2014 Plan Progress: January

We’re well into February, but I had a busy start to the month. Better late than never when it comes to reviewing progress.

I posted in early January about a few goals that I had for the upcoming year. To refresh your memory (or if you haven’t read the post yet) here’s an image summary of what I am working toward.

Here’s how I did in January:

1. Lose 15 Lbs

I am obviously not looking to lose 15 pounds in one month. In fact, this was meant to be over the entire year.

In January, I did what I can only refer to as a lifestyle detox. After the holidays, I felt compelled to change things up a bit. The holidays are a gluttonous time of the year for many of us first-worlders.

As part of my “detox”, I started paying attention to my health in a big way. I diverted my focus away from weight and toward overall health. I am eating almost exclusively fresh, organic produce, and I am moving a lot more often. I haven’t weighed myself at all but I feel a lot better so I am going to say this one is a pass. 

2. $20,000 Online Income

January was a successful month with respect to online income. I made just over $1,600 online (not including my Adsense earnings). I started making affiliate income in January from my various blogs, and for some reason Adsense turned out a good amount of income as well (which can be a rarity).

I picked up a few staff and ghost writing gigs, and of course my commenting gigs. I also had a lot of success in getting other ad deals, mainly due to my increased level of commenting on other sites on behalf of my own blogs.

This is less than I have made in the past, but I’m being a lot more picky with how I make my money online now.

If I continue making $1,600/month online and don’t increase it, I will fall short of my $20,000 goal by $800. I need to step it up a notch.

If anybody needs a staff writer, commenting services, social media manager, or even blog startup (WordPress loading, basic formatting, customization of Weaver) let me know!

3. 1 Hour/day Unplugged

Sadly, my brother went to work in a different town so has temporarily moved. We miss him, but the result is that my fiancé and I have a lot more quality time together.

When my brother is home, my fiancé tends to spend a lot of time with him playing darts and hanging out in the man cave garage.

We definitely passed on this one. My fiance and I have been watching shows together, cooking, juicing, and eating together. It’s been a treat! The only thing I’d change is to spend more time with him in leisure. I don’t have much leisure time right now but I’m working on it.

3. Get a Promotion

This is a year long goal, and it will take some work. My boss is on vacation right now, but when she returns I will chat with her about my career development plan. I’m continuing to apply for jobs outside of my organization that I am really interested in, at a higher level.

I was chatting with a friend over dinner one night and she asked me how my websites were going. After I finished telling her about my progress, she laughed and said “I don’t understand why you are trying to get a promotion in [the company I work in]. You light up when you talk about your websites and tech. Why don’t you focus on that, since you seem to be so passionate about it?”.

She had a good point. I would love to work with a social media company (like Hootsuite) in Vancouver; in fact, I have been doing a lot of research as to how navigate tech from my current industry. Hootsuite has a few openings right now that I’m interested in, so I’ll be spending the weekend tailoring my cover letter and resume to show how I meet the qualifications.

I’m making progress in this area.

How did you do in January? Are you still sticking to your new year’s resolutions and 2014 plan?