SMART Goals - Update on 2015 goals

Hi Everyone,

While at work today, my employer sent out a corporate email stating that our performance review meetings are coming up.  Performance reviews are basically a way for the company to tell you what you are worth to them.  Every year it is the same thing.  My supervisor and his boss call me into their office and we go over what I have accomplished in the past year and what my goals are for this coming year.  Normally, I would not be writing a post about this but the corporate email that was sent asked us to create SMART goals that give them a well-defined perspective of what we want for our future.


This struck a cord because as I look through the multiple blogs I follow and others that I do not follow but might in the future, I noticed that a lot of you have SMART goals defined.  One blogger in particular, Dividend Mantra even called his whole post "The importance of being SMART with your goals" and went on to elaborate on each.

This brought me back to review my goals and see how I am doing.  When I set up my goals, I did not exactly follow the SMART acronym but I feel I can still judge how I am doing.

Essentially SMART goals are:

• Specific
• Measureable
• Achievable
• Results-Oriented
• Time-bound

My three goals for this year which can be found here are as follows:

• Receive $4,500 in dividends
• Connect with the blogging community
• Save as much as possible but live life

I can honestly say that I am well on my way of accomplishing all of these goals.  Through the first 2 months of the year, I have received $495.73 or roughly $250 per month.  At that rate, you would think I'd come up short because $250 per month totals to just $3,000.  But, the March June September and especially December months are my biggest in terms of total income.  Adding on some compounding over the next 10 months and I'm looking at around $4,000 right now.  With some additional capital added, I think I can hit the $4,500 mark with ease.

For goal two, I can definitely say I am connecting with the blogging community.  This will be my 25th post on the blog, most of which have occurred this year.  This little corner of the internet is incredibly inspirational and I want to thank all of you readers and other bloggers out there for your constant praise and upbeat attitudes!

Finally, the one that is least able to quantify, Save as much as possible but live life.  Although hard to judge, I feel I am meeting this metric right now.  My wife and I have cut back on needless expenses recently which is a great feeling.  Instead of going out to eat once a week like we did a lot last year, we have stayed in, cooked and saved money.  Cooking is a great way to bond as husband and wife and its fun to screw up a recipe and try to fix it by adding a bunch of things in.  The laughs are genuine and the memories will last forever.  On the other side of the coin, my wife and I just got back from a 4 day trip to Austin, Texas which was very fun and she is going to surprise me with a trip sometime this summer for a few days. 

Overall, its been a really great year so far and I think I have SMART goals set up. 

• Specific - $4,500 in dividends, connect with bloggers
• Measureable - $495.73 so far in dividends, 25 posts, 1 trip
• Achievable - 17% of year complete, 11% away from dividend total. 
• Results-Oriented - Dividends = results, Posts/comments = Results, Trips/Family = Results
• Time-bound - Need to accomplish everything in 2015!

How is your year going?  Ahead of schedule?  Behind schedule?  Enjoying life?

Thanks for reading,
ADD