My 2017 Goals

2016 was a great year for me. I smashed my income goal of earning over £3,000 per month and I also got into the best shape I’ve ever been in. It was almost the perfect year for me.

What Went Well

Here is what went well last year:

1. I quit my job as a web designer and worked for myself full time.
2. Set up a great work/life balance (usually 1-3 hours work per day 5 days a week).
3. Hit my income goals of earning at least £3,000 per month.
4. Exercised for at least 1 hour per day.
5. Got in the best shape I have ever been in.

Here is what I will do this year going forward:

Goal 1 – Rearrange Priorities In 2017

Due to focusing 100% on my business in 2016 some other aspects of my life suffered. This was a necessary thing that needed to happen due to wanting to get away from my job as soon as possible. But this year I want to rearrange my priorities to make up for the other areas of my life that suffered in 2016. This is what my priorities looked like last year:

1. Business.
2. Health.

To be honest, health was a very distant second to my business.

This is how I want my priorities to look like in 2017

1. Relationships (dating more and spending more time with friends and family).
2. Health.
3. Business.

I think this will help me to have an even more healthy work/life balance.

Goal 2 – Earn Over £5,000 Per Month ($6150 in USD)

This goal was originally going to be £10,000 per month. But the last goal made me reassess things. What is the point of earning £10,000 per month if you are unhappy (and have no social life?  I’m not saying that last year was unhappy for me, it wasn’t at all. In fact, it was one of the best years of my life. But I started my own business to have more freedom, more free time, and more fun. It is really easy to get wrapped up in the pursuit of making more money, and completely forgetting why you started your own business in the first place. There are some Online Business/Internet Marketing gurus that I follow who are clearly addicted to making money. They earn upwards of $1,000,000 per year from passive income and could work whatever hours they choose, yet they work 60-80 hours per week, to make more money that they don’t even need. I don’t want that to end up being me.

How will I get to £5,000 per month?

1. Get accepted to Amazon Merch (this is completely out of my control when/if it happens).
2. Start a drop shipping store (using Shopify).
3. Release at least 2 new shirt designs per week.
4. Release 1 new book per week.
5. Get more affiliate marketing commissions.

If you read my December 2016 Income Report then you will probably remember that I earned £4,288.37 ($5,262.56). So you might be thinking that I’m not setting my sights high enough. December is an anomaly in most online businesses. You will always see a big boost in income that will then drop back down again in January. I fully expect this to be the case with my business.

Goal 3 – Learn To Drive

Due to needing to invest £200-£500 per month into my business I put off learning to drive and getting a car so I could use the extra money to order books and covers etc. Finally, I can start learning to drive and get a car. I’m not going to lie it doesn’t feel great being the only one of your friends who can’t drive and doesn’t own a car but putting it off paid off in the end.

Here’s what I’m going to do:

1. Have one driving lesson per week.
2. Save £100 per month for a car.

Goal 4 – Hire Somone To Walk My Dog

I like walking my dog but during the week having to walk him twice-a-day can become a burden especially when you have to go to a meeting, or be somewhere at a certain time. So now I’m in a position to hire a dog walker to walk him that is what I am going to do to free up more of my time.

Goal 5 – Move In To A Better Apartment

I don’t particularly like the apartment building where I am living at the moment. The only reason I have lived her for three years is because the rent is cheap and I could keep my cost of living expenses down. So that I could you the spare money that I would have spent on rent to put into my business. So I want an apartment in a nicer building with two bedrooms so one can be my home office. I’ve still not decided 100% if I’m definitely going to move. If I can’t find an apartment I like, I will have to stay put.

Goal 6 – Register A Company

I also want to register a company in 2017. This is because my income is getting to the point where I will be moving up into another tax bracket soon so I want to register a company so that I can start a second Amazon account (and Createspace, ACX, Redbubble accounts) so that I can split the profit in two to avoid paying as much tax.

This is what I’m going to do:

1. Register a company.
2. Set up a company bank account.
3. Set up company PayPal account.
4. Set up second Amazon account in company’s name.
5. Then do the same for Createspace, ACX and Redbubble.

Goal 7 – Hire A Bookkeeper And Accountant

Doing your own bookkeeping and accounts (and tax returns) is a pain in the ass if you are not a trained accountant. I’ve been doing my own accounts for the last 5 years due to being a freelance web designer (even though I worked full time for one agency). If you’ve never done accounts before take my advice and just hire an accountant. I don’t know why I’ve waited so long to do it, I should have done it years ago.

Goal 8 – Do At Least One New/Fun Thing A Month

This is a goal that my friend Will from Hit The Accelerator came up with. Basically, for all of 2017 we have to do at least 1 new or fun thing a month. The idea is it forces us both to get out of out comfort zone and just get out of the house more. When you run a business from home you end up spending a lot of time stuck in your house. So it’s a good idea to arrange something to force you to leave the house. Here are some of the things we are planning on doing:

1. Isolation Tank.
2. Indoor Climbing.
3. Ghetto Golf.
4. Footgolf.
5. Escape Room.
6. Obstacle Race.
7. Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu/MMA.
8. Paintballing.

Conclusion

So those are my goals for 2017. I’m going to do my best to complete them all. What are your goals for this year?

If you have any questions please leave me a comment below. Thanks for reading!