I have been writing about my new year resolutions for the past few years now (2013, 2010, 2009) and while I am sure not many of you are reading this, I keep coming back to these posts during the year to take stock of what I have planned and course correct when needed.

In keeping with tradition, here is a quick recap of how my life has progressed in 2013 and what I want to focus on in 2014.

The Recap

In 2013, I had planned to do the following:

Learn to Dance — I never got around to doing this. Kept delaying things and it really went no where to be honest. I do want to learn to dance. I kept telling everyone that I was a penguin on the dance floor and then Happy Feet released. Now, I have no excuse. Maybe this year will be better.

Get a Tattoo — I know where I want the tattoo, but I still haven’t decided what the tattoo will be. I have spoken to many people about it and they all tell me that you will come to know what that will be. Until then, I don’t want to push it and get something that I might regret later.

Learn to Swim — Finally learnt to swim. For now, I can go freestyle, but I think it was an absolutely essential life-skill that I had to learn — especially considering 71% of our planet is made up of water — which was finally accomplished this year. In 2014, I will maybe learn some swimming styles. Let’s see.

Become Fitter — I nailed this one. Seriously. For the last few years now, I have been reading up on the Paleo Diet and not really been doing anything about it. It was an all fart, no shit situation. In 2013, I took the plunge. Fully. Ate fresh food 70% of the time and took to walking, sprinting and lifting heavy weights. I feel fitter and younger than I ever have in the last 3 years. Along the way, I also started www.PaleoDiet.in and starting posting there as often as I could. In totality, I have increased my strength by 3x this year.

Along the way, I also got myself the Fitbit Flex, and the Aria Weighing Scale. I now track my physical activity, weight, BMI, food intake for rough calorie measurements and sleep patterns. While doing all this, I was introduced to the concept of Quantified Self.

I was just gifted a Blood Glucose tracker by my Secret Santa and in 2014, I plan to track my blood glucose levels too. I want to be able to tinker with new ways of how I can analyse all this data and come up with solutions to improve my health.

#GyaanKamDhandaZyaada — this literally translates to “talk less, work more”. I would like to believe I made significant strides towards that this year. 2014 only seems more promising.

Project GoldenEye — When I find someone interesting on Twitter, I want to know what makes them so. I want to know what influences them and whom they engage with. Imagine getting influenced by the same thoughts and ideas. Project GoldenEye was for me, a way to get influenced by some of the best Thought Leaders in the internet advertising industry. Suffice to say that it has been a grand success and I want to continue the same in the new year.

There were other major life milestones that I passed this year:

• Sent the parents abroad on a vacation
• Travelled to London. My first trip outside India.
• Started working on my very own big-data startup with a bunch of friends. Lots of long hours, and learnings from this experience. Learnt to manage client expectations better.
• Survived the long-distance relationship. Finally got engaged to the girl of my dreams.

…moving on to 2014

While I do have a list of smaller goals to achieve this year, I am realising that in totality, I need to focus on just 3 things to ensure that this year is the best of my life.

I need to be able to Plan everything better. Start in advance and account for all variables, freeze on a reasonable deadline and map out an actionable roadmap for all activities.

While I could see myself improving in the planning department in 2013, bringing all those plans to fruition was where I thought I could improve. This year, I want to clearly focus on Execution. I have come to believe that it is the only way I can make 2014 better than the last year.

Most often we start working on any activity with a half baked idea of what the final outcome of that activity will be. Thanks to better planning in 2013, I have realised that most often, the outcome is not as I had imagined it to be when planning for an activity in its initial phases. I want to seriously start focusing on this to ensure that I put in place checks and balances that make the final product/outcome almost exactly as I had initially imagined it to be.

So, that’s it for this year. Here is wishing you and yours a very happy new year.