Goals are a declaration of a person’s ambitions and aspirations. They are a way to encapsulate progress in different facets of people’s lives. To have good goals means to have well-defined goals. Each goal should be measurable, should be lofty but attainable, and should push people out of their comfort zone. Here are some the goals I want to accomplish by the end of 2020. The first two goals are pretty straightforward whereas the second two are a bit more open ended.
1. Climb V10 Outdoors
For the past almost 3 years, I’ve been an active rock climber, and I think a climber is a only good climber if he/she can climb V10 outdoors. Right now, I’ve only sent V8 outdoors, so I’m training hard to get that V10. I also think there’s less value in climbing so much just for the fitness (nothing wrong with the lifestyle). Climbing is so much more than just pulling hard. It incorporates the science of movement, community, diligent training, and pursuit for personal accomplishment that becomes increasingly intricate and rewarding the harder you climb.
2. Write a screenplay for a short film
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve enjoyed watching movies, both new and old, but only recently have I started to learn about the film making process itself. The last few months of 2019 were a period of heavy reflection for me, and I found much solace and guidance in film, especially the classics from directors like Ozu, Tarkovsky, and Scorsese. I’ve wanted to have a long term creative project for a while now, and I think that there is no better time than now to sit down and write a beautiful story. To go one step further, I find the most complexity and elegance in film, but since I have no film background whatsoever, I’ll start by writing a screenplay for a simple, yet profound short film.
3. Advance my career
This one is hard to define because as someone who has only just started his career, it’s hard to know where it’s headed and what skills to develop to set myself up for longterm success. I can measure this goal in terms of a promotion/raise or just a set of skills that I learned. For now, I’m rather committed to the software engineering track, so to satisfy this goal, I would have to improve both my soft skills (workplace communication/stakeholder management) and hard skills (learn a new programming language, see a large project through end to end, learn technologies like kubernetes/networking/databases, etc.) When I reflect on these goals at the end of the year, I’ll probably call it a success if I feel like I have something sizable and tangible to show myself.
4. Improve my focus
Like the previous goal, this goal is also difficult to measure. I feel like one problem that I have my inability to maintain focus. I feel like I’m naturally a very curious person, so I want to try to learn as many different things as possible. However, bouncing around different areas of focus leads to zero depth in any, so for 2020, I want to be able to have deep, sustained focus in select personal charters. I’ll come back to how I can measure this later, haha.
Cover photo: a staircase I came across in Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia
