Just got through the mid-year review process which is always fun. Cool to look back and see what has been accomplished over the last several months and even more fun is to look forward to the rest of the year and set some goals.

Personal Goals

Power generation goals are cool to me(I currently work at Southern Company which is a great energy utility imo), but probably pretty boring to most of you so I’m going to discuss some personal goals. Starting off the year I had some resolutions including the standard ones… lose weight, sleep more, eat better, read more, spend more time with the girls, etc. I’ve had some minor successes, but only two major successes.

One huge success was to read more – mostly business, achievement and personal development/success related topics. I’ve really done that this year primarily through listening to books on my commute, listening to podcasts anywhere I’m sitting for more than a few minutes and choosing physical books to read that really interest me or that I get glowing personal recommendations to read.

Another decent success is wrapping up Friday. That goal was to work out harder and more specifically the guys I work out with wanted to do a 4 week program to increase your one rep max bench press. Crazy fun and hard, but surprisingly effective. Monday the final 1x rep was what your old one rep max was – since I guessed at 315 and hadn’t really done that much weight in a while I was surprised how easily it went up.

325 is my goal for Friday. Haven’t touched that in a while and if I get really froggy I might jump on 335. Either way I’m really happy with being able to push 315 at 42 years old.

Dreams are not goals!

By evaluating the successes compared to the failures there is one glaringly obvious difference… The successes were real goals. The failures were just dreams, hopes and wishes.

Goals rule! But only if done properly. Inherently you and I both know how to do proper goals and be successful, but it makes a lot more sense to do it strategically and through a process so you don’t get those failures. Because they aren’t really failures, just unrealized dreams. Minor difference but it makes all the difference in the world.

I am going to expand on this concept in a later post, but you already know the short answer… Each of the successes had a time boundary and an aggressive yet attainable desired outcome. The failures were just dreams, hopes and wishes.