ShaneLabs

This is going to be a stream of my thoughts as I try to figure something out…so apologies for the lack of organization.

So I’ve always heard that it’s a really good idea in life to have goals. You shouldn’t just live your life, but you should take some time to really decide what you want to do with your life, and then consciously strive for those goals. This is supposed to give you direction and motivation, which sound like good things to do.

But what do you do when you reach those goals? Do you claim happiness and stop there? Or do you set new goals or make those goals more impressive? I figure that if you leave your goals as is perhaps your life will become boring, having achieved all you wanted to achieve at a young age. However if you create new goals then will you always be striving for the unachievable? It’d be like you’d be setting yourself up for failure and unhappiness, because you’d never be satisfied!

As a side note, this internal discussion was triggered in me by my workout routine. I had goals of how many reps/weights I wanted to get to. But once I achieved those, I didn’t know whether I should up the numbers, or just be happy that succeeded.

Part of me thinks that if you leave the goals as is, your life may not become boring because if those goals are challenging enough you will have to struggle to keep them achieved. For example, say one of your goals is to have a few good friends that you know you can always count on. Once you achieve that it may not always stay achieved, as I may lose those friends and have to aquire more, or I may have to work to keep those friendships.

Or perhaps instead of creating new goals everytime they are achieved, just have more difficult goals but then break it down into intermediary achievements - like temporary goals. For example, say I want to accumulate $500k for retirement. Should I have that as my life goal, and then as I’m working towards it set mini goals of 100k, 200k, etc., knowing that I really wanna get to $500k in the long run?

Another part that I want to explore is what if my goals change over time? I would hope that I can define these life goals that they remain applicable to me over my entire life. Maybe that will also help me filter out the random unnecessary goals that I think are goals.

So, let’s consider the alternatives…
1) Create one set of life goals that will apply to my life over time, and always strive to keep them.
2) Create temporary sets of goals and redefine them as my life changes and as I achieve them.
3) #1, but with little steps in between goals to help me get some sense of accomplishment over time.

I’m starting to lean towards #1, as it seems to me that even if I have a constant set of goals, what I do to achieve them will be changing over time, which would keep my life interesting and challenging. However I do fear getting stuck in a rut if there are no changes in how I achieve them for some time and I end up doing the same thing over and over.

Let’s take a look at my life goals, which I just came up with, to see how this would apply.

 - Strong Relationships
 - Feeling of Usefulness
 - Time for Hobbies
 - Safe/Secure

This is my first stab, and it will likely be refined. So now lets add the current ways I would achieve these goals:

 - Strong Relationships
    - Wife
    - Family
    - Friends
 - Feeling of Usefulness
    - Job importance
    - charity, volunteering
    - Love from relationships
 - Time for Hobbies
    - Fun activities
    - Learning, reading, inventing
    - Enjoying outdoors
 - Safe/Secure
    - Stable job
    - Stable money
    - Physically out of danger
    - Physically healthy

So, if I achieve all of these, will I be happy? Let’s try and find out. I think I’ll definitely have to reflect on these very often to see how I’m doing and to help make decisions. In order to make it easy to remember perhaps I need an acronym. How about RUSH.

Relationships
Usefulness
Safety
Hobbies

I wish that didn’t have that negative connotation of not stopping to smell the roses…

I can already tell that I want to divide these into life goals and approaches/campaigns used to satisfy them. But that will come at another day.

I recently did a lot of research concerning the effects of your driving speed on your car’s fuel efficiency. I was very shocked by all the info and results I found. I was also shocked that there wasn’t 1 site that explained it all together. So, I created one:

http://www.mpgforspeed.com/

The site gives you the detailed numbers and facts, and explains why it is. As always, comments are welcome…

I’ve always heard that your fuel mileage of your car drops the faster you go. Well I wanted to know how much! So, I did some research, crunched the numbers, and created a site that would tell you exactly how much!

http://www.slowdowntosavegas.com/

 Just enter your MPG, the number miles you drive everyday, and the price of gas, and it will calculate how much it costs you to travel at different speeds. I was shocked! 5 mph slower and I would get a yearly savings of about $500!

They stated following in order to unwind:

2. Use other parts of brain: As the saying goes - “all work, no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Have things going on at home that will stimulate other parts of your brain. For most of us keyed-up, type-A personalities, doing nothing is not remedy. Many times doing something fun and stimulating to other parts of the brain gives our “work brain” a rest.

That makes sense!