Content Provided by Sierra Morris, CLS Junior Investment Research Analyst

Now that it is January, a lot of people are focusing on what they would like to change about themselves over the course of the year. I’ve never participated in ‘New Year – New You’ goals in the past, but I made a resolution to start making resolutions this year. Sitting down to decide what I would like to accomplish in 2014 is the easy part, the more important part is deciding how I will make myself accountable for reaching these goals. I came to the conclusion that writing these down in a blog would expose my goals to enough people that I would be too embarrassed to explain and make excuses on why something I set out to do was not accomplished. Without further delay, here is not what I hope to do, but what I WILL do in 2014.

1. Read one professional book a month. I have always enjoyed reading and it is not uncommon for me to read a couple books a week. However, when people ask me what I have read recently and what I have learned, I always have to mumble under my breath about learning how to defeat a dragon or what weaknesses the fae queen has. I don’t want to eliminate reading only for enjoyment, but I have made a conscious decision to read a book that will add to my professional knowledge at least once a month. One book that I keep hearing about that is on my list is, “Poor Charlie’s Almanac: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger.”
2. 2.       Start a master’s degree. May will mark one year since I graduated with my undergraduate degree. While I understand that this will suck a lot of my time, I also know that the longer I wait the harder it will be for me to re-enroll and get back in the swing of night classes. I have always known that I wanted to pursue a master’s degree and it looks like this will be the year that happens.
3. Record all investment decisions and review quarterly. Without recording decisions and rationale, how will I know where all of my successes and failures were? By keeping a running record, I will be able to review trends and prevent myself from making the same mistakes over and over again and hopefully pick up some good habits along the way.
4. Gain a basic understanding of coding. I have never been very tech savvy, although I do understand the importance knowing how to use all the tools available to us. For this reason I thought I would learn a bit about the intriguing (and intimidating) language of coding. My goal isn’t to become the next app developer, but rather to know enough to hold a basic conversation with someone on the subject without going cross-eyed. I plan on using www.khanacademy.com and their step by step tutorials to accomplish this.
5. Wedding Planning. Ok I realize that planning a wedding isn’t much of a ‘resolution,’ but after starting the planning this weekend I am realizing just how much time and effort this will be, so I am listing it as a to-do accomplishment this year. Extra points added if I can do this without turning into a ball of stress.

Let me know in the comments section what your resolutions are for this year or if you have any books for me to add to my list!

0098-CLS-1/15/2014