Monitoring Your Goals with an Annual Review

Last week I turned 34. For some, birthdays are a cause for celebration. Decade milestones and years that open the door to more privilege, like turning 21, are always fun. But for the longest time I greeted every year with a certain melancholy.

I’m not too keen on the idea of dying. Call me strange, but I enjoy my feet on the high side of the lawn. Birthdays used to act as a reminder for me that I was one step closer to that long dirt nap.

When I turned 30, I decided to stop focusing on my inevitable demise, but instead to look around at the life I had yet to live. Each year I take a few days after my birthday to evaluate myself. I take a good hard look at my life to determine if I’m doing what I should be doing and reaching toward my desired end game.

So how am I doing? Not bad, but there’s room for growth. Over the past year I achieved 3 of my top 5 goals. One of those was personal, and two were business related.

What’s this have to do with you? Good questions.

I interact with a lot of people in my life: family, friends, business partners, real estate investors, employees, investment students, clients, tenants and others I can’t even think of. So do you. Think about the people you admire and enjoy being around. I’ll bet they all have one thing in common.

They’re all actively living their life.

Think about your day-to-day. How many times do you allow yourself to drift into auto pilot? It’s easy enough to zone out in front of the television at the end of the day or to get lost in thought during the morning commute. We all have our moments.

Those moments of passive living are alright – even necessary at times. But too often people assume a passive living arrangement during their entire existence. We all know someone who has the same routine day after day. They never deviate and certainly never venture outside their comfort zone.

Living passively keeps us out of conflict, but also shields us from growth.

This next year of my life is going to be an adventure. I have some exciting things planned for myself, and for the readers at Hard Money Bankers. Though none of us are sure what tomorrow holds, I plan to live each day with an active purpose. I encourage you to do the same.

After all, each day is a gift. Each moment can only be lived once before it’s forever gone.