20/20 goal setting for 2020

How has 2019 treated you? If you have read my self reflection of 2019, I would like to think that I’ve been really privileged to have enjoyed growth in both the personal and professional space.

My 2020 goal setting strategy will largely focus on things that worked well for me last year with additional goal targets to achieve even more. That’s why I’m calling it 20/20 goal setting this year.

While I try to keep most of the goals measurable but I’m aware that some goals around eating habits can’t be measured and is more around developing a disciplined mindset.

I’ve grouped my goals in 4 categories:

• Health and wellness
• Fitness transformation
• Wealth building
• Learning and development

Health and wellness

Over the course of 2019, I’ve lost close to 20 kg through a disciplined calorie tracking regime. It felt very similar to when I just started tracking my expenses in 2015 where I was a little too strict with myself and it took a few years to change that mindset.

I want to cultivate a better relationship with food this year, by being more mindful about the food I eat.

Here are my health and wellness goals:

• Continue to maintain a daily 1,500-1,700 calorie-deficit meal plan to bring my weight down to 70 kg.
• Switch to whole foods (mostly) diet, starting with weekday lunch and dinners.
• Increase the amount of fruits and vegetables in my daily diet with at least a fruit a day while vegetables should take up half of my plate during each meal.
• Meditate at least once a week, either by taking classes or on my own with guided meditation apps.

Fitness transformation

Having achieved success in my fitness journey in 2019, I intend to continue expanding my fitness lifestyle and add more exercises/activities that pique my interest. That will help to create a sustainable and meaningful fitness lifestyle.

These are my fitness transformation goals for 2020:

• Work out in the gym for at least 5 days a week
• Reduce my body fat percentage to 15%
• Learn how to perform a handstand without assistance
• Pick an additional sport activity that I enjoy and become competent in it

Wealth building

2019 worked really well for me in the wealth department as I maintained a disciplined saving process. I intend to continue doing most of the same things this year just because they worked well for me.

• Maintain an average net savings rate of 70% for the whole of 2020.
• Continue to make monthly cash top-ups of $995 to my CPF Special Account using CPF’s Retirement Sum Topping-Up Scheme to achieve Full Retirement Sum by 2023 (1 year ahead of my projection last year).
• Continue to make the maximum contribution of $15,300 to my Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) account by contributing $1,275 each month.
• Continue to stay invested with my globally diversified investment portfolio with AutoWealth this year and keep growing it with monthly investments.
• Continue to build a secondary investment portfolio for retirement using surplus cash from my salary. This secondary investment portfolio only consists of my NetLink Trust shares at the moment.

Learning and development

The concept of lifelong learning has 2 different meanings for me.

1. Professional development: To continue learning either broadly or in-depth about subjects related to my work to grow my career and human capital. This will in return, grow my salary in future.
2. Personal development: To learn either broadly or in-depth about subjects that pique my interest and may not be related to my career. That keep life interesting and rewarding for me as I am acquiring knowledge purely for interests.

For professional development, I intend to pursue the following Salesforce certifications as my company has made the switch to Salesforce Marketing Cloud over the course of 2019 to further my expertise in the platform. As Salesforce is a popular enterprise platform, these certifications will also increase my career prospects in the near future as there is a growing demand for Salesforce certified individuals.

• Marketing Cloud Email Specialist certification
• Marketing Cloud Consultant certification
• Marketing Cloud Developer certification

For personal development, I intend to learn more about the science behind fitness and nutrition. I have not decided on the courses I wish to take, but I’m contemplating to take on a few online courses provided by reputable universities and certifications from a credible fitness organisations such as American Council on Exercise.

Have you set your goals for 2020?

Benjamin Franklin supposedly once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Sir Winston Churchill is credited with another saying: “Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.”

What changes do you intend to make in 2020 to improve yourself?

I’d love to hear about your plans. Please share them in the comments section below.

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash