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Jan
10
Written by:
Brian Swanson
1/10/2005 3:04 PM
Here we are already almost half way through the first month of 2005…
2004 seems like a blur to me, last time I turned around I has just started at the company I work for, and now in February I’ll be celebrating my second anniversary there. While I don’t regret anything from the past year, I’m a little disappointed in my progress towards my goals of being self-employed and somewhat financially independent. I made some major headway towards the end of the year, and I’m going to continue to build on the momentum I finished the year with.
2005 has the potential to be the single greatest year of my life. I say that for multiple reasons.
My wife and I will be celebrating only our third anniversary together, but our fifth year of being in each others lives. In my adult life no person has affected my outlook and attitude about life more than she has. She is the light that guides me; she is the wind in my sails. I wouldn’t be half as motivated to do the things I plan to do if she weren’t in my life.
I’m turning 30 this year…For a lot (see Jeff I can spell it correctly) of people this is a very daunting thing to turn 30. I don’t get caught up in the number so much, because I truly believe that age is a state of mind. I’ve told my wife this for most of the time we’ve been together since she’s a little older than me and gets hung up on THAT quite a bit. I have set the goal of quitting my full-time job by June just in time for my 30th birthday, not because I think my life will end at 30, but because I expect it to begin, and won’t that be a great birthday present to myself to quit my job that brings me so much stress (and trade it for self-employment that will cause twice the stress).
I’ve set aside a minimum of 20 hours a week to work on side projects to fund my self-employment. The idea is to get the majority of my bills paid off and to save 6 months salary to pay the bills after I quit my day job and start to work full-time on consulting and my microISV products. I’m confident I can do it. But if for some reason I don’t meet the June goal I’ve set for myself, life won’t be over. It just means that I’ve set my sights to high, and I just need to re-adjust the goal based on how close I am in June. But I’ve set the goal high on purpose. I’m challenging myself to meet a goal I believe will be difficult to achieve, not to set myself up for failure, but to amaze myself with what I’m capable of. I believe that if you set goals for yourself and you always meet them, then you ARE NOT challenging yourself enough.
Thomas J. Watson, Sr. said “Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure – or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that’s where you will find success.”
I’m taking this to heart in all I’m trying to achieve. Even if I fail in some of the things I try to do, there is something to be learned from it. But I don’t plan on failing. I’ve got many things on the agenda for the first few months of this year to help me meet this lofty goal of mine.
Well this entry has already gotten a lot longer than I originally intended, so I’ll end it for now, and save something for my next entry.
Other “resolutions” for the new year, which I actually started on in mid-November (to be blogged about at a later date):
Attend Church more
Do charity work
Work out at least 3 days a week
Spend more quality time with my son
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