We’re getting closer to the end of the year, meaning New Year’s resolutions are just around the corner. I like to set goals for myself all year, but there is something exciting and empowering about the new year and setting goals for myself.
I wanted to share the process that I go through, because I usually start thinking about it around this time. I’m a planner. I plan things. So as I start looking back on 2021, I also start looking to 2022 – side note, I literally had to look up the year…I wrote 2020 at first…that’s how the past two years have gone.
In this post I’ll cover this year’s goals, how far I’ve come, and what else I need to do to round out the year. This will give me an idea of what I’d like to start working on for 2022.
My biggest goal this year was work related. Last October I was laid off from what I had thought was a pretty solid job. Turns out, no job is truly solid. But I digress. Thankfully, I was hired on with another company almost immediately. I moved in a slightly different direction that I had originally planned when I got into tech, but it seemed to be a good transition for me.
I started working for BlockFi as a Quality Automation Engineer in November 2020. I’ll go more into my job in another post. Since I started out in this job so late in the year, one of my main goals for 2021 was to get myself well-established in the company and make it so I was too valuable here to be laid off.
It was a tough, fun, and extremely rewarding year when it came to my “day job.” I quickly found myself the dedicated QE (Quality Engineer) for 11 different product teams. This means I was the sole tester for over 30 software developers. It was insane, and not at all sustainable. But I actually enjoyed what I was doing and ended up getting a very thorough and deep knowledge of our entire platform because of it.
This, in turn, made me really good at onboarding new QE’s as we hired them. And it made me good at interviewing for new hires as well. So I quickly started moving into what was essentially a “lead” role.
Thankfully I worked for people who recognized what was happening and worked not only to help take some of the pressure off of me, but also to reward me for my efforts in the form of a promotion. So, right around my 7 month mark with the company, I was formally promoted to a Technical Lead in Quality Engineering.
I’ll go more into all of this another time, and I probably already went into too much detail, but I wanted to give all of the background as to HOW I reached this goal. It was more than I expected, but I’m extremely proud of it.
A smaller goal was to start getting healthy again. As you can tell from some of my previous posts this year, that started to happen, then I got sick and was derailed. While I’m working through whatever is going on with my health, I’m still trying to live as healthfully as possible.
With 2020 being the way it was, I honestly didn’t set goals as I usually do. Being the planner that I am, I typically set S.M.A.R.T. goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound. “Getting healthy again” doesn’t quite meet that criteria. Nevertheless, I know I’m working towards that, and it will most likely be my top goal for next year.
I’ve also been working on balance in my life overall. Balance in work, life, family, friends, and hobbies. This gets a little wonky with me, as I’m sure it does with most people. And my tendencies toward ADHD aren’t always helpful, but I think I’m getting there. My next post will go into more details about planning my S.M.A.R.T. goals for next year. It’s pretty obvious health and balance will be the main goals, but I’d like to also get back to settings smaller, monthly goals. I like to call this “chunking,” but more on that next time.
Thanks for reading to me ramble once again. Stay positive. 🙂
The Morning Bell 