Good Riddance, 2010: Our Goals for 2011

Happy New Year, gang.

I’m running 2011-themed posts all week to take advantage of this reflective time of year.

I was on the fence for a long time about writing this post, because I didn’t want these ideas to seem like “resolutions” that would quickly be forgotten and not seen again until December.

But I realized that while I make awesome observations and conclusions and set appropriate goals this time of year, things tend to collapse because I don’t write them down and don’t make them actionable.

To shake things up this year, I’m making many of our family goals public. Here’s what we’re after in 2011:

Financial Goals

Because this is a personal finance blog, after all…

1. Earn 15% of our income from side projects. While I’ve talked about income diversity in the past, I haven’t practiced it to the extent I should. This year, I will be taking a serious look at monetizing my online projects.
2. Recover from the recession. Things are getting better. I felt it all year long, and I’m finally starting to see the real data supporting it. Financially, this means getting our savings accounts replenished, re-inflating our income streams, and putting a renewed focus on the future. We already have very specific benchmarks in place to gauge our progress along the way.

Blog Goals

Thinking specifically about Fiscal Fizzle, here’s what I like to see by December 31st:

1. 2,500 regular subscribers. This is an ambitious goal considering the rate of my growth in the last 2 years, but I’m going to focus on getting the word out about my little corner of the Web and hope people stick around.
2. Average 3 new posts per week. That means over 150 new posts by the end of the year, while I hope to use some of my other time to create paid content and guest posts!
3. At least 2 premium products. I’ve polled the community on the eBooks you’d like to read, and “see” the final product, but it’s tough to take those first steps.
4. New & exciting topics. I want to start touching on topics I haven’t covered much before including basic investing, online income, and others. Maybe we’ll even bring video back.
5. A design facelift. Site design took a back seat in 2010 while I enjoyed my blog sabbatical and focused on content. I have a long-overdue list of branding and user experience improvements.
6. All while keeping a life… Blogging cannot take over my life…Blogging cannot take over my life. I hereby promise to stop checking my email, get off Twitter, do some damn writing, and get back to all of my other responsibilities. 🙂

Personal Goals

If you care to know such things…

1. Lose another 20 pounds. I know, I know–most people set weight goals for the new year they’ll never reach. But I already have 15 pounds “behind me,” so this is actually just a continuation of 3 months of hard work that I hope to complete by mid-year.
2. Get more into music. Specifically, I’d like to learn at least 3-4 piano pieces (maybe even record a tune or two like Financial Samurai). Must is a long-overdue secret passion of mine that I hope to bring to the forefront this year.

Keeping Myself Accountable

I might check in a few times during the year to let you know how things are going on specific goals, but I’ll definitely do a final round-up at the end of the year to compare my progress to what I’ve laid out. That’s all the motivation I’m going to need! 😉

Care to Share?

Have you made big resolutions for 2011? Do you want to share them with us? Scroll down to the comments and sound off!

Photo by AleGranholm