I played in the Guinness World Record tournament on Pokerstars on Sunday. I built up a huge stack early and unfortunately I had to sit out for the rest of the tournament just after the 2nd break due to something coming up. I ended up cashing in the top 10 percent of the field even while sitting out thanks to my early work.

If that isn’t a great analogy to how alot of my goals have gone over the past year then I don’t know what would be. I move from one thing to the other even if the previous job is not completed. I am at a crossroads where I feel like nothing is getting done and things just keep piling on.

I really don’t know how to articulate it all that well, but I know that change is in order. I have talked about it over the past month or so here, and the turn of the year is pouring the cement over the hole I have dug.

I have a laundry list of goals that I want to attain in this coming year. I just hope it doesn’t make me feel too overwhelmed. So lets get to it:

My resolution for 2009 is to be Healthy and Wealthy!

Pretty simple and maybe a little selfish on my part, but with this overall resolution I have many smaller goals to set for myself:

1. Work out for a minimum of 30 minutes EVERY day.

Back when I played baseball in college I was in much better shape that I am today. I have put on way too much weight and it is time to do something about it. At just over six feet tall, I am topping the scales at over 270 lbs. and my playing weight back in college was 195-200. I am hoping to get back to below 210 at some point in the next year.

Getting started will be the hardest part of this goal. I know once I get into a routine, things will become much easier. In the past, I have never had a hard time putting on muscle, but keeping the fat off has always been a struggle. I am looking to be doing tons of cardio workouts to shed the pounds.

2. Start an online business or businesses.

I have a been doing plenty of research over the past couple of weeks, and I am getting that much closer to finally getting a domain name and hosting a site with the main purpose of making money.

At the same time, I will be offering a service. With the ideas I have at the moment, most of the services that I will be offering are informational. Even this blog of mine can be looked at as an informational portal. I have thought about moving this blog to my own domain and possibly adding some advertisement banners to try and bring in some extra cash. But at this point in time, I don’t want to monetize this blog.

3. Surpass my goal to 10k in poker.

Ok well this was kind of a goal that was supposed to be reached over the past year. I must admit that I am actually kind of disappointed with myself for letting myself slip up a few times. Each slip has proven to be disastrous in terms of reaching my goal. But I am still above where I started, and that is pretty much the only good thing I can say about my BR situation.

Over the next year, I WILL reach this goal and hopefully surpass it. Though, I haven’t played much over the last couple of weeks, I am playing better than ever and I know it is just a matter of putting in the hours and staying strict on bankroll management. So when it comes to hours, I hope to play 20 hours a week.

4. Eat healthier.

With my current job, I am always on the road. Usually just day trips, but nonetheless. When it is time for lunch, I am left choosing between unhealthy fast food restaurants. So I plan to start making a lunch to take with me. I also plan to start drinking more water and drink less sodas.

This goal ties in nicely with the working out for a minimum of 30 minutes a day goal. After all, one reason why my weight has gotten to where it is now is due to my poor nutrition habits.

5. Get on a better sleep schedule.

Another goal that will mesh well with my other “healthy” goals. I currently don’t even have a sleep schedule. Some nights I will go to bed at 1 AM, other times I might go to bed as late as 4 AM. When it comes to waking up, I will often wake up anywhere between 7:30 AM to 2 PM depending on how sleep deprived I am or what time I went to bed the night before.

I want to have a more structured sleep pattern. This might not be the easiest goal to reach for me, especially since we have a baby on the way. It has nothing to do with my poker playing either, often times I am just fooling around on the internet until 3 in the morning. It is pretty sad when I say that my most productive hours in the day are between 11 PM and 3 AM.

I will post here as I progress with each of these New Year Resolutions. Without doing it myself, I don’t feel qualified at this point in time trying to give pointers that can be found elsewhere. I will hopefully have some helpful tips to anyone that might be trying to attain the same goals as I find things working out for me. I feel I know what I need to do in each area, it is just a matter of doing it.

Wish me luck, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Back in October ’07 I set out to reach an online bankroll level of 10k. I knew I could do it, it was just a matter of learning that one dire lesson that seems to be vacant in my poker repertoire. That lesson is bankroll management.

I set this goal after losing over 2k in about a week’s time. At the time, it was the highest that my online bankroll had ever been. It took about 3 months to build, and in a blink of an eye it was gone.

So I deposited $100 with the intent to never go broke again. At the same time, I was set on trying to start building a bankroll and see if I can’t make some serious money playing online poker.

It has now been a year since the start of this goal. When I first started the goal, I honestly thought it would take anywhere from 8 to 16 months since I am not a high-volume player. However, I definitely thought I would be further along than I am now. Below is a graph of how my BR has fared since starting this goal of mine:

Starting at $100 I reached 1k in a little more than a month’s time. I was well on my way, then I hit one of many bad patches. I battled on though, and hit 2k by around the 3 month mark. I would eventually hit my high point of just over $5,000 in the 7th month.

Then I went on deadly tilt during and after my trip to Vegas in June. I was chasing losses, playing poorly, and running bad all while playing levels that would actually require me to have a bankroll of over 20k to truly withstand the swings. It was a combination that could be the end-all for many of poker players. Eventually I snapped out of it, and I started this blog here.

Since starting this blog, I have had my highs and lows, and again was still playing outside of my bankroll. Then I finally hit a point to where I was at a level where I had reached just 1 month into this goal, the 1k mark. I took a break, and have played a couple times since then, but overall just haven’t played hardly at all as my motivation is just not there.

It has been a really disappointing ride thus far, but I am not giving up. I will reach my goal, just not as soon as once hoped or personally expected.

Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible. ~ Anthony Robbins

Setting goals is an important step to take in order to get anywhere in life, and in this instance poker. I have always had dreams of playing poker as a living, but in this game it truly takes money to make money. So it only seemed right that my first “big goal” was one to reach a certain bankroll level.

I have posted previously about my “goal to 10k” and though it has not gone as smoothly as I had once hoped, I feel like I am back on track to reaching this goal (current BR: $4314.02).

Starting at $100, reaching $10,000 can seem almost unattainable. However, I am one that usually sets my goals really high. I have always held the belief that if you can set your goals high, and if you just barely miss, at least you will be a lot further than you would if you had just set a small and easily reachable goal.

You have to set goals that are almost out of reach. If you set a goal that is attainable without much work or thought, you are stuck with something below your true talent and potential. ~ Steve Garvey

Sometimes, a long-term goal can be easier looked at if you narrow it down to small short-term goals. For instance, recently I have been trying to profit $100 a day. If I keep that outlook, and at my current bankroll level, I could possibly meet my goal within 60 days of poker playing.

However, since poker can make you very volatile if you have a wrong mindset, you can not beat yourself up for missing a day or even losing $100 for one day. In fact, it should be expected. Variance is not fun! You just always have to keep your long-term goal in mind.

What other goals do I have for poker?

1-To make a living playing poker.
2-Play in a big buyin event such as the WPT or WSOP Main Event.
3-Become a top tournament player (ranked on P5s).
4-Become a large-winning cash game player in multiple games.
5-Reach a TV final table.

Now all of the goals I have just named might just be a “pipe dream” like that talked about in the movie Rounders. But if I can just reach one goal at a time, no matter how small, it is only a matter of time.

Now what are your goals?

A goal properly set is halfway reached. ~ Abraham Lincoln

Another reason for starting this blog was due to my “goal to 10k.” I started a thread on PokerXFactor describing how poor my bankroll habits are and I often deposit $100 to let it climb to over 2k over about a month or two to just lose it all in about a week.

So I established a goal. One that would take me from a $100 deposit on Pokerstars to $10,000. Not being a high-volume player, I felt it would take me anywhere from 8-14 months. Well, this goal was started in middle of October. It has been about 9 months.

Where do I stand? My bankroll on Stars as of now is $2,538.30 plus W$368. The highest my bankroll has been since starting this goal was $5,077.31 (about 2 months ago).

I could sit here and tell you about the trials and tribulations so far with my goal, but I am looking at this switch to a blog as almost a “starting over” point. I will say that, I should be alot higher than $2,900 and had a couple of cards gone my way I would be well over 12k by this point. But that is poker!

I will try and update my bankroll goal as often as possible. But knowing how repititive things get after starting the thread on PXF, I am not going to let it be the only thing in this blog, and maybe not even the main thing.