Another year come and gone!
While I don’t believe we should live in the past, I do believe that it’s essential to take a moment to reflect all that we’ve accomplished over the last year. By doing so we’re able to learn from ourselves in order to get a better grasp on what we’d like to do in the New Year. We can relive our accomplishments and learn from our mistakes. For me, 2018 has brought plenty of both.
With the coming of every New Year, I typically set some big goals that I’d like to accomplish. 2018 was no different. I actually even accomplished some of them haha! Of course every year brings a ton of events that we never planned on happening as well. That’s more of the story of how 2018 has played out for me.
A Year of Wonderful Travel (and great anxiety)
2018 has been absolutely great to me with getting to travel more both within Georgia and across the United States.
The year started out great in January with a work week to Hawaii! The trip in total was amazing. I had the opportunity to scuba dive for the first time, go on some amazing hikes and discover Hawaii for all the beauty it is! If you’re an active reader of the blog, then you’ll know that it wasn’t all jolly. That whole ballistic missile mishap happened while I was there, hence the reason I wrote “great anxiety” above. Here I am though alive and well with a great story to tell!
I had two other big vacations that I went on in 2018. I headed to Naples, Florida for a week with a friend of mine to get away from it all and just relax on the beach. We had a great time despite some rain and our Airbnb hosts were truly exceptional.
Lastly, back in August, I decided to take a trip by myself to Portland, Maine. I love the craft beer scene and Portland is pretty well known for its large amount of breweries. Even better was that Portland was named the Restaurant City of the Year by Bon Appetit. I certainly discovered why after going through restaurant after restaurant trying all the food. I went to Portland with no expectations other than drinking some really great beer, but I ended up falling in love with both the city and the state. I’ve actually started to plan out another trip to Maine in 2019!
I’ve Read Some Great Books
Before 2018, I was just reading books here and there and not really doing as much as I would’ve liked to. I decided to get serious about reading though and in total read 17 books. I know it doesn’t really matter how many books you read, it’s what you get from them that counts, but still, I’m happy with it.
The books ranged from real estate investing to business, self-development, and other non-fictions such as Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain and Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick.
I’ve learned some extremely valuable information from every book I’ve read and have implemented some of it into my own life. One thing I believe I lacked in was not always taking the time to truly digest what I was reading. At times it felt like I was just reading to read. So, come 2019 I’d like to be more intentional in the books I choose to read. I’d also like to get in the habit of taking notes of anything I feel would be useful from the readings then better implement the information into my life.
Started a Podcast
If you didn’t know by now, I co-host a podcast with my friend Joey Wilkes! It’s called Birth of the Hustle! The podcast is all about discovering and sharing the truth about the hardships and success of starting a venture. With the podcast, we aim to guide listeners by hearing real people who are fighting for their dreams to start, grow, and manage their businesses and ideas. Feel free to head on over to the site now and start listening! You can find us at www.birthofthehustle.com or you can listen to us on iTunes as well as any other application that you can listen to podcasts on.
And Finally Got Promoted/Re-enlisted
For about the last year or two I’ve been saying that I want to get out of the Air Force. The main reason was that I just felt like I was falling behind and I’d become more focused on my real estate. Not to mention it starts to become pretty demoralizing watching those around you get promoted and you not making it for 3 years in a row. As you read though, I finally got promoted to Staff Sergeant and I ended up deciding to re-enlist as well for our 4 years! It was a pretty big decision to make and I know lots of changes are going to come due to it. For one, I’m looking at new career opportunities to go after so I’m thinking I’ll be making a big move in 2019. We’ll see what happens!
Overall, 2018 has been an amazing year (except for when I was sick for an entire month back in Spring). Now it’s time to look forward to 2019 and all it brings into my life.