Belated birthday resolutions
Table of contents:
Why?
It was my birthday recently. And I've always been a fan of resolutions. I look at them as an opportunity to learn, plan something great, and stick with it.
Also, posting them here is an incentive to follow through! By all means, remind me of what promised to achieve next year and make me feel bad if it doesn't happen :D
Thanks, previous year!
First, I'll take the opportunity to look back on my previous year and what has gone well. Be thankful, yada yada.
- Finished my undergraduate education while working an average of 25 hours per week (last two quarters). Thank you, UC Santa Cruz for having a good CS program and gathering a bunch of smart engineers too. I am truly grateful of all the opportunities UCSC has offered me.
- Learned a ton about web development, the web in general. I'm much more confident with the knowledge acquired about my field now. Thank you, Mozilla (mostly webdevs ;) for that. And also thank you, internet!
- Became much more organized and productive. (This is something I look forward to growing even further in the next year.) Thanks to people I've spoken with, a bunch of books I've read and talks I've listened to, as well as one, very interesting seminar at UC Santa Cruz entitled "Transformative Action".
- Traveled to a bunch of places (Romania, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Miami, Yosemite, etc) which motivated me to make a list. I am thankful to really good friends (one in particular) without whom I would not have done this!
- Slowly but surely came to a decision about going back to school: will wait for at least one more year before applying to graduate schools. Maybe more.
What now?
For this next year, I've decided to keep it simple. Just 4 concrete actions:
- Understand my place on the web
- Take more risks
- Take more steps back, think ahead
- Use the power of choice
Understand my place on the web
Okay, I'll be honest - this one is a stretch. How about just understanding it better??
I know I want to be on the web. What exactly would my role be? What could I do that would make the most difference and at the same time coincide with my values. For this year, I will probably look at this more from a web developer's perspective than anything else.
Ultimate goal: more confident about the purpose of my contributions to the world.
Take more risks
True - this year has had its risks (jumping from a plane, some crazy hikes, other social or work-related acts that were out of my comfort zone), but by and large, I haven't taken chances as much as I know I can. I also want to be more confident in my abilities and this will help.
I want to become more open to risk. Maybe I will try something like rejection therapy. The areas I want to focus on are:
- social skillzz - uh, need I say more? computer nerd + social skills = ???
- webdev work - initiative, initiative, initiative
- UX - sometimes I don't do as good of a job on UI/UX because I stick with the comfy
Ultimate goal: become much more comfortable with failure.
Take more steps back, think ahead
Getting over-involved in little things can make me forget about what's really important. I want to think about the future more and the past less. That's what my ZTPI index indicates too ;)
- Decide on when I will go back to school
- Elaborate on what I see happening for me in the next 2-5 years (I'll be happy with 2, but 5 would be an overachievement :)
Ultimate goal: In the words of Brian Tracy and Philip Zimbardo, I want to expand my time perspective.
Use the power of choice
Choice empowers us. Two things here:
- I want to make an active choice when the opportunity arises - instead of, say, passively deferring.
- Say no more. Much too often I try to be nice and say yes, but time does not permit me to do everything.
Ultimate goal: become more realistic about how much I can really do, and stop feeling like a victim sometimes.
Onward, I say!
12 months from now, I will report back. Seriously.
Thanks to everyone who made this year of my life awesome!