bike riding goals will be 18mph, 4500 miles, and at least 5-60+mile rides throughout the year in other cities. I may not reach all my goals, but if I can get to 17mph or 4000 miles I will be doing pretty good.

Weight

So how has the bike riding been helping with my weight loss?? It has been helping quite a bit. So far, I am down another 10 pounds for this year in addition to 10 pounds for last year. Am I at my ideal weight, not yet.

This is one of those constant challenges. I am down to about 167. So I know that I should be about 165 or even a little less by the end of the year. Especially with the increased bike riding that I am going to do to finish the year strong on the bike. One of the biggest things that we have been doing is eating so much healthier.

I have cut down my eating out to just once or twice per week. You read that right. Once or twice PER WEEK. I have some friends that we eat dinner together every other week. We choose places that we have not been to before and also invite others to join in. It is kind of a dinner club. Everyone pays for themselves, we eat different foods that we would not have otherwise eaten. Lots of great conversation.

When I am eating at home for almost every meal, I am using mostly whole ingredients. That means potatoes, fish, steaks, lots of fruit, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, pecans, and a few vegetables.

Dont get me wrong, I still have some chicken friend steak every once in a while, but thats just it, its every once in a while. It tends not to be every week or even every month. Fried chicken is something that I absolutely LOVE. But I love being healthy more.

I want to be alive for years and years to come. I know that chicken fried steak, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese from a box and chicken nuggets are NOT going to get me there. Fruits, vegetables and an all around healthy eating is what is going to do it.

Like I said, I do eat the not so healthy stuff, but not too much. I just have a very strong desire to get to my goals. The biggest one is to get to 100 years old. There is no way to do that by eating unhealthy. I am half way there. It has been quite a ride so far, and I want the next 50 to be more healthy.

Wealth

Wealth is one of those things that can change without any actions by you. Sometimes it depends on the markets, timing, political climate, world politics and a 100 other things.

It can also be influenced by YOU. Hopefully you dont worry too much about the things that you can not control. Worry about the things that you can control. Like properties that you purchase and rehab, rental properties, notes that you buy and sell can have a profound effect on your net worth.

After rehabbing our house in 2018 we began to focus on our net worth again. I will not give out exactly where we are on our journey, I can tell you that our short term goal is $1mil. We should be there sometime next year. We were hoping for this year, but we have not marketed as much as we should have. We failed on that item which caused us to not reach our goals for net worth.

But what are your goals for your net worth? Do you want to purchase a rental so that over the next few years you can increase your net worth? How about pay down some bills? Whatever it is, keep track of it and stay on top of it.

Throughout the year we noticed the marketing was slowing more and more. We did have a few little vacations that took time away from working and we were ok with it. My wife and I have enjoyed ourselves so much this year. We know that more marketing will translate into more deals. We know this. We have made a conscious effort to bump it up quite a bit for the end of the year and into next year.

The great thing is that we are aware of our goals all year long. We know what they are, we see them coming into focus or dont see them coming into focus and make little changes here and there to fix our direction.

When I set goals for the year I usually make them so that I might be able to reach them, but probably not. I have to really push myself to get close. There has to be a get out of your comfort zone effort to accomplish the goals. This is what really really pushes me. I like a challenge.

Think about this for just a moment. Make a super duper goal that is way bigger than you will ever be able to accomplish. Work your butt off to try to get there. Get close. In the end you will have done more to get there and you have gotten WAY farther than you would ever have gotten without pushing yourself.

Am I right or wrong? Who knows. But it works for me. Find out what works for you and get going to finish up the year strong. I hope that you are able to reach your goals for 2019 and in the future.