Welcome to 2015! This is my annual goal setting blog post where I share my biggest goals for the coming year. This annual review process is inspired by Chris Guillebeau who has been publishing his annual reviews for several years.

I like to give a general theme to each year – something I learned from Ramit Sethi. I’m calling this the year of becoming the expert. This is the year I want to be the person at the front of the room giving the seminar, the one writing the book, being interviewed on other podcasts, and teaching as many people as I can.

This is the third year I am publishing my annual review and goal setting process.  Check out 2014’s annual review here to see how well I met my goals for last year.  Feel free to take a look at my past goal setting posts from 2013 and 2014

I try to find goals in all different areas of life and not just focus on the work or financial goals. Stolen directly from Tony Robbins, those areas are: physical, emotional, relationships, time, financial, work, and spirituality

There are different types of goals and new years resolutions. One is the project goal or finite achievement goal compared to habit goals. There are short, medium, and long term goals. Your yearly goals should fit in to your five year, ten year, and life goals. Some goals are easily measurable, and other are more subjective. All of the goals I am including are directly measurable (and may result in other unmeasurable benefits).

It also helps me to think again about my core values when choosing good goals. Those are: Learning, Love, Teaching, Movement, and People.  I can use these values to help guide my goal setting and decision making throughout the year.  It was an easy decision for example last year to fly home across the world 36 hours and spend thousands of dollars to be there for my best friend’s and cousin’s wedding because I value being there at key moments in people’s lives.

It might also be risky to share goals publicly.  Some folks say that if you share your goals publicly then you risk humiliation when you do not achieve them, thereby forcing you to complete them.  On the other hand, in his TED talk, Derek Sivers says you are more likely to achieve your goals if you keep them to yourself! So because I am sharing these with you, I need you to get on my case if I am not working my butt off towards these!

Here are my 2015 goals:

1. Publish 100 episodes of the Art of Adventure Podcast! Based on my speed of production in 2014, this is achievable and works out to two episodes per week. This will also have the added side benefit that I will be forced to reach out to new people and continue to find new and interesting guests for the show!

2. Write and publish my first full length book. I expect this to be part memoir and part how to guide for adventurous entrepreneurs. One great thing about writing a book is that it helps you figure out what you think and helps you become a more clear teacher. Another great benefit is that becoming an author positions you as an “expert” on your chosen subject. Books can provide a steady stream of “passive income” once they are published, as new people discover them each year.

3. Give five to ten paid talks this year.  I would love to start teaching the skills that have been important to my success, such as learning charisma and body language, self awareness, connecting with people, biohacking, and more. I’d like to give these talks to grad students in the sciences (somewhere I am familiar with and always wanted more help with) and new entrepreneurs.

4. Meditate at least 50% of the time and notch at least two stretches of 30 days in a row. I learned to meditate on a yoga and meditation retreat at Hariharalaya in Cambodia last year and I have already seen myself thinking clearly and calmly about tough decisions. Tim Ferriss recently just said on his podcast that the one commonality among the high performers he interviews was that they all meditate in some fashion.

5. Complete a full cyclocross season (12+ races). I can’t wait to get back into cycling again after this year of not having a bike. I will be starting from square one as far as fitness goes (this is the least I have worked out in the last 22 years) so I will have to accept being the beginner again!

6. Visit five new countries. My current thinking is that I will start a Round the World fare here in Indonesia (on of the cheaper places to start) to fly home and the continue on to many new countries in the fall.

7. Create my first online course for adventurous entrepreneurs. This will likely be a 12 week course that will run a couple time per year focusing on skills such as body language, charisma, networking, productivity, and bio hacking. I would like to set up a week long retreat in the tropics to be the capstone of the course. The retreat would teach business skills live part of the day and balance that with activities like surfing, meditation, whitewater rafting, and yoga

8. Expand and solidify my network (to 150 people). Working from Judy Robinett’s great book How to Be a Power Connector: The 5+50+100 Rule for Turning Your Business Network into Profits, I need to expand and diversify my network into 150 connections (based on research that we can only keep 150 social connections active at a time). Important steps for this are adding value to new connections within 24 hours, and carefully tending existing relationships. These relationship will include important mentoring relationship that I will need to get to the next level of business and income.

9. Increase total charitable giving dollars (more than $600). Last year I had great success by donating my birthday to Charity:Water, and I plan to do the same this year. Now that the Art of Adventure platform has expanded to the podcast I think I can tell more stories about this charity leading up to my birthday and get more people on board.

10. Read 100 books. In 2014 I read about 50 books, and I realized that the more I read, the more I can learn from the greatest minds of all time. When someone that knows a lot writes a book, they must distill down all their great thinking and ideas into easily digestible bits. You may have access to decades of hard work and thinking within each book. Compared to blog posts, this long form method of communication of knowledge builds a foundation that will serve you every day for the rest of your life. The more you can learn today, the greater the length of the lever arm of your knowledge will be.

Now I have one favor to ask: Please hold me accountable for these goals! I think they are important for myself and for the world. Hopefully there are one or two that resonated strongly with you – feel free to check in with me about these, and I will be honest with you about where I stand!

Questions: What are you big goals for 2015? What new projects will you be working on? What are the biggest hurdles to you achieving those goals? Leave you answer in the comments below!

Bonus! For anyone who leaves their goals in the comments, I am offering a free 30 minute strategy call with me to help you achieve those goals!