Kevin Bell

Throw Out Your New Years Resolutions And Use THIS

NOTE: I will continue to add to this until the end of the year

This is possibly the most comprehensive end of year review and New Year game plan that you’ve EVER read. Unless you read my last years version

And I’m going to share with you my EXACT process so that you can create one for yourself.

What you’re about to read is the second version. The first version worked wonders, but it was time for an upgrade. I hope you get as much value out of this process as I have.

At the end of 2023, I went on a quest. A quest to gather every experience I could from the year, wrap it up in a bow and summarize my successes, my failures and as much data as I could; then use it for an opportunity to make the NEXT year even better.

I read books, watched videos, listened to podcasts and at the end of my sporadic research I was able to Macgyver version one together from the influence of some key players. James Clear, Jesse Itzler, Matt Ragland to name a few.

Each of which played a role in creating a piece of this framework. So if you want to stop right here and go through their content, that’s probably the best source to REALLY construct your own. Truly. They’re way better at this than me.

BUT, I’ll be honest, thats going to take a lot of time. And time is what we’re trying to use most efficiently here.

I’ve been reading and researching these guys and their methods for several years now and it’s from their writings, videos, blog posts, tweets, and all other content that I began to piece together my own version.

Is it perfect? No. But this past year of using version one has made for my MOST impactful year yet.

I started the year with a complete understanding of what I needed to work on and HOW I was going to do it.

While I didn’t hit all my landmarks, I FAR exceeded my previous years.

In this article, I’m going to breakdown my year and everything that I’ve gone through using my framework so you can see HOW I do it.

THEN, I’m going to provide you with a complete template of this custom framework so that you can do the same.

This template is one of a kind, I’m not just saying that, I literally hand drew this and sent it to my team to build out for me. I didn’t even get a chance to use it this last year, so I’m just as excited as you to start 2025 with it.

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With that, let’s get this going.

Here’s the overview of what this will look like.

  1. Closing out the year

    1. The Deep Clean
    2. Impact Messages

  2. Taking inventory

    1. W R A P

  3. Reset

    1. Personal Landmarks
    2. The Needle Movers
    3. Daily Vitamins

Closing Out The Year

I know you want this process to be easy. But if it were easy to have the best year of your life, we’d all be on cloud nine.

And the reality is that most people are just barely getting by. BARELY making it from one week to the next. Financially, emotionally, spiritually, all the other “ally’s”… it’s a battle.

This is NOT easy. But it’s worth it. Trust me.

You need to start this process at least a couple months ahead of time. The first year is going to be the most tiresome to get “caught up” and in line, but then years following should be better.

Starting a couple months back, initiate THE DEEP CLEAN

Set yourself up with a new starting point. Over the years we gather things. These things take up room in our house and our heads. I’m not a minimalist movement guy, but if you have unnecessary junk, clean it out. Now is the time. Once a year. No big deal.

Once you’ve cleaned house a bit, send out your IMPACT MESSAGES.

Everyone that you can think of that’s made a positive impact in your life this last year, send them a message and let them know.

It doesn’t have to be anything big, but just a simple message is incredibly meaningful. Things like that often go unsaid.

You’re better than that, speak up and let those people know.

Here’s where it gets good;

BUILDING YOUR PLAN:

Most of the time we play life on defense. Other people’s priorities fill our time.

We need to plan a year that we are excited about. Think about going on a trip, 3/4 of the fun is the anticipation about the trip. We need something to look forward to.

When you have a plan, you’re playing offense in 2025. Go into the year in charge of what you’re going to do.

Plans allow you to break from the routine. PLAN in the adventure. This will create newness and excitement.

As Stephen Covey says, “Wars are won in the generals tent”.

And the foundation from every good operational plan is an understanding of your previous plan, or lack there of. This is what we call TAKING INVENTORY. Before you design your year, take inventory on the previous year.

Think of it this way — I used to coach health and fitness. I ran a few gyms and trained clients in person and online.

One of the first things that I had them do was to document everything that they ate for the next two weeks minimum. I didn’t want them to change a thing.

I did this because I wanted to see accurately what they were putting in them.

And that’s really the point here; if we don’t document, we don’t know.

From THERE I would make modifications as needed, but it all started with documenting.

So that’s what we’re doing here. We are taking inventory and documenting the past year.

The following is my ACTUAL inventory of 2024. I’m sharing this with you openly and transparently so you can see how I’ve done it and model yours off of this.

Most of which I’m about to cover gets broken down into 4 categories:

[Wins]

What went well? What am I proud of in 2024?

[Results]

What were the results of my goals and intentions in 2024?

[Alignment]

Are my actions and habits aligning with the person I want to be?

[Pivot]

Based on my 2024 review, what do I want to pivot—or plan—in 2025?

And by the time you work your way through doing this on your own, you’ll have a complete review of your previous year and a blueprint for your NEXT and BEST year to date.

Taking Inventory

[Wins] - What went well? What am I proud of in 2024?

What I’ve really noticed is that when you aren’t documenting the wins, you aren’t looking for them. And when you aren’t looking for them, it’s really easy to feel like you haven’t had any. And that is a very slippery slope.

This year has been FULL of wins. Tangible, non- tangible and even on levels that I never thought I’d be operating at. EVEN with my meticulous documentation, I truly don’t think I marked them all down.

The themes of this year have been “Building, Branding, Business and Beta Testing”.

In my mind, I’m nowhere near where I want to be, but this year more than ever I felt that I wasn’t just moving the needle, I was moving mountains with the accomplishments. Both personal and business related.

Let’s start with business.

Business for me isn’t my “day job”, it’s not what pays the bills right now, but the time spent on all the different projects I have going on most definitely exceeds the time I spend on my “day job”. And if you’re doing the math and assuming I work a 40 hour/ week day job and wondering how I fit in MORE hours on the businesses, you’re not wrong to be curious. Those times for sure overlap. My mind rarely shuts off, but it’s not police work that I’m thinking about, it’s the businesses I have brewing in the side.

I go pretty deep into the different businesses here in this article, but I’ll cover them here briefly as well. Both operational and in progress

Self storage — We have a facility in Kansas that we acquired about a year ago and another within our portfolio that was brought in by another investor that’s located in South Carolina. Most of focus has been on Kansas however. This was a HUGE win for us to close on that last year. 2024 has been a year about becoming an OPERATOR. While I really wanted it to continue as an investor, we’ve needed to cut our teeth on operations. This has meant slowing down lead gen and getting our hands dirty with the ins and outs of running a facility (remotely).

Here is the link to my investment site that shows our properties

Lawn Care — There’s a lot that’s going into this and it’s all very much IN PROGRESS, however it’s one of the most exciting things I have in the works as we finish off the year. One of my business partners has a lawn care service that we are going to do a few things with. 1) There’s an opportunity to acquire another service and combine the two businesses 2) We are adding services to the current business and subcontracting the work out to stay operationally light. 3) We’re building a marketing machine out of it with the goal to bring in more leads, prove our concept and then take that to other home services in hopes of offering our service and/or partnering for equity. Lots in the works, but nothing fleshed out yet.

Insurance Business — This is another opportunity for an acquisition. We have caught wind that there’s an insurance agency soon to be for sale. That within itself isn’t enough. I’m not an insurance agent, nor do I want to run an insurance business, HOWEVER, I have a good connection with someone who is. I’d handle the acquisition, compensate her well and she’d run the company from that location. It’s all speculative, but we’re putting our ducks in line in order to make that happen.

Cleaning — This is going to be a slow play and learn as we go, but the key to a good cleaning business ISN’T about the cleaning. That’s the easy part. The key is good staff. And we have one great team member that will fill that role and allow us to build with them as slow or as fast as we want. It will be a beta test, starting local and adding only as we can maintain. We’ll start with our one cleaner, market on Nextdoor, gather a few homes to do each week and iterate as we go. All profits will go to our cleaner and then back into the business to grow. We’ll learn a ton and this could grow into something pretty cool.

Bookkeeping — My wife is a badass. She has ben running her own bookkeeping business for about a year now, but has been bookkeeping and in the financial world for about 15 years. She knows her stuff and finally decided to take the leap and go off on her own. This has all been while she’s been pregnant for the majority of the year (another win, but I’ll talk about that in a bit). It’s just her as the owner operator. I’m just the pretty face… ok, that’s not true, she’s the pretty face as well. The name of the game right now has been to build as many connections as possible with accountants/ CPAs / CFO’s / Financial Planers and anyone else that might need good bookkeeper in their pocket. She’s phenomenal at what she does and we’re excited to keep the momentum going.

Here is a link to her site

Newsletter — This has been a labor of love and 100% with the long play brand building in mind. Last year I launched a newsletter and a blog site to funnel all these swirling words somewhere. I’m sure there will be PLENTY more versions of this over the next several years, but as it is now, It’s focus is teaching everything I know about starting, buying and scaling a business. I am certainly not the most knowledgable, but what I AM is someone actively in the trenches working through this live. As you can tell through this novel of an end of year review, I document the heck out of things. As I am learning about, growing and building my empire, I’m sharing the process with my readers each step of the way. The newsletter for me is a singular place that I can format massive value each week. I am teaching things that I wish I would have been taught, in hopes that you can skip the line and get to your “destination” sooner. It’s a small base of readers now, but I am genuinely STOKED with each and every one that I have. For a LONG time I wasn’t writing to anyone. Literally. I would send an email out each week and the only person that would receive it would be me since my email was the test email that I entered in… Now I’m closing in on 100 subscribers. SO dang cool.

Here is a link to subscribe if any of that sounds interesting

Twitter — Along with my newsletter growth, Twitter has been an absolute game changer this year. I’ve played the social media game on FB and IG over the years with other business ventures, but I honestly had no idea the impact that Twitter would have on my business and brand growth. I hopped back on Twitter with about 60 followers several months ago and started posting about the various businesses and projects I’m working on. I began interacting with other like-minded entrepreneurs; messaging, hopping on calls, meeting over zooms, going to meet ups in person and since then have built some incredible friendships and business connections that have already paid exponential dividends. As of today I have lost to 600 followers which isn’t BIG by any means, but it’s the deep partnerships from these connections that REALLY make an impact. Twitter for me is both a place to network as well as share my content and journey. I’m just scratching the surface, but I’m excited to keep the growth going as long as I can.

Here is a link to my Twitter profile

Podcast — Sometimes I get ahead of myself and forget to beta test and start at the bear minimum. Our podcast is the result of dialing myself back as much as I possibly could on a much larger project that we still believe strongly in. We’re testing it with the podcast however. The BIG picture is to build a community for entrepreneurs who are just starting their journey and teach them the HOW to of starting, buying or scaling their business. After about a year of iterating and brainstorming, my partner and I finally boiled it down to a podcast that we would launch on this subject. We launched this bad boy with GUSTO at our annual self storage conference that we go to. We brought a tripod, $25 wireless mic and our cell phones and got as many interviews as possible for our launch. 8 Interviews in a matter of 2 days and we were off to the races. This all happened in September. Over the last month, we’ve been releasing interviews and working to build traction through an IG, YouTube and Spotify podcast. To say that It’s surreal to have it finally out there is an understatement. It’s not just about having a podcast, it’s about what it represents. It’s an open door to connect with some really incredible and successful entrepreneurs. It’s a way to position ourselves as authorities in the space. It’s a way to create genuine and exciting new content about subjects that we are passionate about. Is it profitable? Not even close, but thats not what it’s about right now. From here, we can leverage the eyes we have to grow other things; my newsletter, services, a community, sponsorships, coaching programs, and so much more. This is only the start of some WILD things to come.

Here is the link to our show on Spotify, YouTube and IG.

Spotify

YouTube

Instagram

If you noticed, the majority of what I just wrote about are all in progress. But that doesn’t make them any less of a win. The WIN here is that I am DOING IT. Action is being taken and I’m leaning into the unknown and uncomfortable as I experiment with all these different projects. Maybe they’ll ALL work… but maybe none of them will work… Either way, I’m having fun while doing it and I’m learning a ton.

PERSONAL

Not only has it been a big year in business, but it’s been a big year personally. And if I’m being real with myself, a lot of what I just talked about with my “business wins” I connect with personally. None of those businesses pay the bills. They are all PASSION projects right now. I go to bed thinking about them and I wake up thinking about them. I’m obsessed, but before you knock that and think that I don’t have any balance, obsession is NECESSARY for greatness. If you can’t get obsessed with what you want to accomplish, It’s either going to be an uphill battle or you need to pick something else that you can actually be obsessed with. If you don’t believe me, listen to Travis talk about it here. He has 10 kids (TEN KIDS!!!) and a $30M investment portfolio.

YouTube Video

So yes, I am obsessed, but I’m obsessed because I have a VERY STRONG “why”. My WHY is to be the best possible version of myself for my family. I am FAR from that, but I aim to be better each and every year and to build a legacy for them.

With that theme in mind, 2024 hasn’t just been a year of metaphorical “growth” but it’s also been a year of growth in numbers. I’m writing this in late October and in the next two weeks, we will be adding one more baby to the Bell family. A baby boy named Brooks. Kind of crazy! I have identified as a #girldad for the past 6 years now and while I will remain a girl dad, I now have a little man in the mix. Here’s a hat I made to represent my new parenting dynamics.

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It sounds funny to say this, but I’m honestly nervous about being a boy dad. It’s unknown. It’s new. I know that I am a man myself, but to RAISE a man is no easy feat. I’ll be leaning heavily on the influence of the men in my life that have inspired me and raised me. My own dad, my uncles, my father in law, my grandfathers and some incredible mentors I’ve had over the years. I’m going to mess up and make mistakes, but I’m leading with an open heart FULL of unconditional love for my little dude. The rest will fall into place.

Just this alone would be a lot for a family. Adding a third kid to the mix is nothing to sneeze about. But on top of that, we have so many other projects and businesses swirling. I even have a specific section in my notes called “things swirling” just to keep track of all the things up in the air. And truly, TRULY, I wouldn’t be able to do half or even a quarter of this without my wife. She might not be entrepreneurial, but she is my ROCK. I always say that my head is in the clouds while her feet are on the ground. She allows for all this to happen and is the engine of this family in so many ways.

Having her is a win within itself. My other two crazy little wins that I get to experience on a daily basis are my other girls. My oldest is almost 6 and my soon to be middle child is 3.5… and they are SO dang fun! They seriously say the most hilarious things and the independence that they have to do things are their own and figure things out without our help BLOWS MY MIND. I could seriously watch and listen to them all day!

It’s hard to really quantify those wins above because they are more of a FEELING rather than an actual THING or accomplishment. But a feeling or emotion or state of mind are all still considered wins in my book. What I described barely scratched the surface of my personal development over this last year. Each and every project, business, interaction, moment with the family has culminated in so many lessons. Some hard that I’m still working through and some that came with ease. I wish I could have documented EVERY SINGLE one of them, but that just feels way too overwhelming. This will have to do.

THE LIST

While all those are very much personal wins, they’re hard to define. For the other more identifiable wins, I made a list through the year of things that I was proud of and wanted to remember. Here is the list:

Tangible

  1. BJJ Blue Belt
  2. Becoming a Defensive Tactics Instructor
  3. Won the Groundhog Day 10k
  4. Competed in 2nd jits comp
  5. Fastest B2V qual time in the department
  6. Ran Baker to Vegas 10.7 miles leg in 1:23:25 (7:48 Pace)
  7. Second Jiu Jitsu Comp as blue belt (3rd comp overall)
  8. 4th Jiu Jitsu comp. 3rd place
  9. Built a bunk bed for the girls
  10. Launched our podcast and filmed 8 episodes at the conference
  11. Ran a marathon (3:23.51)

Non-tangible

  1. Getting into biographies of great leaders and founders
  2. Finding a deeper love for writing
  3. Joined HeyCreator to lean into my content creating even more
  4. Watched the sunrise while eating donuts with my girls at the beach
  5. Joining Matt Bodnar’s Coaching Group

[Results] - What were the results of my goals and intentions in 2024?

For the results section, I am revisiting the personal landmarks I made at the beginning of 2024 to see how well I did. From here I will decide which ones I want to go after again, which ones I want to roll over, which ones I am no longer interested in pursuing and any NEW landmarks I want to hit.

HEALTH

5 /7

  1. Compete in two Jiu Jitsu comps✅
  2. Two 30 day “cuts”✅
  3. Run Baker to Vegas✅
  4. Earn a blue belt ✅
  5. Annual physical/ blood work
  6. Dentist appt
  7. 4x4x48 ❓

This is a tricky one, I’m marking down a 5/7 completion, but I haven’t completed the 4x4x48 yet. I set out at the beginning of the year to run this, but truthfully I didn’t expect to run all the other races that I entered. Especially not the marathon. I’m writing this at the end of October, so I have some time, but I’m also still trying to recover from the Marathon and then 2 weeks later an 8 mile race which I DEFINITELY wasn’t recovered enough for. These are for sure excuses, but I am EXTREMELY proud of my marathon and if I end the year without running the 4x4x48, I’ll be ok with that. BUT, I am still intending to do it, if my body feels ready.

WEALTH

0/2

  1. Second storage facility
  2. Make an extra 5k/mo outside of police

I’m not satisfied with this, but I know I’m moving in the right direction. While this particular measurement is very binary (storage facility or not, $5k or not), The needle is moving in the right direction. I’m working really hard to not define my success by the money I make. But it’s easier said than done. I already have the career with the pay check, but I know in my heart of hearts that I’m meant to do MORE. I’m not meant to be in this career til I retire. I live and breathe entrepreneurship and KNOW that’s what I should be doing… but I also know that I have a family to support and I can’t burn the boats. So that’s where the financial landmarks come in. I want to build up the empire in the background and eventually make that leap. Until then, I’ll put my uniform on and serve my community to the best of my ability.

RELATIONSHIPS

4/4

  1. family board meeting✅
  2. Two Bell ONLY vacations ✅
  3. 6+ date nights a year with wife only✅
  4. Work with wife on time blocking ✅

The numbers say I crushed it, but there’s always room to grow. I LOVE seeing a 4/4 on this one and I’m excited to hit some strong relationship landmarks again in 2025. I know that one more child will make date nights even more difficult, BUT that just means we have to be more INTENTIONAL… or get creative. Either way, I’m excited for the challenge.

GROWTH

5/7

  1. Read 24+ books (physical books) (read 14, 21 in progress)
  2. Launch entrepreneur platform✅
  3. Publish a minimum of 26 newsletters ✅
  4. Write 100 articles ✅
  5. Slow down and enjoy more of the moments ✅
  6. Learn HTML, CSS, JAVA - enough to program a website and app ❌
  7. Do something to move me closer to actually publishing a book. Doesn’t matter what that is ✅

So much growth and SO much more to go. For my reads, I went about this in a new way this year. I was very open with starting whatever book sparked my fancy and reading SEVERAL books at a time. I know that some of you might cringe with the thought of starting one before finishing another, but I really enjoyed the variety of books that I have had in the queue and ALL the value that I’ve gotten out of them, even if they aren’t all finished. Because of that, I only FINISHED 14, but I currently have 21 (seriously) that I’m switching between. Some a third of the way through, some almost down, some only a couple chapters in. Would I like to have read my goal of 24 and checked that off? Yep. But I don’t ever regret picking up a book and reading it. Reading is impactful no matter which way you go about it. I read 10 pages a day minimum no matter what. Usually more. But At the very minimum, I’ll have read 3650 pages this year. It’s probably closer to 5000+ though.

Aside from my reading rant, I’m beyond proud of the other items I checked off. Launching our podcast, publishing over 100 articles, writing my newsletter, getting closer to writing my first book and slowing down a bit. It’s so hard to put growth landmarks down in writing like this, but you have to try. Because if you don’t, you’re not only NOT going to grow, you’re also not going to stay the same. You’ll without a doubt regress into the mediocre, blah life that you swore you’d never live. Write SOMETHING down and work to make it happen.

NEEDLE MOVERS

Looking at my results from another angle, here are the Needle Movers. I’ll cover each of these sections in the Pivot Chapter so that you can create your own, but this is my 2024 version. As you can see, some of these items are ones that you saw in the personal landmarks. That’s normal. The personal landmarks are just ways to categorize some main sections of your life to progress in. Potentially all of these could fall into the personal landmarks, but I’ve separated these into their own section because these in particular are boiled down to the most important needle movers of them all. Each section encompasses a substantial accomplishment in its own right. If you want to only focus on a few things, focus on these needle movers.

💎 MISOGI

A Misogi is about transformation and becoming a better and more powerful version of yourself by accomplishing something TOUGH that shapes and defines you for the year. If I’m being honest with myself, the marathon became my Misogi unintentionally, but I’m still leaving room in the next couple months to finish off my initially intended Misogi.

💎 6 MINI ADVENTURES

A mini adventure is just what it sounds like; mini and adventurous. This doesn’t have to cost a bunch of money and you don’t have to go anywhere far. A mini adventure takes you out of your norm. It is something new and exciting that you don’t do that often. Maybe it’s a picnic in a park for dinner or maybe it’s going for a run with the family in the rain. It’s about being consistent with getting out there and making memories.

💎 1 WINNING HABITS EVERY QUARTER

Everything that I’m covering can really fall under a wining habit, but in this section I’ve decided to be intentional about the habits I’m focusing on and how they affect others in my life. This year I set out to hit 4 winning habits, but I stuck with 2 that I really felt I needed to work on. I honestly still do. I could start the year off with focusing on the two habits that I did last year and I’d still have a ton of room to grow. The two habits that I really focused on this last year were 1) Getting my wife a spoon when I make her dinner. I know it sounds silly, but for some reason I’m always forgetting a spoon for her. I generally make most of the dinners. I have the dinner done and on the counter, but I forget her spoon. I wanted to be better with that. 2) Being off my phone for the first hour I get home. I already covered that quite a bit, but I really wanted to hone in on it. As you see, these don’t have to be crazy big. These are just things that I want to be better at and things that affect/ impact other people.

💎 4 FAMILY BOARD MEETING WITH EACH CHILD

The family board meeting is inspired by Jim Shiels book where he talks about the importance of that one on one time with your kids. I didn’t totally hit all the FBMs for the kids, but we did have some epic trips. To name just a few; horse riding, first time Ferris wheel, pumpkin patch, discovery zone, and recently a concert in San Francisco. And it was that concert that actually had be rethink how I wanted to go about the FMB this next year. That long day of travel and overnight experience away from home was so fun and so memorable. I decided that’s what I want to pivot to with 2025. 2 weekends away a year with each of the kids.

💎 6 DATE NIGHTS ANNUALLY

6 date nights doesn’t seem like a lot, but with 2 kiddos and a pregnant wife for most of the year, it was actually pretty difficult. But we did it! Among these 6, we also celebrated our 10 year anniversary. Crazy! 10 years. Seems like yesterday we were getting married. Still not sure what my father in law saw in me as a 23 year old in school and working at a gym. But I’m thankful.

Again with all of this, it’s not going to be perfect. If you fall short and don’t hit the mark, that’s ok. Really. I mean it.

The point here isn’t that you do it all perfectly or completely, the point is that you are intentional about bettering yourself. Move that needle forward DAILY.

💎 DAILY/ WEEKLY NON-NEGOTIABLE

Speaking of daily, this is the bread and butter right here. These items I call my daily vitamins or non negotiables. I check these boxes off every single day no matter what. It sounds extreme, but I’ll tell ya what; what an impact it makes to have done these things every single day for a year. My day doesn’t feel complete now without having completed these.

Here are what I did for 2024:

Every single day without fail.

[Alignment] - Are my actions and habits aligning with the person I want to be?

As I write this years review, I went back to read what I put down last year and definitely found some similarities of where I feel great and where I really need to grow.

My health and fitness have been and continue to be on track. I’d LOVE to have a day free to fill it up with all kinds of fitness. In my perfect world I’m starting the day with a sauna, then going for a long swim. Running to the pool and then running home. Once I get home I pour some coffee and hit the weights in the garage. After that I sauna and then ice bath and a physical therapist comes over for some stretching and deep tissue work. Mid day I take a little nap, then I walk to a jiu jitsu class, walk home and do a little stretching before bed…. But if you didn’t already notice, that’s the entire day. Also, I have a wife and kids that I want to spend time with… where do they fit into all of that?? Yeah, it’s not feasible. So I do the best I can. I workout an hour a day. Sometimes longer JUST if I have long endurance days. But generally an hour. Here’s the breakdown:

Pretty good. Could be better, but I’m very much in alignment there. My diet is on point and I sleep about 7 hours each might.

While those are totally on track, I definitely fall short elsewhere.

  1. I’m on my phone a lot. I hate that, but also it’s the lifeblood of all the things I’m doing. It’s a necessary evil… but I am VERY MUCH aware of it and very intentional about shutting it down if I’ve been too head deep in it for too long. How can I improve? Well one thing that I’ve been doing recently and need to continue doing is to put my phone on do not disturb when I walk in the door and literally not touch it for the first hour. I’m gone all day, I can’t also be gone when I’m home. That’s not fair.

  2. My wife is SUPER low key… almost too low key at times. Which is weird to say, but because she’s so low key and so happy with so little, it’s sometimes easy to forget to spoil her like I should be… She’s also our bookkeeper, so its hard to surprise her with a big purchase lol… But that shouldn’t matter. Her being so low key shouldn’t be an excuse to NOT do things. That’s me being lazy… and I need to be better with that. This year I’m not where I want to be, but I am BETTER than I was. I’ve made notes and set reminders of all types to get flowers, Starbucks, or any other little thing that might make her happy and smile and know that I’m thinking about her, because I always am. It’s easy to be complacent and to let marriage and love just happen. But just with EVERYTHING ELSE I’ve been talking about here, you need to be proactive to achieve greatness. If you want a mediocre or poor marriage, by all means, be complacent.

[Pivot] - Based on my 2024 review, what do I want to pivot—or plan—in 2025?

Sometimes a pivot is just a tiny adjustment of your positioning. It doesn’t have to be anything HUGE. But it’s those small adjustments that compound and lead to big results. When I look back at the year, I don’t see any massive pivots that I need to make, but I do see a ton of room for growth. I break it down into 3 main areas. Family life balance, Business growth and personal development.

Family Life Enhancement:

REALLY being present with my family. My mind is always deep in thought and processing the million things that I have going on. I need to be better at being present entirely with them. To really shut it down even if things are pending and messy. To be okay losing a thought of mine rather than reaching for my phone when my daughter is trying to tell me something. It’s ugly and I don’t like that I’m even having to write this, but I know that I can and should be better with that. It’s tough; I’m trying to build HUGE things for us…. But that’s also a selfish pursuit. I can’t fall back on the saying “I’m doing this for them” … because while I am, I’m ALSO doing this for me. They didn’t ask for all these projects that I have going. All they want is me and my time. My daughters have no concept of money. And they spell love T I M E.

Business Growth:

If you haven’t realized it by now, I have a TON of balls in the air. I think I like it that way to some degree, but it also divides my time, energy, focus and bandwidth in all those directions. While I actually think there’s a lot to be said about having my hands in a lot of pots (I talk about that here with Walt Disney) I also want to gain traction in one of these things so that it can PRODUCE for me a bit. So what’s the pivot? What’s the solution? What’s my plan? My plan for 2025 is to continue leaning into the few buckets I have going, but only a couple of those buckets will yield the return I’m looking for at the moment. There’s the potential acquisition and then the added services to the lawn care company. Other projects have future yield. But these have more immediate yield. Once I can obtain some traction here with these, then other items will fall into place. Always in the background will be the brand building and the writing, but in the foreground I’ll focus hard on landing this business and adding value to the existing one.

Personal Development:

There isn’t enough time in the day and room in my notes to list all the things that I want to and should work on personally. But that’s not a bad thing. We all have things to work on, that shouldn’t ever change. If it does, it’s either because we’re too full of ourselves to see our flaws or we’ve just given up and turned a blind eye. Growth is just part of life.

In the next year, my personal development doesn’t need to pivot as much as it needs to continue.

This end of year review within itself is a blueprint for the personal development goals that I plan to continue towards in 2025.

I have several large goals for the year that include marathons, Jiu Jitsu competitions and other various accomplishments I want to shoot for. On top of that, I’m toying around with the potential of integrating TRT (testosterone replacement therapy) to my regimen. I’ve thought about it for a while, but this year I plan to dive deeper. I’ll document along the way.

Along with physical goals, I also have very tangible wealth and relationship goals such as an extra $1k / mo profit outside of my police work and 6 date nights with my wife.

Those might seem minimal, but they are impactful. If those things can be accomplished, then MORE can be accomplished. Those are gateway achievements to so much more.

I am on track and consistent in my efforts to better myself. While I don’t see the need to pivot, I definitely see the need to STAY IN THE FIGHT with all these efforts. None of this is easy, but the end results outweigh the cost of mediocrity.

Last year I wrote this at the very end of 2023 and beginning of 2024. This year I’m putting this together in October. It’s taken a couple of weeks to piece this together, but my goal this time around is to not only provide you with this massive example of an end of year review, but to also share with you an entirely new template for YOU to calculate and measure your own year in as much detail.

Below is a beta version and more than enough, but I wanted to take this to another level. I am working with a Google Sheets/ Excel expert to put together something WAY better and WAY more comprehensive. For free.

I’m going to attach the link to my Twitter profile. If you’re already following me, you can see it as a link on my profile. If you’re reading this on my blog and don’t follow me yet, all I’d ask is you give me a follow when you’re checking out the link I’m sharing.

But if you do want to pay for it, I have it for sale on Etsy 😉

Also attached to this will be a video tutorial of how to use the sheet and design your best year EVER!

It has been an absolute pleasure writing this for you. I hope that you got as much out of this as I have and that you can end the year with a bang as well as the ultimate blueprint going into 2025.

BETA TEMPLATE

  1. Clean out

  2. Impact messages

  3. Taking inventory

    1. WRAP
    2. Personal Landmarks
    3. WINS

  4. Reset

    1. Personal Landmarks
    2. The Needle Movers
    3. Daily Vitamins

[Wins]

What went well? What am I proud of in 2024?

[Results]

What were the results of my goals and intentions in 2024?

[Alignment]

Are my actions and habits aligning with the person I want to be?

[Pivot]

Based on my 2024 review, what do I want to pivot—or plan—in 2025?

PERSONAL LANDMARKS:

HEALTH

WEALTH

RELATIONSHIPS

GROWTH

NEEDLE MOVERS

💎 MISOGI

💎 6 MINI ADVENTURES

💎 1 WINNING HABITS EVERY QUARTER

💎 1 SOLO WEEKEND WITH EACH CHILD

💎 6 DATE NIGHTS ANNUALLY

💎 DAILY VITAMINS