01
Jan
2011
New Year, New Site, New Goals
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2010 was a great year for me. I want 2011 to be truly legendary. I have specific goals to make that happen, but this website isn’t the place for them. However, I do want to share the five guiding principles I’m basing my goals upon:
- Be more adventurous
The world is full of beauty and excitement, we just need to step out our front doors and be ready to embrace it. It’s easy to fall into familiar routines: the same restaurants, the same route to work, the same vacation destinations, the same entertainment choices, the same people surrounding you. This year, I will make different choices. I will fill my mind up with new experiences and new friends. I will step outside my comfort zone. I will be more adventurous.
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.” – Helen Keller
- Get excited and make things
Reading and thinking are easy. Unbolding my RSS feeds and bookmarking articles gives the false impression of “doing something”. But pressing against the inertia of the blank page, taking the first step of a journey of creation feels daunting. This year, I will spend less time reading about code and more time writing it, less time planning projects and more time working on them.
“I look at creative projects like they were Sudoku puzzles — you can stare at them as long as you like but you won’t suddenly see all the numbers. You have to start. You have to find one box to fill in, and from that — another one reveals itself. You might not be able to solve all of them, but as long as you know it’s possible, you’ll keep trying. And no matter how many you solve, each new one begins with a bunch of empty spaces” – Ze Frank
I will also focus on projects that, for lack of a better term, fill my soul. Channelling my passions will provide the drive I need to get excited and make things.
“Passion is the closest thing we have to alchemy. It can turn almost anything into gold.” -Stephen Tobolowsky
- Learn more
“Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.” -Harriet Martineau
Input is one of my strengths. I read a lot. This year, however, I want to practice Thoughtful Learning, by which I mean that I will read with a notebook beside me, taking notes, jotting down my thoughts, filling the margins with questions about all the many things I don’t understand.
By allowing all those bits of knowledge to germinate over time, spending time thinking about what I’m learning, and occasionally reviewing my notes, I hope to open myself up to what Steven Johnson, in his book “Where Good Ideas Come From“, calls the “Slow Hunch”. The Slow Hunch might seem like a flash of insight but it is really the end product of thoughts and ideas that have been stewing in your subconscious for months or years.
- Teach more
“To learn and never be filled, is wisdom; to teach and never be weary, is love.” -Anonymous
I spend a lot of time learning, yet very little time teaching. That’s foolish, since the two are so closely related. I know that every time I give a speech, write an essay, or even do some quick informal teaching on a subject, I understand it better than I did before. This year I will teach more, spreading knowledge and gaining deeper insight in the process.
- Be Awesome
Being adventurous, getting excited and making things, thoughtful learning and teaching. Those first four principles all add up to a solid heaping of awesomeness, and if I can adhere to them I’ll be halfway home on this fifth one, but I intend this to go a little bit further. I’m talking about Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 Hour Rule“. This year I will deliberately practice those things I want to be truly great at. Excellence is not only a worthy goal, it’s achievable. Not pursuing it is squandering a gift to the world that only you can give.
“Be so good they can’t ignore you.” -Steve Martin
So, there you have it: the five principles that will guide my actions this year. Unoriginal, obvious, and very unspecific, but also (at least I hope) life-changing.
2011 isn’t going to become truly legendary by itself!
Image Credits:
Indexed
BlackBeltJones
Steve Cadman
