Balancing the New Year's Resolutions - Part 1/2

We occasionally run marathons. It's not like we aim for it, but for us it's a proof that we stay reasonably fit. 

How do we pull this off? By loving the process, as the saying goes. Those 42 km:s become the outcome of early morning runs, good food, blissful swims and long, long runs in the woods.

Not a forest per se, but still very good for running

So how does this relate to New Year's Resolutions? 

It's about avoiding wishful thinking. Don't fall in the b*llshit trap of magically wishing for a goal (run a marathon). Wish for the journey!  

A good resolution moves us in a desired direction. Who exactly cares where we might end up, as long as it's in that direction? Super-fit but didn't run a marathon, would that really be a problem?

For a few years now we didn't have any New Year's Resolutions. 

We have been coasting along on our journey towards financial independence, and we didn't feel the need to think about where we were heading. That overarching goal blinded out all else. But this year, it feels like the coasting part has changed. 

Our lives will need to transform again, and start to prepare us for landing at some sweet spot outside  gravity's pull of the paycheck. 

Our New Year's Resolutions 

So how can we avoid losing sight of the horizon? After some thinking and some more running in the woods (snow included) we decided to split our resolutions up in four areas.  

And what the heck. Epic mission statements can't be wrong. Here they go:

• Job: Leaving Earth's Gravity.
• Fun: Enjoying the Ride
• Body: Building our Temples
• Soul: Expanding our Stories

Job: Leaving Earth's Gravity

In the job category, we put things like:

- Work more than 4+, 3 Sundays 

- Work more than 12h+ days, 8 times 

- Establish Total Budget Control, for each of the 12 months 

We try to stick to the motto that our jobs must feel worthwhile. Lo and behold, we are at work places were we think humanity is one nano-iota better off if we show up at work. When we haven't believed in work - then we've done all we could to wiggle ourselves out of that situation.

And with probably a much, much shorter work life than the average Joe - we don't have to get disillusioned to put in hard work every now and then. It's more amusing to go all in. So instead of seeing that as a sacrifice - we turn it around and make hard work a promise. 

We shall stand up and fight (when necessary!). Much more fun.

And on another note, related to that paycheck. We've never really had complete budget control. We have just stayed very frugal, and summed things up roughly at year's end. Usually we hit our budget.  

The thinking here is that if we better know where the money goes, it will actually allow us to spend more. We should feel allowed to actually spend what we've set off as our fun budget.

Which opens up for the next topic; the Fun Area.

Fun: Enjoying the Ride

One danger with the quest for financial independence, or rather financial freedom, is that we tend to become so goal oriented that we just forget having fun. We forget everything that doesn't have an obvious payoff. Like piano. We are never going to play the piano at Carnegie Hall, let's put it like that, but it's still fun to play!

So this year we decided to have a spotlight on Fun as well. 

In this area we put:

- 1 long-haul flight for fun only

- making the socially adventurous/interesting choice, 3 times

- able to play two songs well on the piano

- put in the time necessary for at least three close friends

I think the list speaks for itself. 

Why all the social stuff? We score somewhere on the middle between introvert and extrovert, hence some focus at the social side, as we know we enjoy it but need a push to take initiative. It's also an area that was somewhat sacrificed under our financial bandwagon during the last few years. So it's about coming back to something we used to have. I suspect we share that with many in this community. 

Related to that we also put an explicit focus on our close friends. It's tragic, but we admit that we tended to play down the time for friends while aiming stubbornly for financial independence. That is probably nothing that will serve us well in a financially free future.

Let's save the two last areas, Body and Soul for Part 2.

How are you going with your resolutions so far?