A lot on my mind

Well, I started off the year very hopeful that things would go better than they had been.  I was optimistic about my goals and excited about the future. Now? Not so much.

A lot has gone on in the last seven months, most of which I will not give a whole lot of details about for now. I've realized a few things that I already knew just never wanted to really accept.  That realization has lead to lower stress levels but it's created a void.  It's not a void I'm a stranger to but it is definitely not one I am a fan of. It's also not really where I was hoping things would have ended up but life doesn't always work out the way we want it to.  However, coming to terms with the situation has dramatically decreased my stress level.  This particular stress is not completely removed from my life, and I won't expect that it will be.  At least not for awhile. 

While I've decreased the amount of stress in my personal life, my professional life seems to have increased the amount of stress I have to deal with.  The truck has been giving me a rash of problems lately and is costing me a significant amount to keep on the road.  I've come very close to just throwing in the towel and giving up on the business a couple times, some of which were compounded by my personal life.  I'm glad I didn't make any rash emotional decisions during those moments.  I've been doing everything I know to make it work, and I'm confident I can.  It's just overly frustrating and tiresome.  I am trying to work out a solution, that I'm hoping will resolve a lot of them but carries a decent amount of risk that it'll either remain the same or increase the problem.  I think if this possible avenue does not work, it may be time to at least temporarily throw the towel in and give it a go at a later time.

I have been thinking a lot about some of the aspirations I've had over the last 6-10 years lately. I've mainly been focusing on one of them in particular. It'll require some motivation and dedication on my part, which I've been seriously lacking in lately, but I think it would definitely  pay off in the long run.  For starters, it'd have me at home nightly.  I have to make a few phone calls and do a bit of research on a few things, once I've got the info I need, I'll share with you the details on it. 

Well, I know this was all very vague, mainly because I just do not want to get into a large amount of detail about anything at the moment, but I'm going to head off to bed.  The most important thing about all of this is I'm learning from every situation and I'm still trying.  I'm very determined and persistent when I chose to be. I think it is the only reason I've made it this far, despite the chips being stacked against me and things just never wanting to go the way I need them to.  

First Two Goals of the Year

Well, I said I was going to start making some goals.  It's been a hectic past few weeks so I've been busy trying to get things straightened out and get some time to sit down and think things through.  That's been both a good and a negative process for me but I think things will get better, or at least easier, over time.

I promised I'd start writing some goals down, so I'm going to post a few of them now.  These are mostly business/career related goals but they will also help achieve my personal goals.

As I said mentioned before I'm working on goals using S.M.A.R.T. goals.  So my format as I post these will be the same.  For those who are not familiar with the term it means the following

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely

My first goal for the year is to improve my profit-margin by 10% in the first half of the year versus my year-end margin for last year. Basically, by the start of the third quarter I'd like to see my YTD profit-margin be at least 10% higher than it was last year.  I'd like to keep that improvement for the entire year but I do not want to wait until the end of the year to measure this goal.

My second goal for the year is to have 20 less days to claim on my taxes for per diem.  Last year I claimed 302 days gone.  Each full day that I was not at the house counts as one full day and each day where I either came home or left the house counts as three-quarters of a day on my taxes.

The second goal is significantly easier to achieve than the first one.  The hard part about that goal is that it impacts my ability to make money, including reaching my first goal.  I've set them both high enough that they will be difficult to achieve but low enough that they're realistic, if I put in the hard work to do so.

Ideally, I'd like to accomplish them both.  If I kept my revenue at the same level as it was last year but increased my profit 10% I'd have an extra $4656.47 for the year.  While that'd be nice, I'm more concerned with the amount of time I can spend with the kids.  My home-time goal is basically an extra two days at home each month.  To some, that doesn't sound like a whole lot, but to someone who is gone 300+ days a year, that's a tremendous amount of time home.  You'd be really surprised what you can do in those two extra days.

These are the two most important goals to me for this year.  I might modify them a little as I get used to doing this whole goal-setting thing.  I'll probably start measuring my home-time down to the month but that needs to wait until I can actually get to taking home-time off and right now I'm having to play catch up from the holidays.

Well, I need to get to bed so I can get up early enough tomorrow to get this load delivered and get over to my next pick-up.

Goodnight!