At JerseySmarts.com, I try to avoid adding conventionally-themed content to the blog in matters that most people deal with in their daily lives. With that in mind, I really don’t want to sound like every other blogger out there who is jumping on the bandwagon of not making New Year’s resolutions. In years past, some of you may remember that I posted New Year’s resolutions on this blog and the truth is that I met many of those goals. However, this year I want to do something different and instead of making a series of resolutions, I thought that I would just briefly comment on some broad goals that I have for myself in 2010. Much of the information included below is a whittled down version of more in-depth goals that I am mentally keeping for myself. You’ll notice that my goals fit into three broad categories: health, finances, and professional achievement. Overarching those three categories is a larger goal – the idea of fitness (discussed at the end of this entry).

Health. The biggest health issue that I have to tackle in 2010 is getting firm control over my Type 2 Diabetes. In reality, I think that the cocktail of oral medications that I’ve been taking since my August 2009 diagnosis has the situation under control, but I want to begin reducing the amount of medications that I’m taking sooner rather than later. To do that, I really only have one choice – lose a bunch of weight.

In 2010, I have a broad goal to lose some weight. I’m not talking about a gigantic weight loss where I’m losing over 100 pounds in a few months – I’ve done that before when I was a graduate student and it’s not feasible to accomplish that type of goal when I have a great deal of real world responsibilities to attend to these days. However, I’d like to lose between 5 and 7 pounds per month for the next year. I’m starting out 2010 weighing in at 340 pounds, so if I was to lose an average of 6 pounds each month, I could start 2011 weighing in at 268 pounds. Even if I was able to lose just 60 pounds in the next year, I’d be pleased. All I know is that with the onset of Type 2 Diabetes, the need to lose weight becomes very real.

Finances. Some of you might sense the gravity of my health in the words that I used above. Well, to me, it is equally important that I payoff a tremendous amount of my student loan debt in 2010. In total, I’m starting 2010 with $96,680 in student loan debt. That $96 thousand breaks down as $55,129 owed to the United States Department of Education and $41,551 owed to the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority (NJHESAA). Yes, I know that owing $96 thousand is disgusting for a guy in his late 20’s, but if you can believe it I actually started repaying my student loans in June 2006 when the total amount that I owed was $120,720. Pretty gross, right?

Some people get busy starting their lives after they graduate college or graduate school. Not me. I graduated from graduate school and started getting busy repaying my student loans. And I’ve actually been pretty successful. I’ve repaid $24,040 in principal since I began repaying these student loans. I don’t have an exact breakout of how much interest I’ve paid since June 2006, but I intend to get that number once I finally pay these damn things off.

But I digress…

In November 2009, I created a financial plan that allows me to make large payments towards the NJHESAA student loan. If I can stick to this plan, I’ll end 2010 owing about $19,000 on the NJHESAA loan. That figure doesn’t account for interest to be paid in the coming year, but it also doesn’t account for any payments over and above the ones I have laid out in my plan. Oh, and to get a head start on the 2010 goals, I began my plan for repaying this loan in early December 2009 and even devoted a large portion of my December 31, 2009 paycheck towards maintaining the head start that I have on my 2010 goal.

The NJHESAA loan is in my crosshairs…

Professional Achievement. After paying so much to get my current Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees (see above), I decided to put my plans to get a Doctorate on hold until a later time. However, I want to mentally stay in “game shape” so that when I decide to get a Doctorate I am prepared for the rigors of doctoral study from the first class through the final thesis defense. In order to keep myself thinking as an advanced degree student might think, I enrolled in a Graduate Certificate program at the local college where I teach. Why enroll in this college? That’s easy – I get to take the courses for free! Again, see above if you want to know why this might be appealing to me…

I also wrote out an entire list of goals for 2010 for my small website company – Usable Web Solutions, LLC. And as far as being an adjunct professor in the coming year, I hope to continually improve upon the classes that I teach via integrating relevant student feedback into the design of these courses and continuing to refine my course materials (PowerPoint presentations, handouts, and YouTube videos) to better teach my students.

The Overarching Goal: The Idea of Fitness
I specifically chose to write “the idea of fitness” because I want to break everyone’s idea that being “fit” only applies to one’s health. I think that the goals listed above make it very clear that I am striving towards achieving a greater level of efficiency and achievement in these three areas of my life. By doing so, I will have to train myself in certain skills and unlearn some existing habits. The end result of these efforts will be that I am in a better position come 2011 than I am at the beginning of 2010; essentially, I will be more physically, economically, and professional “fit.” And that’s why I chose “the idea of fitness” as the overarching goal for 2010 – because if I can make great strides towards achieving and hopefully achieve the three broader goals that I have listed above, then I’ll be a more “fit” person for the efforts.

We’ll be sure to check back in 2011 to see how far along I’ve come on meeting these goals! I’ve got a good feeling about 2010…