resolutions

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Jonny
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2023 in Review + 2024’s Goals

2023 in Review

I should have published a blog post last year summarizing my goals and resolutions for 2023. I missed that, so there’s a bit of a gap. Regardless, we’re back on track and motivated to blog!

This was an eventful year. I took new jobs within Lockheed Martin and the National Guard. Shalene wrapped up her graduate coursework, leaving only a thesis for her last semester. We traveled quite a bit to visit family and friends, and we purchased a minivan to help with that.

Shout out to Will Larson (@lethain) for inspiring some updates regarding how I format my annual post. Also, here’s my accountability to Matt Mullenweg’s (@photomatt) request for a blog post as a birthday gift!

2023: My 2 #s

The impetus for this goal came from the Fat Loss Made Simple episode of The Art of Manliness podcast. My two numbers (plus a bonus) that I tracked:

  • Health—Get back to <10% body fat
  • Wealth—Become financially fluent in Harper Aviation’s business and numbers
  • Knowledge—Read or listen to 52 books

Health

I dipped below 20% body fat (and 200 lbs) by the end of the year. I had been lazily doing 15-20 mins of lifting and then hopping on the exercise bike to be able to read something on my iPad. The reading was motivating, but I wasn’t sweating much by the end of my workouts. By recognizing in autumn that I had a goal due at the end of the year, I re-focused my efforts by tracking calories, using intermittent fasting, and recommitting to difficult workouts. 

Wealth

This one’s tricky. The legal side of things was the holdup. Our paperwork is set to go through any day now (as soon as I review the final draft and sign). Once the purchase agreement goes through, I’ll be able to register Harper Aviation with the State of Colorado and then open a bank account. Until now, Rick has been handling everything in QuickBooks. I have made significant progress in manufacturing, however, and I should be able to spend the next year dialing in our per-unit cost and updating our standard operating procedures.

Knowledge

I accomplished this one. A separate blog post will follow with my ratings, and I’ll come back to add a link here: [post] 

My 5 Fs Framework

I’ve used my “5 Fs Framework” for several years. The 5 categories that matter to me all start with “F”: Family, Faith, Finance, Fitness, and Flight. I reviewed them weekly in my journal. I didn’t have any particular goal in mind but would instead rate myself on a scale of 1–10 on how I felt I did that week in each category. Did I take on more work around the house? Did I fly a lot, working on PC progression? How were my workouts?

It was more qualitative than I had hoped for, but I did notice a few trends. I also found that a weekly accounting of progress for all of my goals was too much, so I’d end up skipping it entirely. I should start implementing a quarterly check-in instead.

2024 Goals + Resolutions

My 6 Fs Framework

I’ll be attempting a new and improved Jonny’s 6 Fs Framework™. I’m adding fulfillment this year and trying it for a spin. 

Family

  • Develop a weekly routine of meal planning, grocery shopping, and meal prepping

Faith

  • Develop a regular habit of scripture reading (I could be more specific here, but I currently don’t read at all, so anything “regular” is an improvement)
  • Attend the temple quarterly

Finance

  • Identify a project and start learning Python to produce something by the end of the year
  • Start my master’s degree

Fitness

  • Score 540 on the Army Combat Fitness Test

Flight

  • Make pilot-in-command (UH-60L)
  • Start my private pilot license

Fulfillment

  • Complete 6 drawings I’m proud of
  • Complete 4 woodworking or home construction projects
  • Publish 4 blog posts
  • Read or listen to 52 books
  • Journal weekly (focused on introspection and retrospection, not a chronological recounting of the week)

Her Needs + Love Language

Perhaps my favorite marriage resource is the book, His Needs, Her Needs by Dr. Willard Harley. He outlines the typical husband’s top 5 needs, as well as the wife’s. Pair that with The 5 Love Languages, and you’re golden. Both books were gifted to me one birthday by a close family member, and His Needs, Her Needs is now our default wedding gift.

Benjamin Franklin is known for his self-development plan of pursuing virtues, emphasizing one trait for some time, and then moving on to the next trait he wants to improve. I intend on utilizing Dr. Harley’s top 5 needs for wives, plus Shalene’s love language of words of affirmation, and I’ll cycle through one each month to make sure I focus on what matters to her.

  • [#1] Affection
  • [#2] Conversation
  • [#3] Honesty and Openness
  • [#4] Financial Commitment
  • [#5] Family Commitment
  • [Love Language] Words of Affirmation

Thank you to Shalene Henderson, Beth Barber, and Jeremy Newman for reading and providing feedback.

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Jonny
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2021 Annual Review

In preparation of reviewing 2021, I took the time to re-read my post last year’s post—2021 Resolutions + Goals—and I reviewed my weekly recap journalling template. My goals morphed throughout the year.

I had also forgotten about my distinction between a resolution (more of a vague theme for the year) and a goal (a task to complete).

On top of reflecting on accountability to strivings throughout the year, a lot has also happened in terms of life impact:

  • I graduated Army flight school becoming a commercially rated helicopter pilot, as well as an Army pilot
  • We moved back to Denver
  • My sister moved in with us (it’s hard negotiating a roommate again)
  • My older daughter started kindergarten
  • My wife started a master’s degree
  • I started back at work
  • I returned to my unit and am working through progression as an Army pilot

Here’s the breakdown of everything…

Resolutions

Year of the Family

I’ve tried to find little ways to connect with the girls more. I’ve employed them helping me in the garage just as my dad did. I get it now. I need to find more of my hobbies that I can share with them, because they’ll be excited to just be together. They sure like tape measures 😉 

Emphasis on Mental Health

Journaling—Writing in a journal is how I work out my thoughts. I’m much more articulate in my writing than in spoken word. I like finding my way through a problem as the words get typed out. This is an easy way for me to release the pressure building up, like how in Getting Things Done, once it’s out of your head and stored somewhere securely, you can relax.

Therapy—I did see a counselor in flight school, which helped me find ways to deal with the stress of a military schoolhouse, as well as navigate my relationship with my kids better (i.e. finding things to do with them).

Solitude—I love my morning alone time. I need to use that, though, for self-development more. I’d like to wake up, do my scripture study, journal, and exercise all before starting work.

No Social Media on Phone—I’ve been off-and-on with this one for so long, but it’s working out having it on my iPad to play around on before bed but not on my phone where I’ll reach for my device instead of being present.

Stretch Daily with Intention

This one started out pretty good, and I was using a buddy’s ROMWOD subscription to close each day in a thorough stretch, but it just didn’t last. I am finishing my workouts with a 6-minute stretch using the Precor 240i Commercial Series StretchTrainer at the gym. I don’t feel more flexible, and it’d certainly help with my neck, but slow and steady progress, I suppose.

Honor the Sabbath

Honoring the Sabbath has been a good mindset to come back to every Sunday.

Documentary Sunday—We haven’t done one of these in a long time. It’s a nice break in our media consumption, but Shalene’s in a master’s program, so she does a lot of heavy reading on Sundays.

No Video Games—I’ve been consistent with this one!

No Studying—I have not been consistent with this one.

No Caffeine—Nor this one. The idea here was that I have the time and space in my schedule to nap, so choose a nap over caffeine.

Goals

Read the Book of Mormon

My thought process here is that if I’m reading 50+ books per year, I ought to put some of that time toward one of our most important religious texts. I started feeling guilty about not making progress, but I kept saying I’ll do it when we move back to Colorado. I started the audio version in October and wrapped up in January. I’m going to call this a win, because I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten another iteration of the Book of Mormon in this year.

Read The Saints, Volume 1

This is both an overarching narrative of the early members of my faith as well as many personal stories of individuals. I started it at the beginning of the year in an effort to read more religious books, and it’s been really easy to pick up and put down with how short its chapters are.

Read One Academic Paper per Week

The thought was that I would read an academic paper each week to start preparing for a master’s degree and thinking about potential theses or research topics. I’m ultimately pursuing a non-thesis master’s, but I’d like a PhD after that, so it’s still relevant. I was just too busy studying for flight school to take on some more serious reading.

Be Google-free

I’m definitely not Google-free, but I’ve transitioned a lot of my stuff away from Google. If there’s a viable non-Google option, I’m trying to go for that. I’ve been using Brave with Duck Duck Go, but Army websites basically only work with Chrome. I’m still using Gmail, but I’d eventually like to host my own server and not use Google. We’re using Google Calendar for now, but the more I think about it, the more I’d prefer Apple over Google, and they almost always have a comparable product.

Marriage Meeting Template

Finally, a goal that has gone really well! We’ve been earnestly attempting to have a sit-down marriage meeting every Sunday. I’ve continued to refine our template in Evernote that progresses us through the conversation, tracks action items, and helps discuss calendar items. Here’s the current version of my template.

Journaling Template

Here’s what the second half of my weekly recap journaling template looked like for the year:

2021 Resolutions

Family

  • Year of the Family—Already discussed.
  • Marriage Meeting—Already discussed.

Faith

  • Honor the Sabbath—Already discussed.
  • Read The Book of Mormon—Already discussed.
  • Read The Saints, Volume 1—Already discussed.

Finance

  • Entrepreneurship—I already have two jobs, but I thought that by bringing up entrepreneurship each week, it would keep me frosty looking for new ideas. In fact, there has been a company I’ve been working to take over, it has just stalled out a bit. I need to get going on that again 🤔

Fitness

  • Stretching—Already discussed.
  • Caffeine—I wanted to limit my caffeine consumption because I’m pretty dependent on it every day (okay, cut me some slack, what American isn’t?). I notice it makes me more irritable, and I don’t drink water without my lil flavor packet that has caffeine. I feel like it’s a vice, and I would have better regulation over my day without caffeine. But we also run ourselves thin, so could I actually survive? TBD. I did attend a 3-week Army course where caffeine wasn’t allowed, so it’s possible I guess.
  • Mental Health—Already discussed.

    Flight

    • It doesn’t get better than graduating flight school! Now to work my way through the progression process with my unit and become a capable and competent Aviator.

    Sustainability

    • It’s really important to me to do what I can for the environment. I probably didn’t need to be journalling about it every week (and I often didn’t), but in the same way I liked reflecting on entrepreneurship each week, I liked keeping this top-of-mind, because it matters to me.

    Learning

    • Academic Papers—Already discussed.
    • 52 Books—See Books of 2021.

    I ironically enjoyed my 2020 Annual Review notes much more than my 2021 Resolutions + Goals post. It felt much more manageable and much more…me. It gave me the freedom to dabble in things that excite me rather than feel beholden to self-imposed constraints. It’s hard to be halfway through a year and still feel obligated to hold myself to the vision I had for future Jonny at the beginning of the year!

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    Jonny
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    2021 Resolutions + Goals

    I’m not sure if I’m thinking about this “correctly”, but I’m approaching resolutions and goal-setting differently this year: I’ll do both. I split them up into two categories:

    • Resolution = prompt for regular reflection
    • Goal = task to complete (think checkbox)

    I’m working on building my toolkit for each goal before I’m knee-deep in 2021 with old and new forms of stress vying for my attention.

    Resolutions

    Year of the Family

    This year, I’ll finish up flight school, and we’ll move back to Colorado. For our entire marriage, the focus has been on me: “When Jonny graduates college, we’ll…,” we moved to Colorado for my job, now we’re in Alabama for my military career. Shalene and I have had some difficult talks, and we decided that what works best for our family is letting Shalene “go first” for once.

    Financially, it makes more sense for me to get my master’s first. There will be an increase in pay and opportunities, and my company will pay for it. For Shalene, she will mostly continue with her current teaching career with the possibility of picking up teaching community college. We’ll have to pay for her degree ourselves. But the big takeaway was the emotional vs. rational side of investing. She hasn’t had personal fulfillment for quite some time. She received validation through teaching, but as a stay-at-home mom, that affirmation largely went away. By getting her degree, she’ll be able to grow personally, investing in herself and her career. I’m anxious to get going, but I’m also happy to step aside for once.

    That means that this year, I’ll be working my engineering job, working toward qualifying to fly with my unit, and taking care of the family so that Shalene can focus. It’s totally out of my comfort zone because I live to work (stay-at-home dad is my nightmare), but I’m excited to take on a new challenge.

    I have also come to realize that there is perhaps no investment in the long-run greater than cultivating an amazing relationship with my family now. I’m learning, because it doesn’t come easily, but I’m excited to get there. Of course, I’ll have to ride the brakes a bit and get out of the “I’m going to win at this” mentality 😅

    Emphasis on Mental Health

    I have always had grit, passion, drive, and ambition, but 2020 finally had me addressing some concerns. I have a natural conviction for self-improvement, so mental health is a personal emphasis for me in 2021. The pandemic, racial tensions, and election season of 2020 brought about a lot of stress for everyone, and I think we can all agree that self-care became critical.

    Some small things I’ve identified to help with this resolution include:

    • Journaling—I currently use journaling as a way to trap my family history in the amber so to speak, but I’d like to use it more intro-/retrospectively and sit down to tease out ideas and thought patterns. I haven’t found a system that works for me yet, but I’d love ideas if you have them.
    • Therapy—I started seeing a therapist, which has been phenomenal. I’ve toyed with the idea for a long while, but finances have always been a concern. TRICARE takes care of it while I’m down here, so I’m glad I’m taking advantage of the opportunity. A military leader on Twitter “gave me permission” in a sense when he tweeted about speaking openly to his unit about using therapy. I’m fighting to not try to “win” at counseling either.
    • Solitude—This parallels with journaling, but a Twitter friend (@CoShelbysmith) published an article on solitude that really resonated with me. It confirmed something that I had never put words to in that I am an extrovert, but I require solitude to have the energy to be outgoing. Find time for me, so that I can be there more fully for others.
    • No Social Media on Phone—I’ve left a few platforms in the past year or two, but Twitter still has a hook on me. I’m going to delete social media from my phone, focus on what I can share with others (I’ll use Buffer), and leave social platforms for in-browser use on my laptop only. This will help me read more (my Pocket queue is insane) and think more philosophically about what ideas I’d like to put out there—become a producer instead of just a consumer.

    Stretch Daily with Intention

    I have long wanted to be more flexible. I’m finally getting started with real intent. The plan is to get in the habit of daily stretching with the end-of-year objective of being able to touch the floor from a standing position and to touch my toes from the seated position (legs stretched forward). I’m excited about how increasing flexibility will augment my performance in other areas like running, weight lifting, etc.

    Honor the Sabbath

    I’ve been following David Perell (@david_perell) for a while now, and although he doesn’t claim to be religious himself, he has become fascinated with the idea of a Sabbath. Our family has shifted our approach to the Sabbath over the years, and there are things I’d like to do to make it less casual but still a day of rest.

    One lovely consequence of keeping the Sabbath day holy is that I’ve had to reprioritize my week to make sure I’m free on that day. By doing so, both my family and I can count on being together on Sundays, so I have more latitude during the week to disappear and study, knowing I take Sundays off.

    Some things I have implemented:

    • Documentary Sunday—We watch less TV and instead, we look for documentaries/docu-series to watch together. That ensures we don’t run into violence, sexual content, swearing, etc. as much when we’re trying to break away from the world for a day.
    • No Video Games—I decided that video games are not for Sundays, and it has worked pretty well for the past few weeks that I have implemented it.
    • No Studying—This one is really difficult. Throughout college, I studied, worked on projects for school, and crammed homework on Sundays. There was no surviving without using every hour of every day. Now, though, I find that it all comes down to a lack of planning. Implementing some rules like this just forces me to be more deliberate with my time.
    • No Caffeine—I drink a lot of caffeine (the Walmart version of caffeinated Crystal Light), but there’s really no reason to on Sundays. In essence, I’m trying to wean off my dependency, but also give myself permission to nap more.

    Goals

    Read the Book of Mormon

    I realized that out of the 52 books I read last year, the Book of Mormon was not one of them. It isn’t that long, and I should be reading it every year.

    Read The Saints, Volume 1

    This one isn’t too difficult, but it is a break-away from my traditional genres. Our emphasis in Sunday School this year is the early history of our church, so by reading this book on the founding of our restored religion and the pioneers that worked to make it happen, I hope to gain a greater appreciation for my heritage.

    Read One Academic Paper per Week

    In college, I would print papers and articles out that interested me. Granted, I was involved as a research assistant and as an intern for the Department of Energy, but my desire to learn hasn’t stopped. I still have several articles printed out in a desktop vertical paper holder, and I haven’t touched them in over a year.

    This is both a tidying and a learning goal. It should pay huge dividends as I work toward higher education. My current plan is to get my Master’s in Aerospace Engineering and a PhD in Space Resources. I’m interested in studying in-space manufacturing, so I hope that by reading one paper per week, I’ll be able to converge on a “hole” in what is currently researched and find my niche.

    Be Google-free

    I’m already Facebook-free (deleted Facebook, Instagram, and quit WhatsApp), but now I’m working to be Google-free. I’ve thought about it off and on for a while now, but Google charging for their photo service was the last straw. While every company is incentivized by profits, I trust Apple a heck of a lot more than I trust Facebook, Google, or Amazon.

    I’m working to transition away from Google. By the end of the year, I hope to only have a Gmail account for junk mail and a Google Drive account for Google Sheets (man, there’s no service as convenient; Excel is just different, ya know?) and for whenever I need to collaborate with others (like proofreading an article).

    I’d love to hear your thoughts on solutions. I’m already using Signal and Evernote to replace some of the Google monopoly, and I’m looking into ProtonMail, calendar solutions, and others. Hit me up!

    Marriage Meeting Template

    Shalene and I have implemented a weekly marriage meeting, and it needs some refreshing. We’ve been using a mix of structure pulled from author Marcia Naomi Berger on The Art of Manliness podcast (episode) and conversations between Tim Ferriss and Ramit Sethi on The Tim Ferriss Show (episode), but it hasn’t quite fit our needs. It feels like we’re going along with it just for the sake of the structure we’ve committed to. I’m working this year to further engrain the habit of meeting weekly, as well as determining what structure works best for us.

    Reflections

    Another idea I’m toying with is revising how I group my resolutions/goals in domains. I’ve previously used my 5 Fs: Family, Faith, Finance, Fitness, and Flight (i.e. my Army Aviation career). Some things I focused on from last year like caffeine usage, I can classify as a sub-goal of fitness. Other goals like my regular emphasis on sustainability, is more of a conscious effort that I plan on continuing. So maybe my next article will be about how to classify my goals. I might reorganize this post in that newly developed context at some point, but we’ll see.

    Thanks to Shalene Henderson, Stuart Summers, and Katie Sedlmeyer for proofreading for me.

    If you’d like to be one of the people I ask to help review, let me know 🙌