New Years 2021 Resolutions And Goals

New Years 2021 Resolutions and Goals

New year, same me, and new 2021 resolutions!

Every year, I try to come up with some new resolutions and goals for the year. It’s always fun to re-evaluate your life and try to find ways to make it even better than the year before.

Before thinking about new year’s resolutions and goals, it’s really important to not lose sight of your vision and purpose in life. Knowing your “why” is key. It’s what keeps us driven and motivated to do what we do every day.

Overall, I would say that my purpose is to become a better person so that I can be my best authentic self, bring more value to the world, and live a happily fulfilled life with family and loved ones.

Then and Now

It’s also interesting to see your old New Year’s Resolutions from the past and compare them to how you live now.

One cool thing about blogging (or old school paper journaling) is that you can see your old entries and posts.

Let’s check out my New Years Resolution post from 2018, a few months after I first started blogging.

Here were my specific goals:

• Save more than 50% of after-tax income. Check. This is something we still do. It comes pretty easy for someone who is naturally frugal. Our after-tax savings rate is probably closer to 60%.
• Avoid buying a fancy new car. I failed on this one by buying a Tesla. Nevertheless, I tried to rationalize the purchase by arguing that driving a Tesla saves me money. And guess what. We bought another one because unfortunately our first Tesla was totaled at the end of 2019. (Don’t worry, we are okay.)
• Eat out less than three times a week. Yup, this is something we continue to do. The pandemic lockdowns make it even easier to do this.
• Refrain from buying new clothes. This is something we still do. For the past three years, you can probably count the new clothes that we bought with one hand.
• Continue to travel for pennies on the dollar. Well, we didn’t travel at all for obvious reasons. But I still accumulate a lot of credit points and miles.
• Decrease clinical time to 40 hours a week. Yup. Check. No more voluntary over time for me. I really value the time spent with family.
• Get at least seven hours of sleep a night. Yes to this. I consider sleep non-negotiable now. I strive for eight hours of sleep a night. I’m able to achieve this about 90% of the time.
• Maintain a clean home and living environment. This is something we are still able to achieve. Being minimalist definitely helps.
• Manage baby-related expenses. Our daughter is not a baby anymore. We don’t buy her expensive toys because luckily for us she finds incredible joy in playing outside or with random things around the house.
• Exercise and meditate daily. Definitely still do this too.

Most people give up and fail to keep their new year’s resolutions. It’s really cool to see that I’ve pretty much kept all of these resolutions going for three years and counting.

 

New Years 2021 Resolutions and Goals

The resolutions that I made three years ago laid the groundwork for the lifestyle habits that have made me into the person that I am today.

Similarly, goals that I set this year will have a direct impact on my future self.

Here are some of my 2021 resolutions…

 

Wellness and Self-Care

Taking care of my self is a huge priority for me. It’s one of my top 2021 resolutions. By staying healthy and taking good care of myself, I can better help and serve others.

A big part of my self-care regimen is my morning routine gratitude run. It is my opportunity to have early morning “me time” where I am by myself, out in nature, and combining moderate physical activity with mindfulness and gratitude. It allows me to accomplish so much within the first 20-30 minutes of the day.

I also want to maintain a consistent night time routine. Every night around 7:30 p.m. I try to meditate, get my daughter ready for bed, read a bed time story to her, stretch and meditate some more after she’s asleep, then be in bed by 9:00 p.m. This isn’t what always happens, but it’s the goal. Going to bed so early gives me the opportunity get at least eight hours of sleep.

Another 2021 resolutions is that I want to increase my lean body mass and lower my body fat percentage. For vanity sake, I just want to be more built and have visible abs. I definitely don’t want a dad bod. I eat a healthy whole food, plant-based diet. But sometimes vegan junk food somehow gets into my mouth for some reason. I’m going to limit junk food and processed food even more this year. In addition, I practice time-restricted, intermittent fasting. I am committing myself to be more disciplined with IF and I may experiment with different feeding intervals. Another thing I’m considering is carb-cycling and alternating weeks where I eat a higher portion of plant-based fats and proteins while limiting my carbs to almost ketosis levels.

 

Relationship Goals

My wife and I already have a fantastic relationship. But of course there’s always room for improvement and making things better.

One of our 2021 resolutions is to spend more quality time together with just us two. As our daughter gets older and becomes more independent, it’s getting a little easier to find the time.

We haven’t done it yet, but we always talk about one day leaving our daughter with the grandparents and taking a short trip to somewhere fun, just the two of us. We think that she’s at an age in which she would feel comfortable with it. Depending on if the pandemic improves and travel restrictions loosen, maybe this is the year we could finally do it.

 

Career Goals

I’m actually really happy with my job and I wouldn’t trade for any other. In my practice I get to do everything from general anesthesia, obstetric anesthesia, and interventional pain procedures without seeing patients in a clinic (physical medicine generally evaluates the patients and refers them to us for procedures). My work also gives me pretty good flexibility to work as much or as little as I want (as long as I work a full time 40 hours). Not only that, my working hours are predictable and consistent. Knowing exactly when I can be home and being able to plan things is a huge plus.

I’ve been at my job for almost seven years now. I’m no longer the youngest and most junior physician of our department. The natural progression would be assuming a leadership role within the department. However, this is something that doesn’t appeal to me at all. I never really liked telling people what to do, especially when it comes from upper-level managers and administrators. Being a middle man is not my idea of fun.

Fortunately, I’ve been able to assume a leadership role that’s more aligned with my passions and values. I am one of the physician wellness champions and project managers for the region. Thinking of ways to promote wellness and engagement among physicians is fun and rewarding to me. One of the things that I’ve done the past year is revitalize the hospital Facebook group.

One of my 2021 resolutions is to come up with new and exciting wellness projects. Some future projects I am considering include creating a financial wellness seminar or creating a podcast for the medical group where guests talk about their passions outside of medicine. In my opinion, financial wellness and having a life outside of medicine are important for preventing burnout and improving overall physician wellness.

 

Personal Finance Goals

One of my top personal finance priorities this year is estate planning. Life is short and every day that we are alive cannot be taken for granted. The Covid pandemic with so many people getting sick and dying makes this even more evident now more than ever.

It’s important to be fully prepared for any unanticipated health catastrophe and financial hardship. We haven’t yet created a living trust for our assets so it’s time to get the ball rolling with that.

Other than that, the plan is to stay the course. Continue to save a lot of money, enjoy some of it, and invest most of it according to our investor policy statement. Interestingly, it might also be time to re-evaluate our investor policy statement. We go through life in stages. And when you reach a different stage in life, it might be necessary to assess the plan and change it accordingly. When I update our IPS, I will likely increase the asset allocation to alternative investments like real estate and cryptocurrency.

In terms of numbers, I would like to increase our net worth by $1 million in 2021. It sounds like a lot, but we were able to achieve that in 2020 with the current bull market. I think it’s an achievable goal this year.

 

Travel (Maybe?) Goals

Finally, another 2021 resolution is to travel and take my family on a nice trip. Again, this is entirely dependent on the pandemic situation but overall I am optimistic. Perhaps we could all travel somewhere by the end of the year.

It would be an awesome goal to get business class tickets for all of my family members to somewhere in Europe, or maybe Asia. This includes, my daughter, wife, her parents, my parents, and both of my two sisters and their significant others. Each business class ticket will likely be around 50,000 to 70,000 points or miles each way. Let’s be conservative and assume 70,000 for a one way business class ticket or 140,000 for a round trip flight. For eleven passengers, that comes out to be 1,540,000 points!

Fortunately, I have more than enough points to plan such an epic trip. How do I have so many points you might ask. Well, I have so many points because due to the pandemic we didn’t travel anywhere in 2020 and therefore I had no opportunity to redeem them for travel. On top of that, I’m really good at earning hundreds of thousands of points without even buying much at all. In fact, just the past three months I’ve earned 300,000 points. Seriously, I’m not kidding.

I really hope I can make it happen. Not only do I enjoy spending time with my family (a huge part of my “why”), but I also love gifting them extraordinary experiences.

With respect to hotel loyalty programs, one of my 2021 resolutions is to attain top tier elite Hyatt Globalist status (which is now very easy to earn). That way I can earn confirmed suite upgrades at some of the most luxurious Hyatt hotels worldwide. In addition, it will allow me to make Guest of Honor bookings in which I can book stays for my family and they will also enjoy perks of being top tier status.

In terms of credit card rewards, my goal is to earn another one million points and miles this year. Definitely an achievable goal.

 

Final Thoughts

Over the course of the year, I’m sure that I will think of even more resolutions and goals. But these are the ones that come to mind at this moment right now.

Nevertheless, every future goal that I make will be aligned with the overall goal of becoming a better person, making the world a better place, and giving me more freedom and quality time to spend with my family and loved ones.

Here’s to a new year!!!