I’ll start out with these long term goals by writing out a list of goals that first come to mind – some more vague than others. Here’s the list:
Now I’ll whittle this list down to five things that I can work on for some period of time for the next 5 years. Let’s make these goals a bit more specific instead of just some broad concept, so I have something to actively work towards.
These goals are what my company would consider SMART Goals. They are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. It’s specific in the sense that I use action words and state what I do exactly, measurable because there is a way to evaluate each goal, achievable because they’re not something completely impossible, relevant because it makes sense within my life right now, and time-bound because I have a deadline to get them done by. These help you to achieve what you want because you have something you can hold yourself accountable for instead of just saying something like the vague list of goals from before (i.e. I want to lose weight!).
Now let’s “define my current reality” in relation to the roles and goals that I have defined for myself. The article has this to say about doing this:
Before we get to where we want to go, we need to know where we’re at right now. Take a look at each one of your roles and the life areas where you’ve established personal goals. Write down your current reality in regards to each one. Be brutally honest with yourself. Don’t sugar coat things. It won’t do you any good.
My relationship with Julie is great. We get along wonderfully and we always value each other’s input. Lately we’ve both been making strides towards taking an active interest in what the other does on a day-to-day basis, even if it’s not something we’d normally be interested in. Julie will have a story to tell about one of the kids in her classroom and what they may have accomplished, and I’ll have a story to tell about some irritating bug in my code or the latest terrible interviewee for a position I’m on the hiring panel for. However, we do seem to be in a bit of a rut of the same thing every day. We eat out so often it has lost it’s specialty. We don’t go on “dates,” but we do spend a lot of time together.
I am a great developer. I am not a braggart by any means and I actively try to be humble in my beliefs and actions, but I am a great developer. I consistently get feedback from my leader, my peers, my clients, and my friends that they are continuously impressed with my work. Being on an interview panel for a software developer position has enabled me to see just how far ahead I am of some others in my community. I know that there is always more to learn, but sometimes I need to take a step back and appreciate the accomplishments I have so far in being a developer.
I currently have one pretty lucrative freelance gig. It pays decently well, and the work is challenging enough to keep me engaged. I hope to get more clients once I wrap this one up, but for now this one gives me enough work to keep me busy outside of my full-time job.
I try pretty hard to be a good friend for those that I am close to. I make an effort to regularly talk to and spend time with who I would consider my best friend, and try to stay close to my other friends too. Just last night we attended a hockey game that one of my friends played in, and our entire friend group had a blast. I don’t know the first thing about hockey and it is not normally something that I would be interested in, but being able to cheer my friend on was an absolute blast and I’m glad I had the opportunity to support one of my friends like that.
I’m not technically a student. I don’t attend a university or anything similar, but I am a student in my own mind. I challenge myself to learn something new every opportunity I get. The nature of my work forces me to learn new things all the time, but I thrive on new knowledge. I can’t get enough of it. I will forever be a student until the day I die because I will never stop learning.
This is one area that I am lacking in. My gaming community is suffering from lack of leadership and lack of activity. I have tried to take the reins, but continue to put it off and leave it on the back-burner. I need to get back on track with it and give the community some proper leadership so those that still have interest have a home and a place to play games with like-minded people.
I have an official mentor role with the Code Louisville program I volunteer for, but I am a mentor in what I do every day. Some of my peers are people that I could take the opportunity to mentor in many ways even outside of programming. I could do a better job of this for the people that are immediately close to me, but I prioritize other things above it.
I’ve gotten on the wagon and fallen off so many times so far this year. I think I actually hit this goal at one point early in the year, and then got lax with my efforts and started gaining a bit more weight. I get angry with myself that I can’t keep myself on track for something like this. If I can’t have the self control to choose healthy things to eat – something that should be relatively simple – then how can I have the self control to accomplish anything else?
I have had a lot of stuff going on at work that has taken my attention elsewhere. My leader fully supports this idea and is willing to help me get access to the space we have at my workplace to host a meetup around a prominent technology in Louisville that is lacking a place for it’s audience to go. I need to find speakers and gauge interest around the idea, but I just haven’t had time (or haven’t made time).
I’m not going to define my current reality around this in a public place, but I will say that I think it is more than doable with my skillset and my current progress in my career.
Right now, having a private pilot’s license is a pipe dream. I look at the small planes flying overhead around the small airstrips in town and dream about the ability to just go and fly a plane whenever I want, wherever I want. I haven’t had the money to afford the ability to take these lessons, but hopefully within the next couple of years I can do that.
This is another that I don’t have written down anywhere. I have tons of thoughts rattling around in my head about what a course for this could look like, but I always hesitate and think that I don’t know enough to teach someone else about a technology so massive. But on the flipside, the best way to learn something is to teach someone else.
The next piece of the blueprint is defining 5 action steps that I can start doing today for each reality or each goal. I’ll do that for a few of these each time that I create a journal entry over the next few entries.
What are your goals? I’m challenging you to write one SMART goal that you want to accomplish sometime soon. Give it a deadline, some way to measure your level of success, and state exactly what you want to do.