Goal Setting and Planning

In a world of instant gratification, it’s easy to doubt our happiness and quickly doubt our unhappiness. “Am I really unhappy, or am I just unhappy with things right now? Am I just mistaking this for true unhappiness? If I make a change, am I giving up long-term reward for short-sighted thinking? Am I just being ungrateful and a typical millennial?”

Yesterday, we had a guest speaker who introduced us to Wait but Why’s series, the Cook and the Chef. Although the blog is about Elon Musk, it is ultimately about the process of self-improvement, and how to define, achieve and refine our goals. The talk was really well presented and during the whole presentation, I kept thinking to myself: “if only I’d thought this way when I was making my changes, instead of jumbling the process!”.  The methodology suggested generally was as follows (check out the blog for better descriptions):

• identify goals (all of them! Don’t be shy!)
• define reality…but don’t get bogged down in conventional wisdom
• Figure out the goal pool: i.e., where your goals overlap with reality
• Figure out an action plan, and a feedback loop to refine the goals
• Continuously reassess, and compare every step against data

This message resonated with me. I had experienced a good year (or more) of cycling through aspirations followed immediately by self-doubt and self-defeating thoughts, punctuated with long sessions of anguishing over the details of why my aspirations were crazy, and why my dissatisfaction wasn’t real.  Perhaps you can relate to my thought process: “I’m unhappy, I hate this…but am I really unhappy or is this just me being unhappy right now now? Well, maybe let’s look at jobs and apply…but who’s going to hire me? I don’t have the right degree, I don’t have the right experience, I’m not good at this or that. Shouldn’t I be grateful for what I have? How can I be so ungrateful for my position? I should be appreciating the opportunities I’ve had more. I’m too old to be switching careers anyways, people only hire others for Y field straight out of university”. I’d mull over this whole cycle of thought for hours as I shuttled between cities or late at night, as I’d try to fall asleep. (protip: Existential crises are not good sleep aids. Try picking another time of day to ponder life choices). 

In retrospect, had I followed the suggested methodology in the talk, I think I could have defined my goals and started my action plan much sooner (and had more confidence in myself in the process). In a brainstorming session, I would never dream of trashing another team member’s ideas while we were still generating ideas. Why on earth did I think it was ok to do this to myself?

Once I was a bit more certain that I wanted a change, I started reconsidering, and my own method in figuring out a career path was far from illogical or non-methodical (in fact, I followed the methodology recommended in perennial classics like ‘what colour is your parachute’, ‘the pathfinder: how to choose or change your career …’, ‘I don’t know what I want, but I know it’s not this …’, etc.). Based on this, I took the following approach :

• look into why i was unhappy, and to what extent. Make a deadline for myself for when I definitely wanted to be out by.
• read books and internet posts, try to see what I was good at, what I liked, what I definitely didn’t like
• narrow down to 2-3 career paths and map out a few ways to get there
• do a cost benefit analyses for each map and pick one

Although they all suggested some form of reality check, either they suggest doing a reality check of my reality check, or I simply didn’t hear the advice or think it relevant. The problem with the method that I used was that I didn’t separate out my goals from reality, and I didn’t do a good reality check in the earlier stages. In fact, my perception of self was so distorted at this point, I had a real struggle figuring out anything I could potentially be good at. I had a hard time committing to a career path with this lack of confidence as well, since I’d constantly be wondering “but what if I suck at this? I would have wasted X years to find this out, and be out $YY, and maybe I’m just better off where I am now”.

With these limitations in mind, I realized I was quickly approaching the timeline I’d set for myself and had a deep thought about what core things I liked and disliked about my job. With a steady fear of ‘analysis paralysis’, I ended up giving myself a deadline to figure out what I liked, didn’t like, and what my next steps would be, and some form of end goal.

I ended up picking web development because it seemed interesting, it felt like I was joining the rest of my friends in the 21st century (not to say that mining is low-tech by any means, but it is different!), it was still analytical with some creative flair (like my last career), the job seemed quite flexible, there were jobs in cities, and the self-help books and websites I’d read had suggested I might be ok at it (so maybe this was something even I could do). It fit my picture of myself and my shaky reality. As I continue on this journey, I’ve become more confident in my own abilities and choice, and I’m quite glad (at least at this point) that I’ve made this change. I feel like I could be at least okay at this (if not good at it, some day after much more work), the people I’ve met are incredibly supportive and interesting, the community here in Toronto is alive and kicking, and it’s amazing to see what we’re building from scratch (and the conscious decision that goes into every single web page).

That said, after hearing this talk, I am starting to toy with the idea of learning data science and machine learning again, even as a hobby, now that I’ve shifted my perception of reality. Maybe I am capable of learning this. Maybe it’s not so crazy. Right now, things are busy, but I’m realizing that there is never time for things we don’t make time for. Let’s see how things go.

Anyways, long story short, quality talk, left inspired, lots to chew on. Back to rails!