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What personal goals are you working towards?
Inspired by similar topics such as "what are you reading" and "what creative project are you working on", and being obsessed with structured self-development, I thought I'd start this.
As the title says. Share what your goal is, why you want to achieve it and how you will go about it (the steps/behaviors). You can include a timeline/target date which hopefully will instill a sense of accountability and increase motivation.
I'm also hoping to get some inspiration and/or tips for my own life goals.
If this gains interest I might post this once a quarter for follow-ups and new goals.
I'll share mine in a comment below.
I've been trying to get into effective altruism and trying to find someplace that I can devote my time to either as a volunteer or an employee. The information I've dug into through their website and book seem to both assume that I have a marketable skill that's in high demand, or I have a lot more resources than what I have available-- so I'm kinda coming up short at the moment, but I've admittedly just started dipping my toes in the water.
Between my wife and I deciding not to have kids, and the planet feeling like it's pretty doomed, I've decided I just want to help others and brace for impact as best I can, as it's been the only thing giving me a sense of purpose.
Oooh, if you're not too deep already I recommend this podcast episode with Sam Harris.
I have two, one long- and one short-term.
Consume less of others work and produce more of my own (long-term)
Why: This is not to deny myself the enjoyment of others creative labor but to reduce my consumption overall e.g. mindless browsing of low-effort content or binging on TV series. Essentially, I want to give myself more time to do creative work and learn the necessary skills (in my case, drawing). However, I do still want to be inspired by others.
How: So far I'm winding down the number of shows I am and have planned to watched, and being very selective about the shows I do take up (high quality/inspirational in some way). I've also reduced consumption with website blocking and unfollowing non-friends on social media (except for certain artists).
No deadline per say, but I'm slowly chipping away at it and hope to make drawing a regular activity (~3 times a week) by Christmas.
Improve typing speed - target 100 wpm (short-term)
Why: to make me more time-efficient at work, which depends on a lot of writing. My current typing is also slower than my thinking which sometimes derails my thoughts. And I plan on using that extra time for more proofreading.
How: About 2.5 months ago I switched to the Colemak keyboard layout, which has a more efficient key layout (and apparently less straining, which I can attest to). I have been practicing every morning for about 10-15 mins (more at the start). Ant will continue to do so until I hit my target.
The original goal was 100 wpm by end of August. So far I just hit 60. But I feel pretty good about it because my first day was barely hitting 10 wpm. My previous sustainable QWERTY speed was at ~75 wpm. My new goal is 100 by the end of November
My current main long term goal is to become a linguistics researcher. This will take 7 to 10 years: I'm about to start my master's in the field, which I hopefully will complete in two years w/o any problems. I intend to take one year off after that in order to put aside some money, and then go abroad for my PhD. I've always wanted to live abroad, something I've fantasised about since I was a kid. Now, b/c the state of academia here it's become a need. Anyhow, I'll do my PhD, and I'll become an academic. I'll enjoy research and teaching. That's my life plan, and that's what I'm working towards.
For my short term plans, well, I'll have to survive my first month after moving out and to a different city. I have to pay some initial taxes to get gas running, clean the place, buy furniture and utensils, paint the walls and the ceiling, find a job, and learn my surroundings. Hopefully, it'll all get done before school, which is in October.
Oh boy! If I had nine lives I would want to study linguistics in one of them. What got you into that? Do you have any book suggestions?
I hear ya about moving. I have similar plans as an academic—moving to another country in the very near future. Good luck!
Thanks! Best of luck for you, too!
Back in 2013 I read a (totally pseudoscientific by todays standards) book by Ernest Rénan called On the Origin of Languages. The book and the guy don't offer much info that's useful or not controversial by today's standards (he's a racist and anti-semitist, among other stuff), but it got me intrigued, and since then up until last summer it was something I wiki-walked about. Then last August my plans for an MA in Comparatistics failed, and I decided I switch to something more exciting. I discovered subsequently that linguistics was way more intriguing and fun, so I decided to go with it.
W.r.t. book suggestions, just yesterday I published a blog post documenting my entire preparatory process for switching to linguistics, where you can find almost every single resource I used to date. But if you ask me for the one silver-bullet introductory book, it's An Introduction to Language by Fromkin, Rodman, Hyams: it's broad and fairly deep, has great excercises, and assumes no prior knowledge of the field. All the departments I applied to include it in their reading lists. Great point to start off of, the one downside is that it's mostly mainstream linguistics. Granted I used the 2002 edition (VIIth), so IDK if they fixed it since.
WHAT: Restore and maintain the best general health I can
WHY: I've incurred considerable "technical debt" through lack of self-maintenance during a punishing period at a job I should have left sooner. I want to fix myself, because I hurt, I'm unhappy with how unshapely I've become, and because the list of favorite physical activities I can't do is deeply frustrating.
HOW: Quitting that job was the first step; the second step was to get all the healthcare I'd been putting off, and determine the extent of the damage. The third step was to make a plan based on the results, then systematically implement it.
It's not unlike a technical maintenance problem - unload the system, troubleshoot, make a remediation plan, restore services in an orderly fashion...
But there's no restore or rollback plan for my own body - it's get better and maintain, or suffer 'til scrap.
Right now, I'm working out approx. 2 - 3 hours/day (walking 25 km/week, aquatics, yoga, elliptical and stationary bicycle trainers, weights) and trying creative dietary modifications.
I'm down 5 kg after eight weeks. It was a very slow and painful start from barely being able to walk 100 m. It was mostly achieved by getting some chiropractic adjustments*, anti-inflammatory prescriptions, and a steroid injection, then adding a little more activity each day, as well as appropriate rest.
Hopefully, I'll eventually be able to achieve and maintain more exercise intensity in less time.
The ongoing plan is to unload another 8 - 10 kg excess weight from a hip joint that's failed 20 years earlier than usual, in preparation for replacement surgery (ETA November). Intermediate goals are to increase strength and endurance, further reduce pain, and improve mobility in other affected joints.
[Rheumatology results pending, but it's probably a bad case of inherited early-onset inflammatory osteoarthritis; my mother would have been wheelchair-bound in her 50's if she hadn't started swimming like a nuclear submarine. There are no miracle drugs for "old people disease", regardless of how young you are when it starts.]
There's some ongoing chiropractic and massage care in there, because biomechanical changes from the extended orthopedic neglect have thrown other things out of whack - as I stand up straighter from the hip release, the shoulders start aching, and so on.
I've been working with sleep tracking tools to get better rest while dealing with chronic pain and depression. There are experiments with CBD (good results for daily pain and inflammation control), medical THC (hate the fogginess, but it's great for pain that would otherwise interrupt sleep, and consequently results in better depression control), and some reasonably well-tested dietary supplements like glucosamine/chondroitin, resveratrol, and omega-3 fatty acids.
Creating a local social life, volunteering, political activity, and a few other mental health/quality of life rebalancing tools are part of the picture - I'm AFK far more than I used to be.
Longer-term goals:
WHAT: Get back to some kind of paying work
WHY: I've never known quite what I wanted to do when I grew up; the journey to find out has been more interesting and rewarding than the destination. I've got a year's cushion before I have to find the next gig, but I'll need to mimic adulthood again eventually.
Meanwhile, sub-goals:
WHAT: Complete the PMI Professional Project Manager certification
WHY: It's an easy and relatively cheap way to maximize my employability and salary, however much I hate the guild-style gatekeeping and credentialism.
HOW: Plan is to grind this out while I'm laid up recovering from the hip replacement. I've already got more than enough professional hours to qualify, it's just a matter of memorizing the appropriate jargon in the PMBOK and regurgitating it on the exam. ETA, 12 weeks.
Finish the edX Python course series (in progress, a couple of chapters a week)
WHY: I've been wanting to get a modern programming language down for a while - mostly, I'd been doing basic scripting. On a professional level, the lack of a CS degree has been an impediment in passing HR screens for some jobs, but I can at least show effort in staying up to date on current toolsets. And, I'm having fun.
The Python coursework is also a preliminary to next goal - deciding whether I want to do an 18-month Master's in Data Science. The nearest major uni has a well-regarded, but expensive, program, and I have an advantage in admissions as an alumnus with public health statistics background through their school. Even part-time/online, though, the degree is a substantial monetary investment for a remaining career span of 15 - 20 years to retirement. Nonetheless, I'm more interested in that than technical project management.
Other misc goals:
Get the jewelry workshop established again
No suitable space yet, but we're house shopping. I mainly need a heated garage or basement space with ventilation and a water supply. When I had a dedicated business, I was earning about half what the same hours of technical/managerial labor provided, but it's still a variant on Big Goal above,
and a major source of creative satisfaction and social contact.
*The published evidentiary basis for chiropractic is not good, there's little consistency in theory and methods, and a great deal of snake oil in some approaches. You are welcome to dismiss it, and I won't argue. I had an accidental opportunity to do my own empirical case-control study on chiropracty's relative effectiveness (compared to orthopedic surgery) for traumatic back and neck injury. I've found it personally helpful over the years, with carefully selected practitioners. YMMV.
Wow that's a lot you have going on! Hope you still make time to love yourself and not get overwhelmed with all :) It happened to me...
If you're okay with unsolicited help: Diet is the primary factor by far over exercise when it comes to body composition. Exercise is great for everything else, though (yay hormesis!). Also, consider a prolonged fast (3-7 days). I recommend checking out resources/podcasts by Peter Attia and Rhonda Patrick. They both have sound advice and the resources to back it up. This is speaking both from personal experience and professional interest. I wish you the best and hope you don't hurt yourself from the intense exercise!
It's a little different for a middle-aged, average-framed female who got stuck in a mainly chair job for a year.
Unless I add in some pretty stiff amounts of exercise and rebuild lost muscle, I can eat an average of 1,200 - 1,400 calories a day (including extended fasting) without losing weight. Fasting is also the territory of more muscle wasting if I'm not extra careful about protein intake.
This isn't about brutalizing myself further; I'm privileged to be in a place now with great fresh food, and I'd rather include a healthy, maintainable diet than do more harm with an unrealistic attachment to a goal. As I mentioned, this is a holistic project to work on both physical and mental health - I've got some eating disorder history that I'd rather not revisit, too.
Let me know if you have any questions about the PMP test or process!
I will, thank you! I'm still in touch with the old girl's network from my former job (other engineers, EMR, and clinical imaging project managers who had to follow that path to progress in their careers), but I'll be happy to take advice from outside that neighborhood.
It's all general intro so far. I've tinkered with R a little to get more direct access to data analysis, but concluded that I wanted to spend that attention on learning more about database architectures instead, so I'd have a better understanding of what I'm writing queries against.
Yea, I stopped doing anything other than eating while I eat. It's so much better, being mindful allows me to take a break, enjoy my food and, most importantly, chew enough!
Another strategy I found useful for me is to have short and long categories of videos. So if I don't have the time for a 50 min episode, but I want to put my feet up/veg out for a short period I'll watch something with a 10-20 min runtime.
I use keybr too! But do you use anything to practice coding? I imagine key usage is different?
I'm sorry you're going through such a painful period in your life, and I hope I can offer you some advice to make things easier. I've gone through a similar experience, and I've learned some things about coping with paralyzing social anxiety and body dysphoria.
Make a practice, however much it raises your anxiety, of asking other people questions, and listening with all your intent.
This relieves the stresses of having to present yourself, and sets aside the need to perform according to others' unknowable expectations, in favor of gifting them with your attention.
I don't think that this is an explicit technique as part of any cognitive behavioral or other therapeutic regimen, but it's such a basic tool of human interaction that it features in every sales and business manual dating back to "How to Win Friends and Influence People".
The point of this exercise for ASD and anxiety isn't to gain people's trust so that you can manipulate them. It's a means of building trust in yourself - that you're not so wildly different, that you're capable of engaging in at least one form of mutually satisfactory social interaction, and that you don't have to be trapped in reliving your own toxic experiences.
I've learned so much, and had the chance to help other people, through persistent engagement in the skill of listening. It's absolutely vital, and it's also worth paying attention to the ways in which we're socialized to compartmentalize this skill as masculine or feminine.
Understood, and my sincere apologies for causing you any distress.
For a long time I've been in a cycle where spending money stressed me out so I wouldn't do anything but save up. I became depressed as a result of this boredom, with nothing to do because I didn't want to pay for anything, didn't want to go outside except for work, and in general was just a note to be around so I didn't want to socialize.
I'm learning to have more fun. It's hard to overcome the anxiety of spending money, but I've been trying to overcome it by treating boredom like hunger. If starvation is something I have no problem spending money to avoid, boredom should be treated the same way if I don't want to end myself.
In the past few weeks I've played more video games, went shooting with a friend from work, went skating with my wife, and more. I've felt a lot better about life in general, and I've had more to talk about with people. I barely notice that my savings aren't growing as fast because IIm not as worried about it. It's been nice.
Increase the weight I can lift: I've already made good progress here. But my schedule has been wonky the last couple of weeks and I've only been to the gym once in that time period. I think it's a good place for me to drop some weight and work my way back, though, as I feel I was kinda getting a little ahead of myself before I took this break.
Comp and improvise competently:: Ultimate goal here is to sit in at one of the jazz jam nights around here and not be totally lost. It's not that hard to practice some of the stuff on my own with a metronome and backing tracks, but I'd really benefit from practicing with people. It's probably easier than I think to find people to practice with (preferably other advancing beginners), but I haven't, yet.
Read more: My reading has really fallen off this year. I originally planned to read "less" than last year (I managed 52 books), but read BIG books* (~> 700pgs and with some "literary" merit). Hasn't worked out for me, so far, so I may push that goal to next year while still reading some books of average length this year.
Pay off debt/spend less: Well, this should be here.
*Here's a list, roughly in descending order of "big"ness
I know of 50-40 pages long books that have million times the intellectual weight of some multi-volume series or some books with hundreds of pages. There are short stories that are more "heavier" than entire novels. I'd recommend against taking pages as a benchmark, size don't matter.
Sure. Nowhere was I conflating length with merit. My main goal is (was) to read long books. Not because I think they're inherently better. Just as a challenge. But, of those books of length...I'd like to read something with a bit of weight. Rather than...I dunno...some 800 page shitty fantasy novel, or somethin.
Yea, it's a legit strategy use by athletes. Forgot what it's called... But I learned it from my trainer when I was learning Olympic lifting, to drop down a bit (5-10 lbs) if you don't meet the target of your current cycle.
What's your plan for that? I struggled for a while until I started naturally waking up 1hr early, so I decided to use that time to read and now bam—I read everyday! Which was a goal of mine too.
I believe the term you are looking for is "de-loading." Although, I'm dropping more than the recommended 10%.
As far as reading, well, last year when I was on a roll I would pretty much read 2-3 hours a day. A goal would be 100 pages on the weekends, which would work out to ~3-4 hours depending on the book. Right now, I think I'll just stick with weekends. I'll strive for the more regular habit next year.
And, reading in the morning is great! I used to do that, as well. But, I've been staying up and waking up later, these days. If I can get my sleep schedule where it used to be, I could set aside a couple of hours in the morning for reading, which would pretty much put me on the same pace as last year.
I used to have many goals, usually "learn x", "make y", "do z".
What happens is that l focused one thing for a month, found something 10% more interesting and started doing that while dropping the former.
Result is that none of the things l want to do get done and l'm forever cycling between the things l want to do. Not because l get bored but because there's always something more interesting, curse of the ADHD l suppose.
So my goal is on one level of meta: Be able to work on one thing at once and finish it before moving on to the next.
I've already made some progress: l own Skyrim since release, played it a lot but never actually finished it, so l spent the past two months playing from start to finish. Completed storyline + DLC main quests and that was nice.
Current goal is to finish Factorio; launch a rocket and automate everything on a larger scale than l usually make.
I'm using games to train this in my free time but l hope it translates to more serious things too, like drawing or 3D art or studying a language.
Yea I'm like that too, but on a bit of a longer timescale. I find what helps me is defining what your values are around a certain goal. Then you can always keep that value in mind to motivate you regardless of what is interesting.
Playing guitar like Chet Atkins, Jerry Reed, or Brian Setzer; keeping my current physical form forever; finding a place far away from modern hooplah, but with electricity - plumbing a plus but not indispensable.
I love Jerry Reed's playing. Can do without the singing tho. Have you checked out Tommy Emanuel? Another finger style player who will blow you off your feet. He's on YT.