Welcome to my third annual review. Check out my prior ones below.
The purpose of these reviews is to reflect on the past year and set goals for the year ahead. This year, I took a slightly different approach to planning for the year ahead—thinking in terms of experiences I want to have rather than goals. I’ll explain what I mean later in this post. But for now, let’s dive in.
This review is broken into five sections:
2023 Goal Update: Sharing my ridiculous ambitions from earlier in the year
Milestones: Sharing my greatest accomplishments in 2023
Experiences: Sharing the experiences I look back on most fondly in 2023
Lessons: Sharing the biggest lessons I learned in 2023
2024 Experiences: Sharing the experiences I hope to live out in 2024
2023 Goal Update
I accomplished 38% (10 out of 26) of my 2023 goals. Did I mention I had high ambitions for this year?
Anyway, I broke last year’s goals into 6 different categories:
Physical: Maintaining fitness across broad time, modal, and age domains.
Mental: Pursuing knowledge across various subjects and skills.
Spiritual: Finding inner peace regardless of what is going on around you.
Social: Building and maintaining relationships with people who give you energy.
Financial: Using money to create growth and inner peace.
Vocational: Achieving fulfillment from work, maintaining balance, and making a positive impact.
Physical
✅ 300 workouts
This was a pretty weak goal looking back on it because I didn’t have a clear definition of what a workout meant. Walking? Running? CrossFit? Beach volleyball? Nonetheless, I logged 626 workouts on my Apple Watch this year.
❌ 100 mobility sessions
I only logged 30 mobility sessions in the past year. In hindsight, this was a little ambitious. The goal originated from the idea of reducing my risk of injury, but fortunately, this year I didn’t have that many injuries. I attribute this to cutting back on CrossFit and taking creatine religiously.
❌ ~9 PM - ~5 AM average sleep window
My average bedtime was 10:28 PM this year. Not the 9 PM I was shooting for, but an improvement from last year’s average bedtime of 10:37 PM. My average wake time was 6:09 AM this year. Not the 5 AM I was shooting for, but an improvement from last year’s average waketime of 6:28 AM.
Mental
✅ Learn two new sports
I tried three new sports this year: swimming, rock climbing, and grass volleyball. Swimming was the only sport I really learned. I rock-climbed twice and played two grass volleyball tournaments, which is actually very different than playing beach volleyball.
❌ Read 12 books + 12 book summaries
I’m bummed about this one, but I didn’t make it a priority.
Spiritual
❌ Delete Facebook / Instagram / Snapchat for 6 months (maybe one year if it is going well)
I downloaded Facebook and Instagram after 3 months. I still haven’t redownloaded Snapchat though. The purpose of this goal was to cut back on social media, but I realized you miss out on a lot of social stuff without them: Facebook events, Facebook groups, and Instagram reels.
✅ Weekly journal sessions
I journaled daily for the first 3 quarters of the year and then started doing voice memos. Journalling is a great practice, especially for reflection.
✅ Conduct 4 quarterly reviews (Q1, Q2, Q3, Annual Review)
Didn’t publish these, but I got them done.
❌ Go to church once a month
Started going to mass weekly the past couple of months, but didn’t commit earlier in the year.
Social
✅ Weekly date nights
Rachael and I have a recurring calendar invite for Friday date nights. Every week, one of us will book a dinner reservation or update the invite to something fun to do together. Continuing this in 2024.
❌ Monthly dinner parties/get-togethers with friends
I didn’t prioritize this last year, but Rachael and I agreed to host a monthly dinner party in 2024.
✅ Quarterly bro trips (snowboarding trip, multi-day hike, tbd)
Q1 was snowboarding in Killington, VT
Q2 was playing in the largest volleyball tournament in the world in Pottstown, PA
Q3 was competing in the Asbury Park Summer Games
Q4 was Bear and Birch
Financial
✅ Payback $15k loan from parents
My parents loaned me $15k to purchase my house last year and I paid them back in a year.
✅ Invest 40% of my income
Between investing in my house, my Roth IRA, and my brokerage account, I crushed this one.
✅ Increase income by 25%
Picking up ghostwriting helped. Quarterly SPIFFs as well.
Vocational
HackerOne
✅ Complete Introduction to Cyber Security Learning Path on TryHackMe
Content
❌ 50 blog posts
❌ 50 podcasts (stretch)
❌ 52 newsletters
Projects
❌ Finish house renovation
❌ Write a house renovation book
❌ Create book notes database
❌ Write a career change book (stretch)
❌ Write a fitness book (stretch)
❌ Write a personal finance book (stretch)
❌ Create the Milk Road for security (stretch)
The Content I wanted to create and Projects I wanted to pursue were wildly ambitious and unrealistic. Lesson learned.
Milestones
💍 Getting engaged
💪 Qualifying for the CrossFit Quarterfinals for the first time in 5 years
💰 Getting PMI (private mortgage insurance) removed through renovations
Experiences
Alright, so here’s what I mean by thinking in terms of experiences instead of goals…
This year I read Die With Zero, and it changed my perspective on life and money. It goes something like this—your job as a human is to extinguish all your resources - health, time, and money - on accumulating as many experiences as you can before you die. On your deathbed, all that will matter is the experiences you’ve had. So here are some of my most memorable experiences from last year.
💰 Money & Career: Manning the HackerOne booth at RSA in San Francisco, writing part-time for Alex Lieberman’s executive ghostwriting agency, and managing a slew of home improvement projects (trim, landscaping, driveway, sprinklers, tree removal, and growing grass).
💪 Health & Fitness: Going to Bear and Birch, competing in the Pottstown Rumble + beach volleyball, competing in the Asbury Park Summer Games, snowboarding in Killington, VT, Cherry Blossom 10 miler, and getting a blood and DNA test with Inside Tracker.
🧠 Education: Learning how to swim laps in a pool, how to play Stop This Train on Guitar, how to rock climb, and how to make authentic Basque cuisine at Mimo in San Sebastian.
🤝 Relationships: Asking Rachael’s dad for his blessing at Leggits, celebrating Memorial Day and 4th of July weekends with friends and family in our backyard, sunsets with Rachael and Roo, and celebrating our engagement with all our family and friends at Tre in Freehold.
🌎 Travel: Touring Montserrat, hiking to Cala Deia in Mallorca, dinners in Deia, drinking gallons of Txakoli in San Sebastian, and touring a Basque cider house.
Lessons
Take more photos and videos to capture memories.
Paying for expertise is almost always worth it, especially when it comes to contractors.
Goals need three things: 1) Vision 2) Financial commitment and 3) Social commitment. Last year, I wanted to invest in a live-in flip (vision). I told Rachael about it (social commitment). I put a downpayment on a house (financial commitment).
Life is amazing because of its unpredictability. We spend so much time trying to know what is going to happen next in our lives. However, the more we try to know, the more predictable life becomes and the less exciting life is. Remember this the next time things don’t go as planned.
Your mind is the stories you tell yourself. Your body is how you make those stories a reality. Your spirit is why you choose to create those stories. Not sure where I heard this, but it stuck with me.
When it comes to fitness, always have a date on the calendar: a running race, CrossFit competition, volleyball tournament, whatever. This is especially important as you get older and your reason for training is constantly changing. Having something you are training for gives you direction and helps you stay motivated.
Never stop learning new things, but do so strategically. If your goal is to complete an Iron Man 70.3, don’t waste your time trying to get good at surfing at the same time. Things are only fun if you are good at them. And it takes a while to get good at stuff. So if you want to have more fun, commit to the things you want to get good at and deprioritize the other stuff until you have time. For example, for me, surfing, playing guitar, and rock climbing. I have fun with all of these things, but I have other priorities right now, like beach volleyball, training for an Iron Man 70.3, and CrossFit.
2024 Experiences
💪
75 Hard🤝 Get married
🤝 Bachelor party💰
Pass the CISSP💰 Scale side business 30%
🌎 Honeymoon in Costa Rica
💪
IRONMAN 70.3 Happy Valley🧠 Build a personal website and blog🧠 Learn how to make sourdough bread
💰 Buy a house with Rachael +flip / rent property
Well, that’s all we’ve got for this year. One of my goals for this year is to build out my website and blog. That means you might be hearing from me a bit more than usual.
We’ll likely start here on Substack, and then transfer over to my own domain name eventually. But Substack works for now.
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year.
Peace out,
Austin
I can help you build a personal website. I feel super passionate that everyone should have one.
What do you plan to build it in?