Author: Alan

Next week, I kick off my 2011 travels with a trip to South America. I’ll start with a red-eye through Miami to Brazil, with a few nights in Sao Paulo, Manaus and Rio de Janeiro. I’ll then fly to Buenos Aires for five nights.

When I finish my cost-of-living work in Argentina, I will ride a three-hour ferry to Montevideo, Uruguay. A few nights later, I’ll fly back to Boston.

Excited? You betcha.

At just three weeks and some change, this survey is a bit shorter than most of my trips. Still plenty of time to do some stuff worth writing about. I look forward to sharing my experiences with you.

January’s Challenge: Cook 5-10 Recipes You Have Never Made Before

So far, the January Challenge is off to a great start. Some of you have already published your efforts! Big kudos to Elle for teaching me how to properly grill wings. The hustle and flow of cooking is something I’ve always enjoyed, but sometimes it takes a little push to remind me. Hence the challenge. As always let me know what you’ve been cooking.

Here’s are a few of the dishes I’ve made:

Moroccan Quinoa Salad: link to recipe

Roasted Brussels Sprouts: link to recipe

Seafood Pasta (no recipe, just made it up)

Quarter-Life Crisis

Today is my twenty-fifth birthday. Giddy up! Instead of waiting until I’m fifty to have a mid-life crisis (I wonder if I’ll be able to afford a Porsche by then?), I decided to go ahead and have my quarter-life crisis tomorrow. I’ll be celebrating at Boston’s first trampoline park. Video footage on the way!

I hope your year is off to a healthy and productive start. If there’s anything I can do to help you out, let me know!

Yep, that’s me. Bearded and sprightly, ready to tackle 2011 with the kind of boldness and gusto it deserves. This year, I’ll be seeking out 12 month-long challenges, as well as a few additional quarter-long and annual tasks.

Care to join me?

Pick a month, any month. Here are the first three.

January: Put on the Apron. Cook, Cook, Cook.

The Challenge: Cook 5-10 recipes you’ve never made before

The Details: It’s simple enough. Get in the kitchen and cook up something spectacular. I’ll be using foodgawker for recipe ideas, and I’ll publish photos/recipes for each dish I make. I hope my Boston friends are ready to eat.

Get Involved: Plan on joining me in this challenge? Let me know. I’ll feature your dishes, and you’ll receive double extra chocolate brownie points from the one-man team here at The 9 to 5 Alternative. You’ll also feel good about yourself. That’s a guarantee.

February: Produce More, Consume Less.

The Challenge: Write 1000 words/day

The Details: I read too much and write too little. This month, I’ll take a break from consuming and crank out 1000 words per day. I’ll use February to get caught up on some of my written projects. I’ll also put together a free eBook on goal-setting, to be released at the end of the month.

Get Involved: Feel like doing something similar? Your metrics can be different, but the idea is to produce something, little by little, day by day. If you are interested, I’ll feature you and your project at the end of the month.

March: Creative Fitness. Jumping Around like Spider-Man.

The Challenge: Learn Parkour

The Details: Parkour is a wacky interest of mine, but I’ve never actually tried to do it on my own. Well, that’s not entirely true. Give me a few drinks and I’ll jump off just about anything. Ask Sean, Nate or Elisa. They know what I’m talking about.

I’ll be using Steve Kamb’s post, The Definitive Guide To Parkour For Beginners, as a resource, and I’ll upload a few videos throughout the month to show you what I’m working on. At the end of the month, you can decide whether or not I completed the challenge.

Get Involved: All the cool kids will be joining me. Challenge me with a specific move, send me video clips. We’ll make it fun. Joel, you interested?

Q1 Goals

Here are some other goals I’ll be tackling in the first quarter of 2011:

1. Get caught up with all PMBA book reviews. I’m more than 10 behind.
2. Get caught up with all TCP (The Curry Project) posts. I’m also several behind.
3. Read The 4-Hour Body, by Tim Ferriss.
4. Complete the P90X Ab Ripper X Workout, at least once.

Annual Goals

Throughout the year, I’ll also be working on the following three tasks:

1. Doubling my subscriber count to 1000.
2. Publishing 12 additional case-studies.
3. Reading 25 more books on the PMBA list.

What are your goals for 2011? Anything fun?

Well folks, this is it. The end of a year. A time to reflect, re-align and re-motivate. Like many of you ambitious readers out there, I’ve spent the last few weeks thinking hard about what transpired in 2010–my successes, my failures, world events–you know, the deep stuff.

Before I get into my goals for 2011 (which I’m very excited to share), let’s take a brief but ruminative look at the last 365 days.

63 Flights. 31 Cities. 14 Countries.

Another exciting year of travel! Just last month, I visited my 55th country. I’ve still got a long way to go to hit 100, but I’m happy to have crossed the halfway mark. Here are the 14 countries I was fortunate enough to visit in 2010:

• Africa: Algeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola
• Oceania: New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Australia
• Asia: Singapore, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Thailand, Japan

Some of my favorite 2010 travel experiences:

• Finding a cheap flight to Christchurch, New Zealand and meeting up with Colin Wright.
• Spending nine nights in Harare, Zimbabwe. Golfing, “vampire hunting” and visiting a chicken farm.
• Sandboarding in the Namibian desert.
• The cuisine in Singapore! Delectable.

2010 Goals: % Success

Unlike 2009, where I had only 7 goals, I put together a list of 27 goals for 2010. Let’s see how I did.

Completed Goals
1. Run a half-marathon.
2. Be able to fall into a push up from standing position, like Christian Bale in Batman Returns.
3. Cycle 100 miles in one day.
4. Hold breath for at least 3 minutes.
5. Redesign and rethink my vision as a blogger.
6. Write at least 15 guest posts for other bloggers.
7. Write at least 20 reviews for The Curry Project.
8. Read at least 15 more books on the Personal MBA reading list.
9. Put together a long-term goals/bucket list.
10. Hike the Presidential Traverse in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
11. Make at least $500 in supplemental income.
12. Reread I Will Teach You To Be Rich and restructure and optimize my finances.
13. Track all my expenses. To the penny.
14. Finish the 21-day No-Complaint Experiment
15. Score at least $15,000 on Jeopardy! using the Coryat method.

Uncompleted Goals
1. 1 mile in under 5:30.
*I got it down to 5:44. Will have to try this again next year.
2. 200 squats without stopping.
*Still don’t know how Joel Runyon pulled this off. I could only get to 165 before falling over.
3. 25 pull-ups without stopping.
*Couldn’t get past 17.
4. Be able to hold a gymnastics-inspired L-position for 30 seconds.
*Hilarious. Couldn’t even hold the position for 1 second. New appreciation for gymnasts.
5. Get at least 500 subscribers to this blog.
*As of today, Google FeedBurner is showing 490 subscribers. Didn’t quite get there!
6. Post consistently, at least once a week on Tuesdays. Sundays will be reserved for PMBA and case-study updates.
*Yikes. Fell off the bandwagon here, and actually went several weeks without posting, on more than one occasion.
7. Develop a cost-of-traveling blog widget.
*As I mapped out the idea, I realized it wasn’t worth pursuing, at least the way I had envisioned it.
8. Redesign nepalprints.com and find a cheaper host.
*I nixed the domain name altogether.
9. Sell 5 photography prints through nepalprints.com.
*Sold 2 prints, but not 5!
10. Get at least 50 subscribers to The Curry Project.
*Didn’t promote the site, but getting good organic traffic from Google.
11. Buy a keyboard.
*I moved in with a roommate who has a keyboard, so I didn’t need to buy one!
12. Score at least a 700 on a practice GMAT and then take the real thing.
*Decided that business school wasn’t for me. Big life choice.

Reflections
In 2009, I hit 5/7, or 71% of my goals. This year, I only completed 15/27, or 55% of my goals. Overall, I felt like I accomplished a lot, but I also know I didn’t push myself nearly as hard as I could have, especially with the fitness goals.

2011: Monthly Challenges + Quarterly/Annual Goals

Next year, I’ll be taking a new approach to goal-setting, one I think will not only be better for me, but much more fun for you. Influenced by guys like Leo Babuata and Steve Kamb, both who run monthly challenges on their respective websites, I decided to create a series of 12 monthly challenges for 2011. At the beginning of each quarter (starting tomorrow), I will outline challenges for three months at a time. Within each quarter, I will also being pursuing 3-month goals, as well as annual goals. Tomorrow you’ll get the first-quarter breakdown. Stay tuned!

By shortening the amount of time between goals, I’ll be in a better position to track metrics, focus, and hopefully round up a few of you to join me! They’re only a month long, how hard can it be?

That’s all, folks. If you happen to catch this post before your evening festivities, enjoy! If not, then HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Thanks for sticking with me.