26 Years Old & Goals

Well I am officially 26 years old. My birthday was on August 31st and my friends and family made it nice as usual. I always feel like I don't deserve the good people in my life but I am very fortunate to have them in my life.

As my birthday gets closer I often times tend to be very reflective. For me, it gives me time to evaluate myself as well as the last year in my life. I guess I use my birthday as a status check to see where I am at in my life. I think I learned alot about myself and my poker game this year. Although my poker results have been a lot better, I feel like I have a lot of personal development to work on. Then, I started thinking about some goals that I want to accomplish next year. As always, I was flooded with all these ideas of what I wanted to accomplish but didn't want to fool myself and write them down. I am really trying to work on fulfilling my goals and thought that the following simple goals will help me not only in life but in poker as well.

Goal 1: Don't waste time doing non value added things.

As an Industrial Engineer I am taught and trained to eliminate things that are non value added aka waste. Even though this is my profession, I fail to look at myself and realize when I am doing things that are non value added. Non value added things are defined as something that doesn't add value to a process. I feel like I waste far too much time bullshittin and not doing what I am supposed to do. I mean if I am not going to grind at least work out and study right? Well this year I am going to do a better job of valuing my time and making sure I am doing things that add value to my life whether it be spiritually, financially, or physically.

Goal 2: Set REALISTIC goals/targets and meet them.

Obviously this is a recurring thing of my blog duh, but I need to do a better job of setting realistic goals and meeting them. I have a knack of trying to do too much and often times having a high pie in the sky goal and don't even come close to meeting it. It's really starting to piss me off. I don't want to be known as a person that is just all talk. Therefore I want to be one of the people that do things instead of not doing things.

Goal 3: Get in shape and eat right.

I don't know how many countless articles/blogs I have read or podcast that I have listened to that talk about being in good physical shape will also help you mentally. I need to do a better job of not only working out but also eating better. Right now I am 26 years old and probably like in the worst shape of my life which is sad. My plan is to do the insanity workout followed by p90x to get myself in the right direction. I am going to take some before pictures very soon and will take more pictures at the beginning of the year. Regardless of how good/bad they look I will be posting the after pictures on January 1, 2011. If they look worse I will only have myself to blame so it is what it is. I have never really put myself out there like that and it is kind of hard for me. I am very self conscious of my body and the way I look actually. Even though I do have swag I don't want to look back in my life and be like oh hey why were you looking so umm fat. Yeah there is no other way to put it. I look around at work and get real scared because I don't want to look like them when I get older. Older men working in cubicles with big stomachs. Everyone always says that it is easier to lose weight when you are younger rather than when you get older. Well I am not getting any younger and need to shed the weight. Not only will it help me in the long run physically but also my mental stamina will be much higher.

Well now that is out of the way I will list the goals for September below. I am actually going to be putting my money where my mouth is so I will have some financial harm if I do not meet my goals so here they are!

September Goals

1. 1200-1500 SNGs - I have been sucking in terms of my poker volume. I mean I have barely reached 1k games very many times this year which is just gross. I have decided that for ever game that I play below 1200 SNGs I will pay $1 for each game short and donate it to a charity. If I hit that goal of 1200 SNGs and play less than 1500 SNGs I will pay $0.50 per game short. If I actually play more than 1500 I will just come out of pocket $100 and donate it to a charity. I figure it will be a win win situation and look forward to the challenge.

2. Start my diet and insanity workout - I dl'd the videos and have all the nutrition info for the program and will start using the program. My parents are here this weekend so I won't start until next Monday. I am not gonna lie to myself and start while they are here because lets face it I miss mom and dads cooking. So I will officially start on 9/12 or 9/13 just have to look at the workout schedule. I will be taking those before pics and expect to see a lot of improvement before 1/1/11. Wow that looks weird after I typed it.

Well that's it for now. I want to take time to say thank you to all the people that read my blog, my poker network, family, friends, and people that genuinely support me. I don't know where I would be in my life without you and the best is yet to come.

wbmustang