2022 Mid Year Review Goal Progress & Predictions
Living intentionally means setting goals for yourself
Part of living an intentional life is looking ahead at where you’d like to be and taking steps to get closer to those goals vs looking in the rearview mirror thinking “Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda”. Life is an iterative process and those who act intentionally will be more likely to live the life they want.
At the beginning of 2022 I set some goals for myself. now that the year is more than half over it’s time to review them and see how my progress is, and adjust course as needed.
This article is broken down into 3 parts
Reviewing progress toward goals
Reviewing action steps
2022 Predictions (Update Where are we?)
Setting 2022 Goals
Always the overachiever, I don’t just do one “New Year’s Resolution”, I do 3-5 every year. My criteria are similar to the S.M.A.R.T. Goals system often used in management. (I started doing this before I knew what smart goals were)
What are S.M.A.R.T. Goals you ask? They are goals that are:
S - Specific
M - Measurable
A - Achievable
R - Relevant
T - Time Bounded
Here are a couple notes I have about the more formal S.M.A.R.T. goals method.
*While these goals should be Achievable, don’t lowball yourself. The point is to set ambitious goals that you’ll have to stretch yourself to hit. If you fall a little short that’s ok, you’ll still make progress toward the outcome you desire. Too many people set the bar too low and make little to no progress toward the future end state.
**Not all worthy goals are easy to measure
-Goals like spending more quality time with family or living more intentionally are hard to quantify
That being said you can still take specific actions within a period of time to help you reach these goals, so I still find this system useful.
2022 Goals Update
Lose 20lbs (lost 30 this year)
January Weight: 205
August Weight: 210
2x Amazon sales
2021 Average Sales: $800/ Month
2022 Average Sales: $1,200/ Month (last 2 months $1,600)
Travel more
I’ve been to North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, New Mexico, and several places in Arizona
Invest $20K new money
$16,291.21 (81.5%) (Ahead of schedule)
Grow my website to 1K visitors per month
Last 30 days 610 visitors!
Action Steps Updated
As we talked about earlier, goals don’t mean much if you don’t take action. Below is my action plan for each goal outlined above.
Lose 20lbs (lost 30 this year)
Welp my 20 lbs goal is not 25lbs… I know what I need to do I just need to do it.
2x Amazon sales
I’ve moved my average from $800 to $1200 of commissions per month. I’m confident I’ll be at $1600 by years end
Travel more
While my Ecuador trip was cancelled by the event organizer due to safety concerns. I have still been to 5 states this year. I’m calling this a success!
Invest $20K new money
you’ll notice I didn’t set a portfolio goal. I have no control over the markets, I set a contribution goal because thats something I can control. I’m at $16,291.21 at the end of Augest here with 4 more months to go, I’m feeling very confident about this one! I only need to contribute $3,118.79 more this year. I’m well ahead of schedule
Grow my website to 1K visitors per month
Post 1 article per week: I’m a bit behind but should hit this by years end
Send monthly newsletter to email subscribers: I have missed a few months but have a new process in place to ensure this gets done!
Explore ways to expand social media presence: Twitter has been a big success for me here!
As you can see, I’m on track for most of my goals except for weight loss. good thing I did this check in it’s time to hit the gym! my goal to invest $20K this year are basically and the amazon sales goal are basically a done deal as long as I don’t mess anything up.
My website visitor goal of 1K per month is doable but going to be a hard push to get there.
My weight loss goal I’ve made zero progress on, I need to get it together or this won’t happen. I still have time but it’s going to be a stretch to make this happen.
I’m shooting for 5 of 5! Wish me luck and I look forward to giving you an update at the end of the year with how I did!
2022 Predictions
After reading the book Fooled By Randomness I realized how much of a role chance has in our lives. It’s easy to look back and say “well of course that’s what happened, that’s the obvious outcome”. Our ability to predict future is actually quite abysmal, that’s partly why the average trader does worse than the market average. Things aren’t so predicatable as they seem.
In an effort to keep myself humble, I make 3 predictions every New Year and reflect on them at the end of the year. Frequently, my predictions are comically wrong. Sometimes, I’m lucky. I’d say my average is probably about as good as the average “Expert” that is paraded across the news channels on a regular basis… which is to say not very good.
2022 Predictions Check In
S&P500 will hit 5,500:
As of January 1st 2022 the S&P500 is 4,783.50, which means I’m predicating a 14.98% increase over 2022. Now I could give you an elaborate explanation with line charts and diagrams with hexagons to justify my reasoning, but it wouldn’t make my prediction any more accurate. It comes down to my gut feeling based on the following.
We’ve printed a lot of money and it is still working its way thru the financial system
Inflation will push prices up
This is approximately half the 1083 pts / 29.3% increase we saw in 2021
AUGUST UPDATE: Well holy hell as of writing this I was way off! S&P sits at 4,070 classic example of why we don’t try to time the market!! and this is after an 11% bear market rally which looks to be losing steam. more pain ahead!
Housing will go up around 7% nationally in 2022:
This is a straight up gut feel, I think increasing interest rates will put downward pressure on prices as buyers have to pay a larger % of their monthly payment to the bank vs the home seller. However, inflation of wages may help offset this some. This is significantly lower than the approximately 19% increase we saw in 2021 you’ll note the article I linked is predicting a 5.7% increase for 2022. I’ve seen estimates range from 13.9% all the way down to 3%. The general consensus is there will be some kind of continued upward trend just not as much as 2021.
AUGUST UPDATE: Using the RedFin Data Center we can get a pretty good idea on median home sales nationally
January 2022 National average was $376K
July 2022 National average was $413K (Down from a all time highs in may/June)
Net is 9.84% increase which is more than my estimate for the year, but we are seeing prices come down a bit in Q3 so it’s possible we’ll end the year near my 7% guess but it’s certainly not playing out as I expected.
United States will get involved in another war:
This is a more controversial prediction of mine but between the China/Taiwan escalations, and the Russia/ Ukraine escalations I predict we will either be a direct supporter or directly intervene in a conflict in 2022. With our troops out of Afghanistan the resources can be allocated to another conflict. I would prefer we don’t so hopefully this prediction is wrong.
AUGUST UPDATE: Well we don’t have boots on the ground but did anyone see UKRAINE coming? Also tensions with China/ Taiwan / USA remain very high! Also with Russia constricting Natural Gas to EU countries heading into the winter things could get ugly.
Our Military has provided over $80 Billion dollars in support to Ukraine in the form of arms and other supplies. Tough to say we aren’t involved here.
“Life is like steering a boat, the currents will push you back and forth, but if you keep your eye on your goals you’ll eventually get there” -Me
Alright that’s it for this article. Go out there and make 2022 the year you want it to be! If your not on track to meet your goals like I am with my weight loss goal, it’s not too late to get back on the horse and try again!
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