Bentzen’s Blog

Goals for 2009
by Brian Bentzen

Happy New Year! It’s January 2nd and time to get back to business. The first rule of order for a new year is to decide upon or review your goals.  I don’t like calling them resolutions.  Resolutions are made to be broken. I’d prefer to set a goal so I can aim for a destination.  How I get there will be the fun part and doesn’t need to wait for December 31 for me to think about.

There are many ways to organize your goals. You could use post-its, write a note, make a diary entry, make a post on your blog, or just take a few minutes to think about what you want to accomplish. You can break your goals down into categories if you want to and into time frames. The key point is that you should try to be organized in your thinking so you can come up with some goals that are attainable, some that are not attainable, and some that might be attainable down the road.  I’ll divide my goals into professional, personal, and financial since I think these are all encompassing categories.  Then I’ll further divide the goals into short term (2009 goals), goals for the next 5 years, and long term goals (beyond 5 years)

After you define your goals, you’ll have to come up with a plan about how you would like to go about achieving them.  For psychological reasons I think its easier to start with the short term goals and check them off as you go.  

Next year I can review my goals and update them.  Many of them will probably stay the same, and many more will come up throughout the year.

Short Term Goals (2009 Goals)

Professional:  

Improve inservice exam scores:  

Every year of residency we take the inservice exam.  This exam approximates the real anesthesiology boards and you receive a score in your mailbox along with a list of suggested study topics.  This year I plan to organize my studying at least partially by keyword.  I’ll do small writeups on the keywords and post them on my other website, Anesthesia Explained, which is not yet up and running.  The rest of my studying will be by reading relevant chapters and topics, and wherever else I find gaps in my knowledge.

Complete a publishable case study:

We have to complete two writing assignments during residency, so I’d like to get one out of the way sometime in the next 12 months.  I already have 3 or 4 good cases to choose from.  The write-up and background research for these four cases are already started.

Increase web traffic:

The only way I know of to increase web traffic is by increasing content and providing information that is relevant to my readers.  I’d like to increase my posting to at least once a week, but will plan to keep my topics spread out over a number of subjects that I consider useful or interesting.  If some types of posts are more useful to you, just shoot me an email or comment about what you want to hear about.

Personal:

Two outdoor vacations:

The past few years I’ve gone on one to two skiing or backpacking trips a year.  I’d like to do some hunting, backpacking, skiing, cross-country skiing, fishing type trips.  One will be coming up in February or April and the other later on in the year.  I haven’t picked out a destination yet.  I’ll have to sit down with Melissa to figure out where we will go, and exactly when.

Continue working on marine reef aquarium:

This is my big little hobby.  I have a few tanks plumbed together.  The 90 gallon reef is in the living room.  Below it is a40 gallon sump that is plumbed to a 65 gallon refugium, and that tank is plumbed to a 40 gallon tank I plan to use to grow out small corals.  All told it adds up to about 180 gallons of salt water in my living room.  The other 55 gallons are taken up by rocks and sand.  I only have four little fish and three shrimp, but there are a lot of coral.  Maintaining the tank is a bit of work every week, but I plan to continue and would like to grow out enough coral so I can sell some and support my hobby.

Get back into shape:

I think I’m officially out of shape.  I have a habit of not working out much during the winter.  We’ve been cleaning out the garage and in a couple of weeks we’ll have some weights.  I’ve started doing squats on the exercise ball for ski season but need to do more cardio if I want to be able to enjoy a trip out west.  I’d like to get back a lot of the strength I’ve lost over the past year and would like to be able to run 5k in 21 minutes like I used to.  I could bench 225 pounds a year ago, but I’ll have to start at 135 pounds in a few weeks.

Home:  

The house needs some repairs.  The vent for the laundry goes through the ceiling in a very awkward manner.  This fall the vent hose sprung a leak, the drier plugged up with lint and the moisture damaged the kitchen ceiling.  To fix it, we’ll have to cut some holes in the living room and kitchen ceiling and put up new drywall.  I’d like to tile the kitchen, bathroom and entry.  Some rooms need a little bit of paint for color or touch up.  The back patio could use some more plants.  There are always a lot of little things to do around the house.  

Financial:

Save $1000 a month:

This really means I need to reign in my spending.  In July I’ll get a little bit of a raise, and my mortgage is going down by $100 due to a change in my local taxes, so I hope this is a reasonable goal.  I also have some debt to pay off, but its all in deferment until I have a better paying job.  

Medium Term Goals (2014 Goals)

Professional:

Complete residency, pass boards and oral boards, partnered in private Anesthesiology practice:

This goal is all about consistency, continuing to work hard and preparing towards my exams.  I’m not sure where I’ll be practicing after June 2011 when I am done with residency.  Part of me would like to go west and look for wide open spaces, but the other part of me wants to stay close to home.  So far, I’ve always stayed close to home for school and work.  

Personal:

Marriage, children:  

This isn’t entirely in my hands and will happen when the time is right.

Home:

If I stay in the Harrisburg, PA area I’ll plan to continue living in my current townhouse until I can get my higher interest school loans payed off.  I don’t want a big house, but I’d like to have some land.  I’d like to be at least a few miles away from the highway so I don’t have to hear it at night.  And I’d like to be able to look up and see as many stars as I can at my parent’s house outside Gettysburg.  This might mean a bit more of a commute, but I think its well worth it.

Fitness:

I’ll be 33 years old.  I don’t know exactly what kind of shape I’ll be in, but I want to be in better shape than I am now.

Health:

The is no way to tell what 5 years will bring in terms of health, but we eat pretty well most of the time and I’m active pretty much all the time.  I suppose I just have to keep my fingers crossed on this one and do what I can in terms of diet and exercise.

Financial:

Out of debt:

I may keep some of my debt around since I was one of the lucky ones who was able to lock in some school loans at an extremely low percent, but I have some horrible loans at 7-8% that need to go away fast after I can afford to pay them down.

Investing success:

I have always wanted to get into real estate.  If I stick to my $1000 a month goal, I’ll be able to afford a rental property relatively soon.  If things go well, I won’t stop at one and might start building.  

Long Term Goals (2041 Goals – Age 60)

This is too far away for me to anticipate.  I don’t like even thinking about this yet.  I don’t know what to expect, but I have a vague sense of where I could be, and where I don’t want to be.  

Professional:

Nearing retirement:

At this point, I have no idea what to expect.  We may see incredible advances in drugs, medical knowledge, genetic applications, etc.  

Personal:

Marriage and Children:  Hope to be still married and an empty nester at this point.  Maybe a grandpa.  This seems funny to think about since I’m not a father yet.

Health:  I hope to still be here!

Financial:

Ready for retirement:  If we stay around Harrisburg professionally, maybe we’ll retire somewhere out west.

It may be too young to have retirement goals at this point, but at least I am started to plan for it now.  At that point in your life, I think health, family and leisure are most important.

Your goals

What goals do you have?  How do you like to organize them?  Where are your priorities for the next year?