
Another year down and I don’t think I’m alone when I say 2020 was a very unique year. Yet I think a recap of the year, lessons learned, and my plans going forward are important.
My Highlights
I got Married! I found an amazing partner in 2019 who took my breath away and still does to this day. We got married in January of 2020.
I hit over a $300,000 liquid net worth in 2020. I accomplished this through simple investing, planning, and life optimization.
I rebranded my blog! My old blog Financial Serenity Blog was a good start. Yet It was not really fitting for who I was and what I wanted to create. With a ton of brainstorming out came Money Fitness Journey. This reflects me and my passions a lot more.
I received a new position at work that pays the same yet has a lot less toxic environment. So it’s a win-win for my health and finances.
I have found an incredible fitness routine that I can do from anywhere in the world that requires no gym, weights, or fancy gear. This really saved my mind and body as gyms closed down due to COVID.
I created two new Facebook groups! One for fitness called SOCAL Warrior Fit Bootcamp and the other for Barista and Coast FIRE people. These are passion projects to help build more community.
Lessons Learned
I learned that I must set more boundaries in my life and keep to them. I have spent so much time helping tons of people that message me with free financial advice to only see them never take action on it. It was super frustrating, to say the least. I would spend 3-4 hours helping someone budget, cut expenses and talk to them about how to better optimize. Next thing I know they never used anything I created and ultimately I was wasting my valuable time.
Now I set a boundary of no more free advice that will take up my time. I now charge for my coaching and already have had clients and saved them over $2,000 on average. If you want coaching, start here.
That stacking habits on top of each other to make a more optimized system to accomplish something is the way to go.
When I focus on things I can control vs things I can’t my mental health, body, finances and overall mood are way better. I excel more at all of the above by simply shifting my focus on what I can control.
We never know what the universe will throw at us. This is where knowing when and how to pivot is crucial. On top of that practice and master resilience and you will come out on top of any situation.
That doing something even if less than planned is better than nothing at all. It’s better to work out for ten minutes vs not showing up at all. It’s better to write for 15 minutes on my blog vs not writing at all. These little times of action add up to huge positive impacts in our lives.
That a toxic work environment is not worth my sanity, health, or body. It’s not worth it to simply shut up and play dumb like your bosses might want you to do. That even if you get blackballed for speaking up always do it.
With just a little focus I can create more side hustle money. It’s not passive though but If I am passionate about it, it really does not seem like work.
I am sure there might be more lessons I learned in 2020. Yet these are the ones that strike me the most. These are the ones that I feel have impacted me the most and are the ones I want to continue to master in 2021.
Plans For 2021

I have so many plans for this year! It’s really exciting to think about and honestly, I am typing this post up to not only share with everyone but to be able to have something in black and white to look back on to make sure I am staying focused on my priorities in life.
I have decided to not just make more goals so to speak. Instead, I want to set intentions and create more systems that will have a positive outcome so to speak. I have been doing a lot of reading on this topic and it seems to be a better approach. Because goals are black and white you either achieve them or you don’t. Sometimes completely out of our control. Where intentions are more flexible.
Personal
Learn to speak more French and Spanish. My wife is French and we would like to go visit her family this year in Paris. I want to be able to at least speak a bit and understand more by that time.
By studying and practicing for a few sessions each week I will develop a better ability to understand and speak French and eventually Spanish
Be more in the moment, intentional and content. I now say three things every morning I am grateful for as the sun rises. I will continue to slow down and take in the moment this leads into being intentional.
Create and cultivate more community and relationships in my life. I will create weekly posts in my FB groups followed up by replying thoughtful replies to every comment or new post. Any time a get together comes up with like minded individuals I will say yes if there are no confections.
Financial
Invest one paycheck every month into my current asset allocation. The intention here is to grow my liquid portfolio as much as I possibly can.
Adjust my asset allocation to bring my risky investments up to a 5%-10% allocation. I will slowly invest a monthly amount till this allocation is adjusted.
By the way, I have built my multiple six-figure portfolio with the help of Personal Capital. I love their free graphs and retirement tools
Blog
Keep writing every week for my blog. This will lead to at least two posts every week.
Keep studying on SEO and once ready start writing one SEO driven article every week. I have already paid for courses on SEO and currently reading them.
Keep increasing my blogs traffic. This will be accomplished by the above but ultimately I want to reach more people and my hopes is to spread more impact.
Nothing Crazy!
Nothing too crazy for 2021. Some might say that I need to think bigger or reach for the stars. Yet I am happy with taken a step back and creating simpler more enriching plans this year. My biggest ones evolve around building more community and connecting with more content creators.
My finances nothing big this year. I did a lot of heavy lifting over the last few years and now am seeing the rewards. Now I just have to keep it simple, fun and profitable!
The blog is a living breathing passion project that will grow and evolve as time goes on. The big plans is SEO driven articles this year. Still learning SEO so once I get a bit more time for that I will start going full speed with SEO.
Why An Annual Review?
I think this keeps me more accountable and lets me focus on lessons learned from the year before while being grateful for how far I have come along.
Yet stand by as I am currently working on a Goal/Intension post coming soon!
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Awesome post! Congrats on getting married and loved seeing your goals and perspective for this new year!
This was a really comprehensive annual review – congratulations on your 2020 achievements and good luck for 2021!