So as Part 3 of my End-of-the-Year wrap-up, here are a few of the things on my list for 2012…

2012 Goooooals:

• Grow savings to $X
• Sublet condo for 1-2 months
• Apply to at least one new credit card for airline miles (only did 1 in 2011, but for 80,000 miles)
• Make more money
• Plan an iPhone app
• Work remotely (not in Portland) for 1-3 months
• Roll over 401k
• Run a 5k
• Continue 3-5x week fitness plan
• No alcohol for 1 month
• Volunteer again
• Travel to South America or Portugal
• Visit NYC, San Francisco, Boston or Savannah (essentially: another US city).
• Attend 12 new Portland things (this one gets more difficult every year!)
• Go on a quarterly getaway trip with boyfriend (Oregon/Northwest etc)
• Find a mentor
• Sew/craft something again (it’s been way too long since I’ve used my sewing machine!)
• Find more girlfriends (with my best friend moving to Hawaii, I’m recognizing that I’m going to have to be a bit more proactive about getting closer with current friends and making more friends in 2012).

And to kick things off, January is going to be some kind of hybrid “be healthier and cook at home” goal + no alcohol. And with that, Happy New Year!

Part 1 – Yearly Goal Setting Template
Part 2 – 2011 Year-End-Review: So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu…
Part 3 – My 2012 Goals

What’s on your 2012 goal list?

Since I’ve been asked for a bit of the process behind my personal planning, I decided to share an example of my Yearly Planning spreadsheet this year. (After downloading this Excel file, you can import into Google Docs or just use Excel or OpenOffice to use the template for your own goals).

Download the Goal Setting Template:

Tips for doing an Annual Personal Review:

Accountability
I like the idea of posting all of my goals for the world to see for accountability, but some are also personal, so while I’ll mention a few here on my blog, I keep a Google Doc with all my goals. Whatever your system is, share it with someone (start with your BFF!)

The Grand Picture
Some of my yearly goals tie into my 30 Before 30 list (which is now a 31 Before 31 list), some were new goals, bigger goals, smaller goals, BHAGs, etc.

Pick a theme
I’ve seen some people have a theme for their year or a one word description, which I’ve done in the past but I decided to do a quote this last year. 2011 was “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do” — Rumi. This quote really covered the different areas of my life from work to personal to fitness, and I added it to my chalkboard inspiration stripe in my bathroom to remind myself all year.

Categorize!
I like to break out my goals into broad categories. In previous years, I’ve done really specific categories (eg. job, fitness, learning, money, family, blog etc), but this last year I decided to go a little wider with the general themes of: Health, Wealth, Happiness. They all go together, yes, but then I could stick the usual sub-categories under each, like “Health” has Fitness & Learning, and Service & Spiritual etc.

What by when?
Just like typical goals, I try to follow the GTD method to my year-end personal planning. I will… {do what?} {by when} and the {next action step} is. With a  {quarterly review area} and {final review}.

Example: I will put $5,000 in my IRA for 2011 contribution by April 15 (tax time). Next step: Transfer money from my savings account to my IRA account.

A more fun example: I will list my condo on HomeAway or AirBnB by June 1. Next step: Look at current studio listings in Portland for ideas.

An even more fun example: I will take a cooking class in 2011. Next step: Look at class options and schedule at Sur la Table.

Part 1 – Yearly Goal Setting Template
Part 2 – 2011 Year-End-Review: So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu…
Part 3 – My 2012 Goals

Do you do an “annual review” of your personal life?

Prompt #29: What does travel mean to you in one word?

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” –Helen Keller

adventure, freedom, learning, curiosity, fun, change, experience, happiness…

Adventure. The one word that best wraps up everything I love about travel is probably adventure… When you’re traveling everything is new… it’s an adventure. You have no idea what you might experience or discover in the next week, day, minute… it’s an adventure. Things are different and a change from regular routine… it’s an adventure. You have the freedom to do and be whatever you want… it’s an adventure. You learn new things rapidly and see that there are many different ways to do things and they’re not better/worse just different [squat toilets come to mind]… it’s an adventure. When you’re traveling you’re living in the moment, you feel super alive… it’s an adventure.

Life in general is an adventure.

What does travel mean to you?

Photo: super cute poster print by happydeliveries on Etsy.
Join the 30 Days of Indie Travel project and share your story.

Prompt #17: It’s easy to be passionate about travel, but does that passion permeate the rest of your life? Do you live and work with passion? Why or why not?

“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the passion of life.” –Federico Fellini

Passion. Purpose. Living consciously. Ten years ago, ‘passionate’ is probably not the first word you would have picked to describe me. I had interests, I enjoyed my life. I had fun. But I didn’t give much thought to living ‘consciously’.

Rewind 12 more years, and this is a book my mom bought me, about my “passion”…

Yes, growing up, I had a bit of a problem with my temper. Ok, I still do. I’m stubborn. Details matter to me. I’m impatient. Design matters to me. Efficiency matters to me. Independence matters to me. I’ve been known to mind vomit.

Fast forward 17 years, and I was sitting in one of my one-on-one meetings with my adviser for my Masters program. She told me several things that I tried to shrug off, but knew were true — essentially that faking it isn’t my forte and that I need to find something that I’m passionate about. That I needed a cause. (She also wore wooden bead necklaces and drove a Prius so I chalked a bit of her advice up to… well her being a touchy-feely hippie I guess?). I realized she was right though when she told me “you need to crank it up a notch, you’re not giving [it] your all, you’re holding back.” Aaah… kumbaya.

Blogging helped me find my passion.

It gave me a place to document and explore my interests and realize trends in what makes me happy. It’s my little sandbox for ideas and projects, it’s my land of serial hobbyism, a place to verbalize my goals, which eventually helped me to make the decision to quit my job for a career break.

These days, I have a job that is a mix of work + play. Being in an industry that I’m passionate about makes work 100x more rewarding and fun. I’m one of those sick people that likes to work. I really like working. Even when I was in an industry I had zero passion for, I still enjoyed my work, I just enjoyed a different aspect – doing good work, and improving things. While I might have experienced the Sunday Night Dreads quite a bit, I still loved working and doing a good job and kicking ass. So it took me a while to realize that I needed a change. And for that, I thank travel.

Oh and these days my “God, I need to talk to you about my bad temper” book of choice is The Four Agreements– which is based on four phrases:

• Be Impeccable With Your Words
• Don’t Take Anything Personally
• Don’t Make Assumptions
• Always Do Your Best

I like that “Always Do Your Best” is the last one, because I mess one of the first three up every day.

Do you work AND play with passion?

Join the 30 Days of Indie Travel project and share your story.

And then someone near and dear jolts you out of your mild self-loathing and asks what you’ve been smoking and reminds you of all the lovely experiences and challenging accomplishments you’ve had in a short 30 years… I was privileged enough to be born in a country with an educational system that even allowed me to work my ass off in the first place, get my MBA, quit my job, travel around the world for a year, and buy a house by age 30. Life is good great brilliant! But most of all, I’ve been blessed with the most supportive, built-in best friend that a girl could ask for.

Happy Birthday to my BFF {and me}

Onward!

So here are a few things I’m jumping up and down about this week:

• Winning a trip to Chicago for the BlogHer ’09 Conference. Not only did I get a ticket to the conference, but my $702 Visa gift card came in the mail last week. Now I just need to buy my flight and hotel! I love winning stuff!
• My garden was featured on Apartment Therapy’s Green Home Re-Nest site: My Great Outdoors: Olivia’s Handbuilt Container Garden
• My garden was featured again on Apartment Therapy for The Soybean’s How-To post on ikeahacking tomato ladders.
• I won a Sansa slotRadio MP3 player from Matador Travel.
• I also won concert tickets to Kate Voegele last week from PDX Pipeline.
• I snagged a free gardening book from Gardener to Farmer.
• Vote for my blog in the Blogluxe Best Eye Candy Blog awards!

Now, since I’m currently unemployed (and homeless), I’m having a hard time finding things to add to my wishlist (for my birthday), since I don’t need a lot of “stuff” to carry around. Here’s what I have so far:

• L’Occitane Verbena Eau de Toilette – I finally ran out of the original.
  
• Moleskine Cahier Pocket Notebook – the blue/red covers are more expensive than the regular Kraft covers that I usually get, but they’re oh so cute.
• Massage at McMenamin’s Edgefield Ruby’s Spa – I’ve been golfing at Edgefield, but now I’m being lured there by lovely reports of the new soaking pool!

Any gift ideas for the unemployed and homeless? Do share! This self-promoting, bragging list is now officially over.

After a lazy morning in San Jose, my flight finally left for Portland.  During my layover in Houston, they asked for volunteers to stay the night in Houston as they had overbooked the flight, and while I tried not to freak them out by running to the desk, I was officially the first person in line.  :)  So I now have a $300 flight credit for a future trip and I got to stay at a nice hotel for free.  I totally would have slept at the airport, so when they said what hotel I would be staying at I just nodded like “yeah, I guess that’ll work,” and tried not to laugh. They totally underestimate the wonder of staying at a nice hotel when you’re a backpacker!

Even though Costa Rica was officially the last stop on my year of travel, it definitely won’t be the end of my adventures.  It’s been an amazing year and I’m so glad I made it a priority in my life.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat!  So while this is the end of my “round the world” travel blog, stick around for more updates on my transition back into “real life”.  Who knows, I might not be able to handle it, and you’ll find me on a beach somewhere rewriting my resume.  ;)

The Route:
Feb/March: China/Japan
March-mid April: Australia/New Zealand
Tentative Further Itinerary:
mid April – May: Thailand, Laos, Vietnam
beginning of June: Thailand/Malaysia
mid-June: back to Oregon
the rest of the summer/fall: Europe
Fall/Winter: Central/South America

You may have noticed the nifty little Google Map over there ——–>
It will be a “Where in the World is…” map. Not as cool as GPS, but still pretty cool. The adventure officially begins February 25!

What did I learn? Not what I thought I was going to learn. When we first started the program, one of the professors said that getting your MBA usually isn’t about what you think you’re there for. After the first year, that really sunk in. So yes, I learned how to apply business school principles to my job, but more than just statistical analysis and economic theory (which are helpful if you know when and how to use them), I learned about myself. Yes, that sounds kind of cliché, but I don’t really care. There’s definitely something to be said for everything you learn in business school, but the process is just as important. Note: I did not just use the word “journey”. OK, I’m going to go buy a wooden bead necklace, practice meditation and drive a Pious, I mean a Prius; maybe later I’ll stop wearing a bra and discuss my personal vision. :)

And yes, I realize the picture isn’t of kayaking, but I can’t find one that actually includes me kayaking, so I’ll have to wait until I find more pictures!