It's the start of a new year. And I've been thinking about the new year for the past 2-3 months. I love looking back and seeing what I can improve in the following year. There are some things that went really well last year. And some things that I'm disappointed with. I'm writing them here so I can hold myself accountable and I hope you can get something out of them too.

Previous reviews:

• 2016
• 2014

Books

I love reading and I've been on a reading binge the last couple years. This past year I read 37 books.

Unlike last year a good chunk (~20) of these were fiction. The rest were biographies & non-fiction books.

The books I read in 2017

For fiction books I highly recommend Graveyard Shift by Michael F Haspil. It's a police procedural book in a world where vampires, werewolves, and mummies are in our society. A great twist on a police procedural.

For non-fiction books I really enjoyed the #AskGaryVee book, the Elon Must biography, & On Tyranny.

The Gary Vaynerchuck book was filled with little tidbits. I had to add a book mark every few seconds in Audible to write down all of the awesomeness.

The Cliffs of Insanity from The Princess Bride

Elon Musk's biography was inspiring. It reminds me of a black masked man who climbed the cliffs of insanity in The Princess Bride.

And On Tyranny was from someone who studies how tyranical governments gain power and from studying those how you can prevent that from happening. Hint: it's more nuanced than the internet advice, “punch nazis” which will probably make the problem worse. Don't believe me? Read the book.

Book Goals for 2018

For 2018 I want to re-read The One Thing. A friend told me to read it a few months ago and when I tried to add it to my Goodreads list I realized I already read it. I originally read it in 2016 before I started taking good notes and I think it went in one ear and out the other.

So I want to reread it in 2018 and actually absorb the lessons. I've been listening to the podcast quite a bit and I love it. Rereading the book should help me focus on one habit at a time next year.

I’m really happy with my existing goal of 24 books a year. It's become a habit to listen to audio books while walking the dog and I also read on my iPad. I'm not going to lie I'm a little jealous of people who read 40+ books a year but I'm still happy with my 24+.

Health

When I was writing my year in review post last year I thought I ran 50-75 times that year. And I asked my partner who thought I ran 100 times. When I finally opened up FitBit and counted the runs it was only 26 times or once every 2 weeks. Major fail. 

I think this happened because I ran a lot in the summer and let the habit slack in the fall & winter. This made me think I was doing a good job but in reality I wasn't. This past year I changed that. I made it a weekly commitment. I decided to run every single week of 2017 and I haven't missed a single week.

End of the year run with my sister in D.C. pic.twitter.com/LcgbVftxYD

— Patrick Rauland (@BFTrick) January 2, 2018

This past year I documented 51 runs (I ran without my GPS watch for a few weeks). More than twice what I did last year by deciding to run every week and make it a habit.

And I think when it comes to improving your health habits are what matter. You don't get healthy by running every day for a month and then giving up the rest of the year. It needs to be something you do on a regular basis.

I started layering yoga on top of my weekly runs and I'm weighing myself again whenever I'm at home. It keeps me honest and I've seen my weight drop little by little since monitoring it.

One thing I didn't do well was I didn't get a flu shot – because it's never really affected me. But I've been reading about how it's about the safety of others.

Health Goals for 2018

For 2018 I want to maintain my weekly run. It took most of the year for it to feel natural and I don't want to lose that feeling.

I don't want to commit to once a week yoga for the entire year. I think I can do it most times. But if I fail one week I don't want that to discourage me and lose the habit. Instead I'm going to start small.

The first of the month I'm going to schedule (in my calendar) a yoga class that month. I'll likely schedule 2-4 classes but I'm committing to one because that's doable every month.

I'm going to get a flu shot.

Friends

You might have heard the expression “you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with” I was curious who those people were. So I looked back through my calendar and guestimated the total number of hours I spent with people.

A rough number of hours I spent with people

The top two names are no surprise. I live with one and I was dating the other. But the 3rd person on that list was a work colleague. I had no idea one of the most influential people in my life was a work colleague.

And I was a bit surprised how little time I spent with #4 & 5 on that list. Seventy hours doesn’t seem like much time.

Friend Goals for 2018

I want to be more conscious of who is in my top 5. And I want to increase the time I spend with each of the people in the top 5. I’d like the minimum for all of the people in my top 5 to be 100 hours.

There's also a friend that I've tried to connect with over and over again over the last few years and it's just draining me. I'm going to stop putting effort into that relationship. If this person wants to spend time with me great but I'm not putting in a ton of energy like I did this past year.

Money

Overall I’m really happy with money. I set some goals last year about $16,000 recurring and running my own online summit. I ran the Lift Off Summit which went well.

I made over $20,000 in recurring revenue. I’m pretty darn happy with that. As I continue to build products & courses I should hopefully see this number grow.

Money Goals for 2018

I recently reacquired my old Ninja Forms plugins. I tried hard over the last couple months to update them but I can’t find the time. I need to look for a freelancer to maintain those plugins for me. This will remove some stress and help me make a little more recurring revenue.

Once I get Ninja Forms taken care of I can focus on growing my other products. I have some plans for 2018 around selling my own products – more on that soon.

Personal

Aviva and I broke up this year. That's been pretty difficult.

And my dog Meeko died in March. It took us months to feel ready for a new dog. We adopted Dr. Watson in October and love him already. Meeko won't be forgotten.

I saw an eclipse with my dad.

Goals Recap

• Read 24 books
  • One of which will be The One Thing
• Run once a week
• Schedule Yoga classes at least once a month
• Get flu shot
• Spend at least 100 hours with at least 5 of my friends
• Outsource Ninja Forms plugin maintenance

What are your goals?