What plan do you have for 2022?

For around the last 20 years or so I’ve always set goals for myself and worked towards them. I haven’t always been successful in achieving them, but I’ve kept moving forward. Without goals, my life tends to feel aimless. That’s why I always like to have something to work towards.

They are usually goals for making more money, getting better health and fitness, traveling more, and generally building a better life.

In recent years I’ve achieved many of my biggest goals, including reaching financial independence. Because of that, I feel like I’ve been coasting a little too much. The recent pandemic hasn’t helped, as it has totally curtailed all my travel plans.

In January 2020, my wife and I had made plans to visit Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore. It was going to be a great adventure. Everything was planned, and we even handed in the notice on our condo lease. We were due to move out before the end of January.

You all know what happened next. At first, we thought the pandemic would pass quickly, so moved to a condo in a different city for one month. We would start our travels in March instead. Then we extended for another month, and another month, and another month.

It’s now almost two years later and we’re still here, although we moved to a bigger condo. We’ve had a great time, as the lockdown wasn’t too bad, but it still feels like our life has been on hold.

That is all about to change. We have great plans for 2022. Not even a pandemic is going to stop us.

We thought about this long and hard, and have finally got our plans together for our upgrade life. My wife has similar plans to mine although some aspects are different. In this article, I’ll be discussing my plans specifically.

Upgrade #1 — More travel and to new places

I love to travel and usually visit a mixture of places I’ve never visited, along with some old favorites. It’s fun exploring new cities, but I also like to visit those few special places where I know my way around, have a few friends and feel at home.

Those special places are Split in Croatia, Ljubljana in Slovenia, London, and NYC. For our travels in 2022, we’ll be visiting the first two for at least a month each.

The new places we’ll be visiting are Turkey, Georgia, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and maybe a few more. We’ll mostly decide along the way. I don’t like to stick to rigid travel plans, as I like to leave space for some spontaneous visits.

For me, life can feel a bit stagnant if I’m stuck in the same place for too long. I need to keep moving, exploring new places, and meeting new people.

I’m also considering starting another travel blog to document our journey. My last blog earned me around $60,000, so I’m tempted to try to emulate that. On the other hand, just taking in the journey without having to document everything is equally as tempting.

Upgrade #2 — Take my writing more seriously

When I was in school, my English teacher didn’t think much of my writing skills. In fact, she said they were average at best. This led me to never really believe that I could write well. I’m not a top writer, but I think my writing is above average. You may disagree with that though.

In the past, I wrote around 400 posts for the travel blog that I mentioned and above, and also wrote 8 Kindle books. But I still never saw myself as a writer.

Even so, I decided to join Medium at the end of last month.

I’ve been surprised that I am actually enjoying writing immensely.

I think the difference is that I’m now writing about topics that I want to write about. In school, we were always forced to write about subjects that I had no interest in whatsoever. No wonder I didn’t do well in my English lessons.

It’s not only that I’m enjoying writing, but that I’m also making money from it. I expect to earn around $80 in my first month. I didn’t get accepted into the Medium Partner Program until 12 November, so I could expect to earn around $120 for a full month.

The last few days’ earnings have been higher than average, so I’m hopeful that I can scale up quickly. I’m also learning a ton from other, more experienced, writers, so things should only get better.

This is the type of project I like doubling down on. I currently have 5 side hustles on the go. In 2022 I will drop two of them so that I can free up more time for my writing.

Upgrade #3 — Spend way more time with family and friends

In the past, I think I’ve focused too much on making money and not enough on family and friends. Sure I spend lots of time with them, but in 2022 I will be making it more of a priority.

My wife and I will be traveling around Europe for 6–7 months, starting in January. That will give us some great quality time together.

We’ll be away from our local friends, but we’ll make new ones along the way. We’ll also meet up with some old friends. A few have already arranged to meet up with us somewhere in Europe next year. It also gives them a reason to get out and travel.

Upgrade #4 — Focus more on health and fitness.

I feel like I’m pretty fit and healthy already, but I’m not getting any younger. Now is an important time to double down on this. I want to be traveling for decades to come, and don’t want to let bad health or lack of fitness stop me.

I see that happening with many older people. I refuse to let it happen to me.

Keeping fit and healthy is more difficult when you’re on the road, but we’ll mitigate that by staying in most places for at least a month. That means we can join a local fitness center and find the best places to eat.

What are your plans for 2022?

What are your plans for 2022? Let me know in the comments section.

Here’s to a fantastic 2022. Let’s make the most of it.