Last year I made my New Year resolutions in April. I wasn’t going to do them but I was inspired by a conversation I had with Strauss Zelnick who told me that every year he writes down his short-term goals (annual) and updates his long-term ones (a decade or so) for both personal and professional. I think Strauss has figured out a lot of stuff in life, so I have no problem trying to shamelessly copy him. Looking back I never wrote down my professional goals. I don’t remember why, but it’s probably because I’m in a bit of a transition period and wasn’t ready to really commit time to it.
I started with a regret minimization framework. I wrote:
By the time I’m 80 years old, I won’t regret spending as much time with my family as possible, having read a bunch of books and being knowledgeable about the world, knowing myself and what makes me truly happy, and living a happy life, having traveled and explored the world many times over, spending a ton of time in nature, overinvesting in relationships with friends and family.
That’s a lot of stuff, but I stand by it. Kind of generic, but people have been at this figuring out happiness thing for a long while and this reads like happiness to me.
Here are my long term goals:
I guess I couldn’t figure out the travel bit.
And my short-term goals with commentary:
Two things stand out to me here. First, there are just way too many goals. Second, I never revisited them since jotting them down (until now). I’m going to try to whittle them down to what’s most important for the short term based on where I am today.
I like these a lot more. Narrower, more focused, and everything feels very achievable by the middle of the year. I also like incorporating how I “feel” about something instead of just objective number-oriented goals.
And my long-term ones:
I’m going to revisit these here twice a year. Or at least that will be my goal 🙂 I hope this is a good way to hold myself accountable.
New year, continuation of me.