Already 25?!

Very late post because I was in Asia for work and vacation for a month. I celebrated my birthday in China with coworkers.

Let's get right into it. New years resolutions from last year:

1. Add another +50% to my current financial portfolio - partially achieved: about 35~40% from last year
• Optional: identify risks and ways to protect my finances from lawsuits, etc - nope
2. Exercise - any of the following: - achieved
• Run a 6 minute mile - done, my mile time is 6 minutes. I timed it on the night before my birthday.
• Participate in a 5K (bonus: 10K) - nope
• Build full-body aesthetics (subjective) - nope, but have been running consistently
3. Keep learning. This one is open ended - yes, learning Chinese
4. Relearn Japanese: read Japanese books, watch Japanese shows, go on Japanese forums - not really
5. Spend time on hobbies - achieved
• Don't be afraid to spend some money too. Buy a new gaming computer, buy a new airsoft gun, anything 
6. Travel to somewhere new - achieved, Hawaii, Hakone
7. Start a cool project - nope
8. Improve my posture (new addition in January) - achieved, in progress

Overall I think I went overboard with the amount of new years resolutions. Seven resolutions is a bit much.

1) Add another +50% to my current financial portfolio

Goal partially achieved.

I added 35~40% to my portfolio, which doesn't hit the 50% target but is good nevertheless. As my portfolio increases every year, it will get increasingly difficult to hit the 50% target.

I also bought a new car ($13k base, $15k out the door) after my old one was totaled, so this was a major expenditure. However, the insurance payout was more than the price of what I bought the car for, so it was actually a good scenario. My new car is electric, and I expect to save $1,800 a year from gas and maintenance costs.

I spent a good amount of money buying gifts for people around me.

2) Exercise

Goal achieved.

I consistently ran (3+ times a week) from Jan thru Feb, and hit OTF or more times a week, but my exercise routine started breaking down the second week of work travel (all of March). I was able to hit my target of a 6min mile run. I want to go further and participate in a 5K or half marathon.

3) Keep learning

Work in progress.

I started learning Chinese through an online course sometime around September last year. It's been on-and-off and work travel has broken my routine, but I can speak very very basic Chinese currently. This is something I definitely want to put more work into for this year.

4) Relearn Japanese

Nope.

I haven't put any effort into this. There's only so much time since I am so busy with work and developing + maintaining my social life. But communicating with my girlfriend daily and with my parents in Japanese will at least keep my language level from slipping below an unacceptable literacy.

5) Spend time on hobbies

Definitely a big win.

I spent some money and dedicated time to playing airsoft last year. I bought new gear and scheduled time on weekends to go to airsoft fields with my brother and friends. We hit all the fields in the bay area, worked down a list of fields a weekend at a time, and figured out which ones are good. My playstyle focuses on pistol only and playing aggressively in CQB. It is a much more enjoyable play-style compared to the forest gameplay I played growing up.

I've learned that I need to schedule hobby time in advance and plan it out, especially if it's a long trip to a field that is 2 hours away. I've realized that it is difficult to stick to a hobby on a purely impromptu basis especially if it requires some amount of planning. Dedicating an entire day to a hobby is a rewarding way to spend the weekend.

In August I finally pulled the trigger on a gaming PC I've been eyeing for a year. It is probably one of the best purchase decisions I've made, since my quality of (gaming) life has improved so much over trying to get gaming to work on my macbook. It's a nice, compact PC (not much larger than a Mac Mini) with a god damn GTX1070...! I put a NVMe M.2 card in it as well for the super fast boot up speed. It is nice having a job and being able to afford nice things.

6) Travel to somewhere new

Again, a big win.

I went to Hawaii with my girlfriend and her parents. This was my first time in Hawaii, and I spent 9 days there over Thanksgiving. We went to Oahu, then Maui. Most of the hotels I booked on my points, which is nice because hotels are very expensive. Cheers to the perks of massive amounts of work travel. We stayed at an absolutely gorgeous resort in Maui, all on points. Some highlights from the trip: Luau in Oahu, swimming with turtles at Waikiki beach, Diamond peak, Road to Hana, and just taking a stroll down the beach, absorbing the year-round paradise that is Hawaii. Every day was like living in real-life a HDR picture.

I also went to Tokyo at peak cherry blossom season. It was an impromptu trip as our schedules lined up. As with most of my vacations in Asia, I booked last second - a couple days in advance. We enjoyed the hell out of the cherry blossom atmosphere, drank almost every night, and went to Hakone for the famous hotsprings. My girlfriend took me out to a nice omakase sushi place in Shinjuku for my birthday.

My travels since March 2018:

Japan 1x

Taiwan 3x

China/Hong Kong 4x

Hawaii 1x

My travels since Jan 2019:

Japan 1x

China/Hong Kong 1x

7) Start a cool project

Nope.

I am very busy as I've mentioned many times, but I honestly feel I can do this if I cut back my social media and youtube time and become more disciplined with my free time. The screen time feature on my iPhone really shows how much time I waste on Facebook, Youtube, and Reddit. Setting a long-term daily routine would help immensely here, which brings me to my next resolution:

8) Improve my posture

I've always known that I have bad posture but what really prompted me to fix this was when I was at my girlfriend's parent's home in Asia. I entered the front door one day, turned sideways to take off my shoe, and when I stood up, I glanced at the mirror opposite the door and saw my horrible posture. My girlfriend and those around me always said I've had bad posture, but it really took that moment to realize how bad it was, how bad I looked, and that I did not want to look like that.

That night I looked up a simple posture improvement workout that improves the C4 muscles by the back of the neck. I did the workout every morning before work and every night before bedtime for 3 months, and when I met with my girlfriend again, she said my posture had noticeably improved. I still have ways to go, but this relatively simple change has improved my life a lot in terms of confidence and even just how tall I look.

Even though it is such a simple task, I will be adding this back into my resolution since the impact on my quality of life has been tremendous. This also helped me get in the mindset of setting a long-term daily routine, which has significantly impacted my productivity and happiness.

Here are my resolutions for 25, ranked by priority:

1. Finance: Add +40% to my current portfolio
• Stretch goal:
• Get a promotion by September 2020
• Actionable items:
• Transfer cash to a higher %APY savings account
• Consider investing into a mid/long term treasury bond or CD
• Continue stock trading (no yearly goals, invest in high value opportunities)
• Start thinking about risk analysis (carryover from last year) - how to protect my finances from lawsuits, etc
2. Posture: Continue to improve my posture
• Actionable items:
• Continue my daily posture improvement exercises
3. Exercise: Continue to improve my fitness
• Actionable items:
• Run a 5K, 10K, or half marathon
• Go to OTF at least once a week (when not in Asia)
• Do full body workouts daily and/or run (when not in Asia)
• Comment:
• When I go to Asia, I come back with a broken routine. It takes me maybe 3 weeks to get back into a routine, so my new target is 1 week to get back into a routine
4. Festivals:
• Actionable items: go to any of the following
• EDC 2019
• Outsidelands 2019
• Snowglobe 2019
• Coachella 2020 - must do (but after birthday)
5. Fun and Travel:
• Stretch goal:
• Visit a new country
• Actionable items:
• Las Vegas trip with the boys
• Hiking weekend with the lads
• Fly to LA again
• Go to Tahoe during the snow season again
6. Cool project: 
• Actionable items:
• Start a cool project and/or
• Mentor a robotics team (in progress already)
7. Learning:
• Actionable items: Chinese
• Complete the Yoyo Chinese beginner course
• Talk in Chinese frequently and when possible
• Actionable items: Other
• Become more aware of the tech industry by subscribing to The Information
• Become more proficient in Japanese by reading and writing it more frequently
• Read 3 books

There are a lot of items above, so I'll have to prioritize. If it comes down to a top 3 individual items, it's:

1. Get a promotion by September 2020
2. Go to Coachella 2020
3. Read and write more Japanese

But the first two are after my birthday, so if I had to pick before:

1. Read and write more Japanese
2. Learn Chinese
3. Start a cool project