Revisit of My Work Goals for 2010
January 10, 2011 Posted by Tyler CruzWhile I’m a little bit late in getting this post up, I haven’t forgotten about it… although I probably wish I had. Every year around this time, I reflect back on the work goals I created for myself for the year to see how I fared.
You can see my past revisit posts for the years 2008 and 2009, and you can also read My Work Goals for 2010 post as well.
Last year, in an effort to try to remember my goals and see them everyday, I purchased a whiteboard (although mine is actually silver), wrote my work goals on it, and placed it in my office next to my desk. It is still there as I speak, with my original goals:
Was it effective? Not nearly as much as I had hoped it would, as I quickly got used to ignoring it. It’d probably be much more effective to actually physically write down my goals every day, but that is also going overboard, in my opinion, and would be too much of a chore.
The whiteboard did have some benefit though, as I would once in a while look at it and try to remind myself that these goals needed doing, so I don’t regret putting it up.
Anyhow, without further ado, here is a look back at my goals for 2010:
1. Revitalize PokerForums
Result: Fail
This was one of the goals that really needed doing, and wasn’t just one of those "that would be a nice milestone” type of goals.
Unfortunately, I never got around to making this happen. This is a hard one for me. The poker industry has roughly been in decline ever since the UIGEA was passed in late 2006, which slowly had an impact on my poker site.
But I can’t just blame the UIGEA. The fact is that I went overboard in trying to “diversify my portfolio”, and got myself tied up in too many projects at once. So many projects that I didn’t have time to put to the site. I also started playing poker less and less, and by 2010 was not playing at all. And when you’re not interested in something, it is very difficult to try to dedicated time to it. Just ask any 10-year-old taking piano lessons.
A month ago, I did enter some very big discussions with a couple of poker behemoths in the industry (I’m talking HUGE here) and we were extremely close to working out a deal, but in the end I turned it down because it deviated too much from what we initially talked about, and would result in too much stress for me. And I’ll do almost anything to avoid unneeded stress.
I also put the site up for sale earlier in the year and had a bunch of offers, but they were just a bit short of what I wanted to part with the site. I think I will relist it again soon because I just don’t have the time for it, and it’s such an old, established site.
2. Grow Movie-Vault to 100k Unique Hits Per Month
Result: Fail
Although this is a fail, since I only managed to increase traffic by around 2%, I don’t feel bad about this one. While the traffic didn’t really improve, the fact is that I did everything that I said I was going to do at the beginning of last year.
Movie-Vault.com now has regularly updated great content, and my hired SEO freelancer is now on his 7th month working on the site. In fact, it is currently ranked high on the 3rd page and on the 7th page on Google for two very premium search phrases.
I signed a tight contract with a movie advertising agency early in the year which gave them the exclusive right to represent me as an ad agency. They turned out to be an incredibly bad company as the had promised me CPM’s of $7.50 – $15, but hardly sent any campaigns my way, making me pretty much nothing. The good news is that my contract with them expires in a couple weeks.
Later in the year, I had a lot of discussions with Zediva, and we are forging a strong relationship together that will hopefully flourish through 2011. We are looking forward to some cross-site integration together that will be implemented soon.
I did a lot of work on Movie Vault this year, and so I am happy with its progress even though its traffic didn’t increase. The revamp is done and it’s a great site with great content – now it just needs traffic.
3. Hit Average of $100+/day Profit from PPC Affiliate Marketing
Result: Fail
Another fail. I spent a lot of time on PPC affiliate marketing early in the year, and also tried my hand at promoting zip submits for the first time as well, with mixed success.
In early May, I actually managed to make $739.94 profit in only 7 days… so during that brief time I actually made my goal of $100/day profit.
But the goal was to average $100 a day over the long run, not just a week, and so I didn’t make this goal, although I did end up profiting $450 during that month.
I stopped all PPC affiliate marketing after that, and switched to SEO for promotion, for those wondering about any affiliate marketing updates. While I was making a little bit of money with PPC affiliate marketing, it was taking FAR too much time from me, and SEO takes up virtually no time.
4. Finish RobotWarz and Average $500/month Income
Result: Fail
This is an extremely tough one to talk about. Basically, the development of RobotWarz has been an absolute disaster ever since I started. I’ve run into bad developer after developer after developer, and had the same problem with designers (but have a fantastic one now).
This was my first time developing a game, so I learned a few things for next time (if there is a next time). I’ll save you guys a lot of time and headache: if you’re planning to get a game developed, plan on shelling out at least $20,000, but more like $50,000+.
This goal was mostly out of my hands due to the developers, so I’m going to put the blame on them for this one.
Hopefully we can finally finish the game and get it launched in 2011.
5. Earn $150,000+ in 2010
Result: Fail
I didn’t actually calculate this, but off the top of my head I don’t think I made this goal.
The Year In Review
Oh well, I’m not going to lie. I’ve always been about being transparent and honest. That’s one reason why people read my blog.
Overall, 2010 was a horrible year for Merendi Networks Inc. While there were certainly some successes, such as flipping a domain for a profit of over $14,000, huge SEO improvements, and bringing Movie Vault back to life, the truth is that there should have been a lot more successes to talk about.
I accept almost all of the blame (I still have a grudge about RobotWarz, heh). There is no doubt in my mind that I could and should have worked a lot more. Honestly, I hardly worked at all since early summer.
Click the play button below to hear a 5-second audio clip summarizing my 2010 year:
But that was all last year. It’s 2011 now. I have a whole new year to look forward to, and I’m going to look forward, not backwards.
Stay tuned for My Work Goals for 2011 post which I will be publishing soon.
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On January 1, 2010 I wrote out a 4 page listing of all the things I wanted to accomplish by Dec 31, 2010. Things like how much weight I wanted to lose, how much money I wanted to make with my Blog etc.
I then put the listing in a sealed envelope labeled Jan 1, 2011 and was not to open it until then.
On Jan 1, 2011 I opened up the envelope and read through the listing.
I would say that 99% of the things I listed on there I DID NOT accomplish.
At first this seemed a bit depressing, but then I realized that my life changes way too fast to be stuck with yearly goals like that. I didn’t accomplish most of them because I created other priorities that weren’t even on the list.
For example, I wrote and published a book in 2010 but that wasn’t on my original list. It’s something that I decided to do in 2010 at some point and then I did it.
Originally I was going to create a list like this every year on Jan 1st and seal it for the following year, but I now realize it’s pointless. Life changes way too quickly to bother setting goals that will probably change anyways.
I think it might be better to just set “per project” or “per challenge” or other short term goals. For example, when we did our weight loss challenge we each set a goal and then we hit that goal. But those were short-term, highly measurable goals and they became a top priority in our lives due to a penalty.
That works. Setting yearly goals, I don’t think works as well. Our life changes way too quickly for that I think. At least mine does.
-Paul
I agree with you a bit in regards to how our goals can change over the span of the year.
That certainly holds true for my $100/day PPC affiliate marketing goal since I switched from SEO to PPC, but unfortunately I can’t really use that excuse on the other goals I set.
When I create my 2011 goals, I will be making them a little bit easier to meet.
I admire the honesty, I must say 🙂 Perhaps this failure will be a motivation to push yourself harder in 2011!
You are still here, so thats a good thing, as long as you are not flipping burgers, nothing to worry about!
You got some great sites in your portfolio! Should do good in 2011
My thoughts exactly, lol.
You accomplished what was most important to you. Even if that was relaxing, playing video games, watching movies, learning a new language, and learning to play Guitar Hero.
Justin Beiber is the bomb!
Haha, i agree with you 😉
Well sorry to hear that you did not succeed with any of your 2010 goals. Perhaps you were being too optimistic with your goals. It would probably be better if you had more manageable goals which you could realistically achieve. As Paul mentioned above, it’s likely much better to have shorter term goals. When you have larger goals, it helps to break them down into specific steps.
Personal goals often fail if they lack commitment; they are against divine justice and based on self gratification, manipulative practices, greed and unbalanced lifestyles. most important reason people fail to achieve their goals is that they don’t find out what is possible for them, they buy into conditioned or environmental limitations.
If this is true, then RESEARCH should be the real starting point in any goal setting process because research expands one’s vision which in turn sparks ideas and ideas ignite desire which is the fuel that powers us towards our goals.
Thanks for sharing, Tyler, as always. I’ve been around for a lot of years now, and although I’ve heard others criticize from time to time, I’ve always known you to be your own harshest critic. I appreciate the honesty and the fact that I always get straight information here, even when it doesn’t have that “Oh, boy, what a success am I” sort of sound some feel compelled to adopt to sound impressive.
I’m only into poker as a spectator sport, but recently I was blown away when I saw some coverage of this year’s WSOP. You know that here in the Philippines we often get shows years old, so I thought ‘spectator poker’ was perhaps where it was 4years ago … or maybe even poorer due to “The Recession”.
I was blown away by the size of the event. UIGEA or not, there’s a pony in this niche somewhere, my friend. Perhaps look at it from a different direction … analyze what the UIGEA took away and focus on what it didn’t, perhaps.
You might want to recalibrate your goals in 2011 and look more closely at your roots … or so Dave opines.
Stop smoking weed and playing video games all day.
If that’s what Tyler did all day everyday for 2010, I’d call it an extremely successful year. I’m jealous anyway.
lol… I very much doubt that was what Tyler was doing in 2010…
-Jean
Tyler, It seems you set your standards quite high. And for that you should be commended. But as I scrolled through the post…the part about flipping the website really opened my eyes. For many..that would be considered a Huge success for the year!
Another success in my eyes..was the PPC campaign. $450.00 dollars NEt..to me, would qualify as successful. Now I’m curious…did you roll it over and keep going?
I guess maybe you’re a harsh critic on yourself. But to me…sounds like it wasn’t that BAD of a year.
Kinda scary to think one more bad year and you could end up making subs at the local Subway, huh?
lol what a funny post. Sorry to see all the fails. I am sure there were a lot of accomplishments in there!
Well, surely not the greatest year for you Tyler, but I know you will be able to rebound and do strong in 2011!
-Jean
All right, a lot of “fails” here, now show us the successes please. Haha.
Just reviewing your 2009 results and that was an epic fail as well. Is this becoming a trend? Are you going to do anything to change? https://www.tylercruz.com/revisit-of-my-goals-for-2009/
You should try writing down your goals every day. Many people claim that this affirmation technique really works by reprogramming your subconscious mind, sou you act toward your goals without even thinking about it.
I try and review my yearly goals every day so that i know where i need to improve. When i do this i can adjust the tasks that i need to do that day to ensure that i am getting closer to my goals. Its working well so far.
Tyler, you know what like the most about this blog and you?. HONESTY !. You could easily lie on each one of the goals to get people exited about developing websites so you could cash with affiliate links.
So, I think the problem was to write on the drawing board and look at every day.
I’m kidding, but in 2011 I wish you realize your desires 😀
Thats right I almost forgot about robot wars, how is that going. Didn’t you get a new guy to work on that as well?
Don’t stress out, use it as motivation to NAIL 2011 and set some new heights!
That’s what I’m doing 🙂
When I first read your post, I was expecting you to say you failed at your goal of making $150,000 because you actually made $200,000 🙂 I appreciate your honesty as it’s very motivating to see you still working hard in 2011.