As part of my technical skill development I got my own AWS LAMP server and have installed WordPress onto it and am now using that as my live site
All new updates will happen there – so if you’re interested in any new developments or want to look at my backlog that’s the place!
When I began this journey of 50 for 50 I knew exactly what I wanted to achieve, yet my approach was vague. I jumped in enthusiastically, tackling tasks at random and celebrating early victories. But around the six-month mark, things shifted. The initial easy wins faded, leaving me in what can generously be described as a slog.
At this turning point, I paused to reflect. My loose methodology—guided by unwritten rules—needed structure. I combed through my notes, carefully identifying successful behaviors and pinpointing obstacles. I had my insights, but what now?
Influencers often have catchy acronyms for their frameworks, so I brainstormed names. Nothing stuck until I revisited an earlier entry that emphasized the concept of finishing strong—pushing forward even when victory seemed uncertain. That resonated deeply, inspiring the creation of the finish STRONG framework for goal setting and achievement.
Let’s dive into this empowering framework:
Start Small – Commit to doing just one thing each day to progress your goals. Even on your busiest days, five minutes is enough: read a page, sketch a quick idea, jot down tomorrow’s task. This daily action trains your mind, signaling that your goals matter. Eventually, you’ll instinctively feel the need to keep progressing, and skipping a day will feel like something vital is missing.
Transform Habits – Humans thrive on habits, which makes them powerful tools for change. Start small, choosing manageable habits. The book “Atomic Habits” emphasizes how tiny, incremental changes lead to remarkable transformations. Its key lesson—align your habits with your desired identity—deeply impacted me. While I learned that habits often take longer than the popularly cited 30 days to solidify, persistent effort eventually made these behaviors automatic, seamlessly integrating them into my daily routine.
Rebuild Mindset – Among the framework’s elements, mindset is pivotal. To achieve significant goals, you must reinvent how you see yourself—not as someone who might succeed, but as someone who will succeed. Shifting your self-perception eliminates room for hesitation. My mindset transformation was personal; embracing stoicism profoundly changed my worldview, strengthening my resolve and clarity.
Overcome Obstacles – Despite meticulous planning, setbacks are inevitable. Injuries, overwhelming workloads, illnesses, family obligations—each can derail your progress. But it’s not the obstacles themselves, rather your response, that defines your journey. “The Obstacle is the Way” articulates this beautifully: viewing challenges as opportunities to build resilience and strength. Its three-part framework—clearly perceiving obstacles, taking decisive action, and wholeheartedly accepting difficulties—helps cultivate an unwavering spirit and determination.
Never Quit – You will face moments of deep frustration, when progress stalls or even reverses. Giving up becomes tempting, rationalized by thoughts like, “Who would care if I quit?” The answer is simple: You would care. Abandoning your goals creates subtle self-doubt, convincing you that you lack perseverance. Resist that temptation. Slow down, adjust your timeline, but never surrender. Persistence ensures you ultimately achieve the greatness you envisioned.
Gather Data – Tracking progress became essential in my journey. Initially, I relied on a notebook (OneNote) for quick notes and recaps, keeping everything organized. But it was the Google Sheet that truly elevated my motivation. Each goal had its own tab, and a summary sheet visually tracked my progress through checkboxes and color-coded progress bars. Seeing bars turn blue at 100% completion sparked excitement, reinforcing accountability and highlighting areas needing immediate attention.
This finish STRONG framework transformed my approach from chaotic optimism into structured success, ensuring every step forward was intentional, meaningful, and enduring.
Wow. That was quite a journey. I’m honestly still processing the fact that I managed to complete everything. Looking back, I’ve spent over two decades setting goals, and the highest I ever reached before was maybe 60% completion—and that was with a modest list of just ten goals. When I first considered taking on this challenge, I almost talked myself out of it, remembering past failures. But turning 50 flipped a switch in me. I figured I might not succeed, but I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t even attempt it. Maybe not the most optimistic mindset to start with, but if this experience has taught me anything, it’s that with discipline and structure, you can fundamentally shift how you approach things.
Coming up with 50 goals was an adventure in itself. The first few were easy—I pulled from old, unfinished goals and added new ones that felt both exciting and challenging. But once I hit the 30-goal mark, I struggled. That’s when I had to shift my perspective. I started thinking about what turning 50 really signified. I reflected on what I had accomplished, what I had always wanted to do but never got around to. And then it hit me: I had spent years assuming there would always be time. But what if there wasn’t? Shouldn’t I seize the moment now, while I still had the energy to truly enjoy it? That realization changed everything. Suddenly, the list filled itself. Visiting my father’s hometown in Italy. Buying my dream guitar. Sipping on really old Scotch. Once I reframed the process, it became much easier to round out the list. I even left a few open slots, which I later filled with “Explore AI” and “Complete a Bob Ross painting tutorial.”
As I got deeper into rounding out the 50, I found myself turning to the internet for inspiration. Seeing what others had on their goal lists helped me refine mine. Some ideas resonated, some didn’t, but the process helped me think outside the box. And ironically, one of my late additions—learning about AI—ended up being a game-changer. AI became an essential tool throughout the year. With a goal of blogging about my experience, I faced an immense workload, closing in on nearly 300 posts. Without AI’s help in researching topics, I would have been buried under the effort. I even used AI to critique my writing, offering an unfiltered, sometimes ego-bruising editorial lens that ultimately improved my work.
To keep myself accountable, I knew I needed rules. Once the 50 goals were set, I committed to not altering them to make things easier. But I’m also pragmatic—life happens. In the early months, I tore something in my shoulder, which derailed my fitness-related goals. So, I built in a contingency: I allowed myself to swap out five goals if necessary. This gave me a degree of flexibility while ensuring I didn’t just swap out challenges for convenience. I ended up using four swaps (documented on my website), and two of them were due to physical limitations rather than avoidance.
So how did I pull this off while managing a full-time job, two small kids, and a marriage? With structure. I built a framework that allowed me to make progress without compromising what truly mattered.
The first rule: priorities first. My family always comes first—no exceptions. I didn’t pursue these goals at the expense of time with my kids or my wife. I still coached my kids’ teams, played with them on weekends, and handled all the usual parenting duties. I made sure my wife and I kept our Friday lunch dates, giving us uninterrupted time together. And work? That stayed a priority too. I enjoy my job and wasn’t about to let this project interfere with my professional commitments. With those priorities locked in, anything else became negotiable.
The second rule: do something every day. Even on chaotic days—work was crazy, the kids had back-to-back activities, and my wife was out of town—I could still do something. Read a few pages of a book. Practice Italian on Babbel for five minutes. Write a quick gratitude journal entry. Even brushing my teeth at night, I could squeeze in a small action. The consistency was the key. After a few months, it became so ingrained that skipping a day felt like a glitch in my system. These small, daily efforts accumulated, creating momentum that accelerated progress over time.
The third rule: find hidden time. It’s there if you look for it. That hour-long commute? Perfect for listening to educational podcasts or checking off an album from my music list. Instead of doom-scrolling my phone during lunch, I’d read, write, or learn something new. Even waiting for my kids to finish practice became an opportunity—reading on my Kindle, researching goals, or sketching ideas. Once I stopped treating time as something to kill and started seeing it as something to use, my productivity skyrocketed.
The final rule: track everything. This was huge. I needed to see my progress at a glance, so I built a spreadsheet with progress bars and a dashboard to keep me motivated. If one goal was lagging, I’d shift focus to bring it up to speed. As the months passed and those bars turned blue, I felt the inertia pulling me forward. That visual reinforcement made a huge difference. I also used OneNote to collect ideas, notes, and drafts, which kept me organized and efficient. These tools gave me a comprehensive view of where I stood at any given moment.
As the year progressed, I started identifying areas of wasted time and replacing them with intentional actions. Little by little, I started to see myself as someone who followed through, rather than someone who set goals only to abandon them. That shift in self-perception was a turning point. Once I hit 75% completion, I could see the finish line. In the last 60 days, I went into overdrive, laser-focused on getting everything to 100%. I don’t think I could have sustained that level of intensity for an entire year, but as I neared the end, it felt like shifting from marathon pace to an all-out sprint.
But of course, there were downsides. Sustaining focus for an entire year was mentally exhausting. Between work, family, and this challenge, there were weeks when I was completely burned out. Fortunately, some of my goals—meditation, hiking, drawing—helped counteract the stress. On particularly rough weeks, I leaned into those activities, taking long hikes with my kids to reset. Still, there were stretches, especially in the summer, where I did nothing, and guilt crept in. Eventually, I realized that guilt was unnecessary. I wasn’t trying to become a productivity guru or a social media influencer—I was just a 50-year-old guy trying to accomplish something meaningful. And as I watched my goals falling one by one, I realized that even with breaks, I was still on track.
Another major downside? Free time took a massive hit. Movies, TV, video games—I barely engaged with any of them. I didn’t play a single hour of video games all year, missed most new film releases, and barely kept up with my sports teams. (Not that the Jets gave me much to miss.) These things might not be “productive,” but they’re enjoyable, and I realized I missed them. Sometimes, you just want to unwind and watch your favorite team blow a late lead.
Ultimately, I learned so much from this experience—not just about discipline and productivity, but about balance, adaptability, and what really matters. There were tough moments, but overall, I’m glad I did it. And now, looking ahead, I’m excited to see where these lessons take me next.
This isn’t sponsored by them and I am in no way affiliated with brain.fm but I have to say it is a huge reason I’ve managed to catch up on my tertiary goal of blogging my way through this project.
For months I was focused on completing all the goals but whenever it came to writing something on the site I would always procrastinate or lose focus. Sometimes during a hyper-focus day I’d crank out a few posts as part of an overall super productive mindset, but I was falling way behind – months in fact. Since I knew blogging about all the goals was a goal itself, I started to get a bit nervous – what if it fails because I never got around to writing all those posts?
I was listening to a podcast where one of the guests was extolling the virtues of brain.fm on helping him focus on tasks and I got curious. Can something so simple in theory work on my admittedly scattered ADHD brain? Since they were offering a free trial and discount, I figured it’s worth a try.
I signed up, downloaded the app and tried it out at work with the ‘deep focus’ setting and at first, I really noticed the sounds but after a little while they fell into background noise. I was working and getting things done and I thought to myself I’m not sure this is really helping. That’s when I looked up and saw three hours had passed and I had gotten a lot of deep work done and I didn’t code switch once during it.
That’s the most important thing – my brain is not good at staying on task and that’s why I end up not finishing things or procrastinating because my mind is flitting between 20 different ideas at once making it hard to buckle down and focus. The fact I stayed on task for a few hours was eye opening to me.
Still – it could have been a fluke so the next day I sat in my office in the evening and put on the deep-work station again and started writing blog posts. Four hours later I had written 25 posts making a huge dent in the backlog and again I stayed on task and worked diligently without code switching. For me that was something that I haven’t been able to accomplish in the past – staying on task and writing quality posts not just pushing them out but editing them, refining the ideas and I started adding images and other embellishments that I hadn’t done up to that point.
The next day I repeated the process and wrote 15 more posts. I scheduled them all out for almost two months so each day new content would drop. I was amazed at how productive I was being and that I was able to stay on task. I did a bunch of research and read the articles on how the app works and what it’s doing with sound and your brain and it’s fascinating
I decided to try some of the other modes to see if they generated any different results. I tried the creative mode while doing some drawings and I found that I actually was more on-task and was generating better results. Now, I know this is subjective but I was looking at my sketches/drawings pre-app and post-app and there is an uptick in quality. Is it a placebo effect? I don’t know.. and I don’t care.. I like it and will continue to use the app when I’m creating.
The one mode that I wasn’t sure was that helpful was the meditation mode – I only tried it twice but it didn’t seem to help or hurt my meditating efforts. Meditation is a struggle with my ADHD but I’m making progress, and it is easier now to get into the meditation flow than it was when I started so I’ll continue to do it with the brain.fm station
Just something interesting I’m sharing since I’m impressed with the impact it is having. I have no affiliate link or anything just a big fan!
Some days I put the kids to bed and head down to my office with an idea that I’m going to be super productive and crush a few goals (especially ones I’m lagging at and need to catch up) and I get distracted by any number of things. For instance “Oh, I should tidy my office before I start” or “let me check the social media or see which of my subscribed YouTube channels has an update” and before you know it it’s 11:00 and then I’m thinking “I can’t start anything now, its much too late”
Now, this isn’t every time. Sometimes I fall asleep on the couch ‘catching the last few inning of the Yankee game’ and sometimes I do get a productive streak and end up getting a lot accomplished.
So, the idea is to try to figure out what’s going on during the productive streak and see if I can replicate it, bottle it, capture it somehow so I can ensure that I meet the goals I’ve set out for myself.
6 months into the year (4 months into the challenge) I’m making great progress in a lot of areas but lagging way behind in others. The ‘Art’ one is a particular challenge. While I broadly included videos (in addition to sketching/painting) and I have plenty of ideas queued up I just can’t seem to get moving on it. I LIKE painting, drawing, editing videos, and other creative endeavors I just seem to find other things to do instead. I suspect I’m a bit frustrated with how rusty I am but that can’t be it.
One thing I think might be beneficial is scheduling specific times to work on specific things. For instance – Tuesday night is art night. I won’t do any other tasks on that day until I bring the art goal up to at least 50%. Approaching things with a schedule might help be clear out the excuses but as with most things life tends take more priority sometimes (family time, work, things that need to be fixed around the house, etc.) Having it on the schedule should at least get me past the roadblock it currently is (and with a few hours I can work on multiple projects)
I’m going to work on a tight schedule for 60 days then check back in to see how it goes. I’m hoping it helps me bring all my goals up to at least 50% by the 6 months check in August 13th.
As I set out to create this whole 50 for 50 thing I started looking at it as a system – and every system needs a rule set. Given the complexity there needs to be flexibility built into the system to allow for variance but not enough to encourage avoiding the hard work that will be needed.
The top level rules (general rules not tied to specific goals)
Specific Goal Set Rules
I’ve always managed to be relatively successful during Lenten observation – and as I was considering which of the goals I wanted to pursue as part of it this year I thought to myself “Hey, what if.. now hear me out.. what if you gave them all up?’ The willpower to stop one particular thing is difficult so does adding a few more things make it exponentially more difficult or is it the law of diminishing return of willpower? So in order to accelerate 4 of the 50 goals for Lent this year I’ve decided to give up:
Diet Soda (and sugar soda by proxy, since I don’t drink it anyway)
Social Media
Fast Food
Sugar
I mean three of those things can be easily controlled with a change in overall diet philosophy (linked to my overall health goals anyway) but social media? That is a challenge. I’ve read quite a few books over the last year or two around how social media is affecting our ability to focus and is damaging our ability to relate to other people in meaningful ways (Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke, and Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport are three I highly recommend). It’s enlightening to understand how these social media platforms are directly impacting your dopamine and serotonin release pathways to emulate addictive substances. How many times have we been working on something and really trying to focus and we blink and somehow we’re scrolling social media without realizing we’ve picked up our phone? Breaking this habit will likely be the hardest of all due to the unconscious mind looking for a dopamine fix.
So we start by removing the apps from all my phones, then we block the sites via iPhone content controls and then go in and change the local host on my laptop to redirect all calls to those websites to 127.0.0.1 – this removes the ability of the unconscious mind to take over and forces you to make a conscious decision to visit these sites and you can hope the hurdles you’ve put in place are brakes enough to stop you from doing it.
Not sure what will happen over these 40 days but I’ll be tracking them all in my habit tracker and I can share the tracker weekly to keep myself honest and I’ll share any highlights from the time that I feel are worth mentioning.
I’ve always been a goal oriented person. I’ve been doing public shared goals for close to 20 years now and I’ve never managed to hit 100% on these goals (I think 70% is the closest I got).
As I stared into my fifth decade on this earth I wanted to come up with something other than my usual goals. Something that would be really challenging yet fun and interesting. I started out with my usual set of annual goals but then added blocks of challenges, activities and things I’ve always wanted to do. For a midlife crisis I thought this wasn’t too bad – I mean, I’d like a convertible sports car too but for now I’ll focus in on trying my best to hit 100% on my goal list this year.
This blog is not meant to ‘go viral’ or ‘generate content’ it’s a check for myself to see where I’m at and also help me write more (something I’ve always enjoyed). I’ll share it like I do my goal list and I’m sure once the initial curiosity is over I’ll be the only visitor but that’s OK (besides – blogging and sharing the experience is one of the goals, so it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy)
Without Further Ado – here’s the list of 50 things I’d like to accomplish in my 50th year (personal/medical goals are redacted for privacy)
| See a monster truck show |
| Lose 50 Pounds |
| See all NY/NJ sports teams in 1 calendar year |
| Create 50 art pieces (paintings, drawings, etc.) |
| Read 50 books |
| Visit my family’s hometown (Torre Del Greco, IT) |
| Climb Mt. Vesuvius |
| Run a 5K |
| Meditate 50 times (or more!) |
| Make a dish from 50 different countries |
| Try Paleo / No Grain for two weeks |
| 50 hours of Italian Lessons (Babbel App) |
| 50 TED Talks |
| Learn lead guitar / play a solo |
| Take singing lessons (online is fine) |
| 50 different pizzas |
| 10 Hikes |
| 5 Pullups |
| Finish Python book (w/all exercises) |
| Get my dream guitar |
| Visit Martin factory |
| Watch 5 top movies from each decade of film (50?) |
| Write a song (and play all parts) |
| Do a 72 hour fast |
| Go to Banya at least 4 times |
| Eat at a Michelin star restaurant |
| Eat vegetarian for two weeks |
| Eat Vegan for two weeks |
| Quit drinking diet coke / diet sodas |
| Create family recipe book |
| Make all meals from scratch (where feasible) for 15 |
| Limit social media to 1 hour on the weekend |
| Try a 30+ year old scotch (just a glass obviously) |
| Listen to the 50 greatest albums of all time (RS) |
| 50 hours of ‘learning’ (any subject) |
| 50 hours of Informational Podcasts |
| Learn 10 new songs |
| Track all goals in a public site (IG? Blog?) |
| Get a Bespoke Suit |
| Start Gratitude Journal |
| Don’t eat fastfood (places w/a drive through) |
| Learn to make my own Mozzarella |
| Try a one week dopamine detox |
| No sugar on weekdays (any added sugar) |
| Try a week of gettng up at 5am |
| Try a week of cold therapy (cold showers, mornng tea outside) |
| PERSONAL (Goal Hidden from Public View) |
| PERSONAL (Goal Hidden from Public View) |
| PERSONAL (Goal Hidden from Public View) |
50for50tony.me 