It took me longer to get to this than I was expecting. I had some goals written up just a week or so after the last post. It just took me a while to get around to writing up this post.

Fair warning to anybody reading this: This type of post is mostly for me to keep track of myself. I put it out in public because otherwise I won’t act on it. There will be a lot of navel gazing and a lot of rambling.

Feel free to ignore this post.

Thoughts on 2015

2015 is already coming up on 10% done, so I suppose I have some idea of how the year is. 2015 is going to be like most previous years in that my main goal is going to be improving my health. It’s kind of depressing to think about that way, but one of these years I’ll stick to it better enough to improve, right? That’s the idea anyways. So I weighted how many goals I should have based on each category, and put much more weight on health this year. Simple enough.

So, the categories. Keeping in mind there’s some overlap. Also, the broad categories are pretty much the same as last year, which shouldn’t be a surprise.

• Health
  • Weight loss
  • Eating Habits
  • Exercise & Fitness
• Income Diversity
• Writing
  • Fiction
  • Non-fiction
  • Editing/Publishing
• eCeleb Status
• Japanese Proficiency

OK, so what needs explanation here? Health stuff is pretty obvious. I want income diversity just for a safety net and because it’s always good to have multiple irons in the fire. I enjoy writing and want to get some stories out there, but I’d even be happy building up a small publishing house, even if it’s not of my stuff. eCeleb stuff is much less important this year, I’ll just let it happen if it happens. If it does, it’s a potential serious side income source, but I need to get there on my own pace. Japanese study should just continue on. Last post I mentioned how I just missed the registration date for the N5. Can’t do that again. I’ll probably take the N4 depending on how I feel about it. Might get some practice tests in the summer and see where I am in terms of skill. My final goal here is to get up to N2 eventually, though N1 would be a possibility if there’s some real potential jobs or something.

Also, looking at 2014, it was clear that although all of my goals might have been ambitious-yet-possible, progress was very difficult to track. Because of that, I think I’m going to do quarterly goals in addition to the annual ones. So I’ll be outlining my annual goals with descriptions below, then a quick list of the quarterly goals for this quarter. I’ll try to do an update post every quarter at least.

2015 Goals

Health and Fitness

1. Lose 80 pounds

Basically this is the same goal weight as last year, since I put on some poundage. Possible? Yes. Likely? Honestly, no. But I’m going to push for it. I’m hoping that since I’m incorporating more fitness stuff this year I’ll be able to push harder into this goal, and lose faster than just diet changes alone.

2. Run 5km without stopping

I’m so out of shape. I can’t run (or jog) 5km without stopping. Not even close, really. I can walk 5km without stopping. I can run maybe 500 meters. Maybe. This one will take a while to get started, since I need to lose a fair amount of weight before I can start running seriously without risking injury. It pains me to type that, this shit really needs to turn around. Anyways, 5km seems like a good goal. I’m not going for a time, just going 5km without stopping or slowing down to a walk. In the spring I’ll see how far I can go, and try to increase it bit by bit during Q2, Q3, and Q4.

3. Do 150 situps without stopping

Seems simple enough. Honestly, this and a few of the others were just so I could have nice measurable fitness goals. 150 at once without stopping seems like a silly thing, since you’d usually do it in sets, but also it’s kind of an interesting goal, so here we are.

4. Curled 100lbs (set of 10)

Again, simple enough. Right now my dumbbells only go up to 50lbs, which I can curl easily enough. Typically I only use the 30’s and do more reps, but I want to bulk up my arms a bit and get up to 100’s. I’ll probably have to use the gym’s weights for this, since buying increments between 50 and 100 is pretty expensive. Also, to be clear, this is 100lbs per arm, not a 100lb bar with both hands.

5. Pressed 300lbs

Honestly, I haven’t done any presses that require a spotter in years, so I don’t even know if this is a lot. I’m pretty sure I can’t do it right now, so if nothing else, it’ll give me a good number to push for and have a better idea next year. I’ll push harder on this one later, might get a personal trainer to help out with stuff.

Income Diversity

6. Developed 2 passive income sources (making at least $300 each)

I set the bar a bit lower this time, with the expectation that I’ll actually follow through. These are supposed to be passive income sources, which means money I get paid for doing little to nothing. Examples are things like books, games, stuff like that. Things where people can buy it or sign up or something and give me money. Not something that requires me to do work per product sold (ex: stuff animals, etc). Something like a website with a subscription option counts too. The $300 is a low bar, but that’s enough money that it’s probably not just fam + friends buying something. I really really want to have higher incomes than that, but who knows? Note: this would not include a patreon, since I’m not in the right circle of people to get paid to exist, and I’d have to actually generate products. So a patreon would be an active income source in that case.

7. Made $3000 in side income

Assuming I get at least $600 from the two passive sources above, that’d leave something like $2400 to gain actively. If one of the above really took off, great, but otherwise I need to consider more active income sources. This is where stuff like YouTube can come in, but maybe other things too. I have to really consider some smaller, shorter-term contract work. Maybe try to reach out to local professionals, etc. At any rate, this number seems high right now, but if I can’t make at least this much, I really haven’t been trying very hard.

Writing

8. Finished 4 volumes of light novels

This includes writing, editing, copy-editing, and possibly some kind of character design work. I’d like to have at least 2 chapters of at least 2 stories done. This can include stuff that was started earlier. What matters is finishing it.

9. Published 1 novel or light novel volume

Self-pub obviously. Preferably with a publishing company I’ve founded as opposed to just under my own name. If it’s a light novel volume, it needs to be illustrated.

10. Finished 1 novel

Novels are harder to publish. This could be the novel in #9 though I expect that to be a light novel. This one will be considered done when I have enough edits done that I’d be willing to submit it to an agent. Ideally, I would submit it to an agent or 10. We’ll see.

11. 20 new posts on this blog

I should really be posting here more. But my posts are all long and rambling, so they take a long time. Or they’re complicated technical stuff, so they take a long time. Maybe I should just start writing little “How to do X in JS” or “How to do X in CSS” like some people do.

Japanese Study

12. Taken the JLPT N5 or N4

And passed, ideally, but I wouldn’t know until 2016, so yeah. If I’m aiming for the N4 I’m going to have to push a lot harder this year than last.

 

BONUS GOALS (More detailed goals, or pushing farther than the base ones)

13. Lose 130 pounds

14. Run 10km without stopping

15. Made over $10000 gross income in one month

16. Made $16000 in side income

17. Developed 4 passive income sources (making at least $300 each) -OR- developed 1 passive income source (making at least $100/month)

18. Released 100 new videos on YouTube

19. Founded a publishing company

20. Published 3 light novel volumes (illustrated, hard copies)

21. 5 guest spots on blogs, podcasts, streams, or videos

22. Completed the Genki I Textbook + Workbook

23. Completed the Japanese in Mangaland Series and Kanji in Mangaland Series

24. Completed the Genki II Textbook + Workbook

 

2015 Q1 Goals

The following should be complete by April 1, 2015

1. Lose 20 pounds
2. Do 40 situps without stopping
3. Curled 50 lbs (set of 10)
4. Pressed 100 lbs
5. Planned and Began implementation of a passive income source
6. Made $500 in side income
7. Written 10000 words (not counting blog posts)
8. Posted at least 2 chapters of a story online somewhere
9. Finished 1 volume draft of a light novel
10. Posted 5 posts on this blog (counting this one)
11. Finished 2 more chapters of Genki I Textbook + Workbook (through Ch 9)
12. Saved at least $10000 (for taxes, etc)

 

Final Thoughts

Long, windy post, probably with spelling and grammar errors. Oh well. I think I can be successful in 2015. The hardest part is going to be the side and passive income sources, so that’s what I need to push hardest on. Aside from the health stuff, that comes absolutely first. I think I can cross off a couple of those fitness goals right now if I wanted to, but the point is to ramp up so that it’s easy to keep going.

 

I’ll try to come up with something more technical or interesting to post next week or so, I hope.