Goals for 2015

In keeping with my tradition set last year, I’m going to set some goals for 2015.

Sure, goals and resolutions for the new year seem kind of cliché. But setting goals for yourself, both personally and professionally, are a great way to help you grow and achieve success. If you don’t aspire to reach a goal, it’s harder to stay motivated.

A new year is a time to hit reset, and give myself a clear starting point and deadline. Setting public goals gives me some accountability. Here they are in no particular order:

Read 4 fiction books

I’m always reading articles online and I received a few non-fiction books for Christmas. But there are a lot of benefits to reading fiction, including increased creativity. Since I haven’t read much (or any?) fiction since college, one every three months seems like a good start.

Write 1 blog post per month

Something I’ve wanted to do ever since I started writing online is to write more. Most of the time my ambitions turn into just posting photos and Twitter-length posts. With this new blog I want to create more value in my writing with long-form articles such as this one. I’ll continue regularly posting shorter musings and photos on my WordPress.com blog.

Learn a new programming language

I’m going to learn a new technical skill this year. It will probably be Rails, but I’m open to other suggestions. It’s so much fun to dabble and learn new things. Always keep learning.

At least 1 date night per month

Usually when all we go out to dinner we end up not having much adult conversation, instead catering and giving most attention to our two-year-old. It’s extremely important to set aside time to connect more with my wife. I’ve slacked lately in making sure of that. Family Share has an excellent post on ways to grow closer to your spouse.

Contribute to an open source project

Open source software is something I really love about our industry. Allowing anyone to work on and improve a piece of software is a truly democratic way of building something. The top contender for me, and long overdue, is obviously WordPress.

Build an iPhone or Mac app

This is in conjunction with learning a new programming language and includes another goal of building something that uses an API. I have a few ideas but currently lack the skills.

Write 3 songs

Songwriting was once a passionate hobby of mine. After I started my professional career and family, priorities shifted. I’d really like to get back into writing and playing music.

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I figure that by giving clear goals such as “Read 4 fiction books” rather than simply “Read more fiction” it will help me keep it in perspective. With ambiguous goals it’s harder to judge performance and there’s no explicit target.

Did you set any goals for yourself in 2015?