With today being the last day of the month of June, this ends the first half of 2021. It is a good day to reflect on the accomplishments and failures of goals set at the beginning of the year.

January 4, I wrote a post about my goals at least professionally https://altf4.co/january-4-2021-altf4-co-looking-forward/ I stated my goals were

  • Q1 – Solidify branding and develop a marketing plan for AltF4.co
  • Q2 – Develop and implement a membership program
  • Q3 – Replace at least one blog post with a podcast a week
  • Q4 – Generate positive revenue

Those of you that have been following religiously know that life circumstances have changed dramatically since the beginning of the year. I will summarize the events of the last six months.

January – I was working for Amazon and doing a little side work. I had no real other prospects but I was running out of savings. I was hoping that I could make this a growing concern as well as build a business.

February – Suddenly a recruiter found me and tripled my salary from what I was making with Amazon. I had no choice but to follow the money and take a replacement position.

March – I started working to build a reputation and do what I could to get integrated into my new position. I needed to at least attempt my best effort. I also realized that I needed a separate space from the rest of the household and it needed to be conditioned.

April – After spending some cold weeks in the basement, I started in earnest building my office project. This has turned out to be taking most of my free time (of which there is not much).

May and June – More and more of the same. I am focused on finishing this project before spending time on other things.

So, by my own admission I have accomplished little of what I set out to do at the beginning of the year and therefore I am not on track to meet my overall goal. Largely, the biggest excuse is that my circumstances have changed but it may be because I didn’t really want to do it anyway. I think that I do, but a lot of that could have been done despite me working a new job.

My kids did buy me a microphone for Father’s Day. I am waiting to set it up when I have a little more time or maybe the weekend. That removes another excuse from getting started. It is always good to go back and review the ‘Toolbox Fallacy’.

End Your Programming Routine: As I sit here writing, I can’t say that this will become something more than it is. I am not even sure if this is precisely what I want to pursue. I can say that I enjoy it and I do put effort into it. So… I have to change my expectations, it doesn’t matter. I am going to throw a hand at podcasting this quarter. I have everything that I need to do so and I am going to find the time to do some pilot work.