I’ve always kind of internally rolled my eyes at the concept of goal-setting.
I’m not exactly sure why this was the case, but my guess is that I’ve just always assumed that a rough idea of where I want to go is good enough, as long as I’m taking steps toward that abstract “place”.
The problem with this is that while I may be moving closer to these abstract goals, it’s happening at a slow, meandering pace.
Since I have pretty liberal control over how I spend my time, I should be using this to my advantage as a catalyst to getting where I want to go.
But I haven’t really known where I want to go.
I figured knowing where I didn’t want to go was good enough.
And sure, knowing what you don’t want is arguably just as important (if not more important) than knowing what you do want.
When I was fresh out of college, I spent a lot of time uncovering the things I didn’t want.
I didn’t want to be another depressed sardine on the train, commuting two hours to a job I hated, 5 times a week.
I didn’t want to have someone a year older (and arguably, dumber) than me, treating me like a peon.
I didn’t want to have to answer to entitled parents about disciplining their spoiled children.
I didn’t want to learn esoteric software in the trenches of the slow-moving and often, unrewarding world of academia.
My intolerance to doing things I don’t like has been something that has quickly steered me in the right direction. But the “right direction” has always come by accident, since I’ve never really had a concrete roadmap for where I want to go.
So today I’m putting my lack of goal-setting to rest. And what better way to do that than share my goals publicly to an audience that doesn’t exist.
OK, I lied. I’m not quite ready for that because I don’t want to rush or intermingle this project with my daily writing habit.
However, I will get started on putting these goals together today.
Once I have something I’m satisfied with, I will post it here on the interwebs so I’m held accountable by at least myself, and maybe you?