GOALS FOR 2017

I am keeping track of my progress on any non-financial goals here.

Even though I only achieved 1 of the 7 goals I set in 2017, I improved in many areas:

  1. I went from being able to 35 pushups to 62 pushups in 2 minutes.
  2. I went from being able to 55 situps to 76 situps in 2 minutes.
  3. I went from a 904 rating to a 1068 rating in table tennis.
  4. I read 12 books in 2017 by setting a goal to read 20 books.
  5. I went from a 24:22 to a 24:05 in my 5k time (not a huge improvement here).
  6. I didn’t run a marathon this year.
  7. I went from 158.0 lbs to 156.4 lbs (not much improvement here either).

Goals for 2017 (starting Dec. 2016)

Here’s the status of all my goals for 2017.

  • Be able to do 100 pushups in 2 minutes (currently at 25 as of 12/19/16); inspired by a friend who joined the 1000 lb club at age 36 (sum of bench, squat, deadlift)
    • 35 pushups (1/2/17)
    • 47 pushups (1/19/17)
    • 50 pushups (2/16/17)
    • 45 pushups (3/17/17) – regressed a little here
    • 41 pushups (4/19/17) lack of training
    • 45 pushups (5/15/17)
    • 49 pushups (6/19/17)
    • 53 pushups (7/17/17) – new high
    • 63 pushups (8/21/17) – new high
    • 62 pushups (9/19/17)
    • 62 pushups (10/19/17)
    • 58 pushups (11/20/17)
    • 62 pushups (12/19/17)
  • Be able to do 100 situps in 2 minutes
    • 55 situps (1/19/17)
    • 61 situps (2/17/17)
    • 70 situps (3/17/17)
    • 58 situps (4/19/17) – lack of training causes regression
    • 66 situps (5/15/17)
    • 70 situps (6/19/17)
    • 68 situps (7/17/17)
    • 75 situps (8/21/17) – new high
    • 77 situps (9/19/17) – new high
    • 79 situps (10/19/17) – new high
    • 63 situps (11/20/17)
    • 76 situps (12/19/17)
  • Achieve a 1000+ rating in Table Tennis (817 as of 12/19/16) – GOAL ACHIEVED in April 2017 with a 1018 rating!
    • 904 rating (1/4/17)
    • 948 rating (1/19/17)
    • 972 rating (2/16/17)
    • 940 rating (3/17/17) – I feel like I’ve been getting better, but the competition has been improving too
    • 1018 rating (4/19/17) – I finally got a membership and started to play more often over the past month, which has made a difference.
    • 1005 rating (5/15/17)
    • 984 rating (6/19/17)
    • 1010 rating (7/17/17)
    • 1009 rating (8/21/17)
    • 1030 rating (9/19/17)
    • 1030 rating (10/19/17) – haven’t been able to go this past month
    • 1068 rating (11/20/17) – first time back in a while; surprisingly won matches
    • 1068 rating (12/19/17) – didn’t play this month
  • Read 20 books (my rating and a brief synopsis beside it)
    • 1. The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley – COMPLETED Dec. 2016 (9/10 – shows us that most millionaires don’t live the flashy lives portrayed in the media but are actually much more frugal than most people)
    • 2. The Prodigal God by Tim Keller – COMPLETED Dec. 2016 (7/10 – a different perspective on the parable of the prodigal son where the elder brother is just as lost as the younger brother)
    • 3. The Simple Path to Wealth: Your road map to financial independence and a rich, free life by J.L. Collins – COMPLETED Jan. 2017 (9/10 – details a simple way to invest and emphasizes low-cost index funds like VTSAX; lots of great information too)
    • 4. Half Retire – How to Escape the Rat Race Without Waiting to Win the Lottery! by Marcus Arce – COMPLETED Jan. 2017 (5/10 – goes through different ways to avoid typical full-time employment that usually lasts until traditional retirement age)
    • 5. PUSH – A Guide to Living an All Out Life: The Story of Orangetheory Fitness by Ellen Latham, MS – COMPLETED Jan. 2017 (9/10 – written by the founder of Orangetheory Fitness; goes through the journey of how she came up with the concept and the franchise; lots of excellent testimonials and inspiring stories)
    • 6. I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi – COMPLETED Jan. 2017 (7/10 – covers a wide variety of concepts; would be more useful to recent grads or those new to managing finances)
    • 7. Is That Really You, God? by Loren Cunningham with Janice Rogers – Completed Mar. 2017 (9/10 – required reading for Daniel DTS class I’m taking; tells the story of how YWAM began and tells amazing stories of how God used them in the early years)
    • 8. Entitlemania: How Not to Spoil Your Kids, and What to Do If You Have by Richard Watts – COMPLETED July 2017 (10/10 – author who has personal experience working with many wealthy families teaches parents what to do and not to do to prevent spoiling your kids; the responsibility mainly falls on the parents, NOT the kids)
    • 9. My strategy to retire early: My journey to become financially independent and retire in my early 30s by Benjamin Davis – COMPLETED July 2017 (6/10 – author describes his strategy to retire early; interesting because I have similar goals but not as relevant for me because he plans to retire in Portugal)
    • 10. unWorking: Exit the rat race, live like a millionaire, and be happy now by Clark Vandeventer – COMPLETED December 2017 (9/10 – really inspiring and great read; author discusses his hard times as well as the good; more about living life now, and that we don’t need money to be happy)
    • 11. Passive Income by George Pain – COMPLETED December 2017 (6/10 – very quick read; not much new for me, but it quickly describes the well known ways to make passive income)
    • 12. 50 Ways to Lose Weight by Colin Stuckert – Completed December 2017 (7/10 – quick read; outlines 50 ways to lose weight; most I already knew, but some new ones in there that were pretty good)
  • Run a 5k in under 20 minutes (6:26/mi)
    • 24:22 (7:51/mi) – 2017 Celebrate Community 5k (Alexandria, VA; Jan. 15, 2017)– first race after recovering from ankle surgery. Goal here is to set my baseline for the year and improve from here.
    • 23:30 (7:29/mi) – self-timed using Strava App on May 13, 2017 in Greenbriar neighborhood in Fairfax, VA
    • 24:34 (7:55/mi) – 2017 Potomac River Birthday Bash 5k (Fairfax, VA; July 23, 2017) – Fairfax Corner; hot day and lack of training
    • 24:36 (7:56/mi) – 2017 Glory Days XC 5k – (Centreville, VA; October 7, 2017) – fun cross country race but didn’t train
    • 24:05 (7:46/mi) – 2017 Dominion Consulting Veteran’s Day 5k – (Fairfax, VA; Nov. 12, 2017) – Fairfax Corner; nice, cold day
  • Run a marathon in under 4 hours
  • Get my weight under 155 lbs and keep it there
    • 158.0 lbs (12/19/16)
    • 158.0 lbs (1/19/17)
    • 159.6 lbs (2/17/17)
    • 157.8 lbs (3/17/17)
    • 155.0 lbs (4/19/17) – starting doing some track workouts and played more table tennis
    • 157.2 lbs (5/15/17)
    • 154.2 lbs (6/19/17)
    • 154.0 lbs (7/17/17)
    • 159.2 lbs (8/21/17) – gained a lot of weight from traveling a lot this month
    • 157.6 lbs (9/19/17) – traveling a lot these next few months
    • 155.0 lbs (10/19/17) – ate better for part of the month
    • 155.4 lbs (11/20/17)
    • 156.4 lbs (12/19/17)

Marathon goal:

I set a goal to qualify for the Boston Marathon by 2020. See the details in my post here:

I Will Qualify For The Boston Marathon by 2020

I broke my ankle around the 4th of July in 2016. I haven’t made much progress on this in 2016, but I hope to get started on this in 2017.

Weight goal:

In order to achieve my marathon goal above, I’m trying to get my weight down to around 138-143 lbs from about 161 lbs (as of mid-2016) by 2020.