Goals: A Personal Framework

Also: Goals for Q1 2017 (and H2 2016 in Review)

(NOTE: This is a reproduction of a post I shared as a Facebook Note in early January 2017; People seemed to find it useful, so I decided to share it in a public-by-default space.)

I deeply believe in a growth mindset and maintaining ambitious personal goals. I’m not exceptionally rigorous, but I try to revisit my personal goals on a quarterly basis or so (as opposed to yearly “New Year’s Resolutions”). I find that tighter intervals enforce more clarity and focus, and I like to fold new learnings into my goal setting regularly.

I don’t usually share my goals, but I’ve enjoyed seeing posts about resolutions this week, so I revisited my list, added some notes about my methodology, and decided to share it.

Five Life Pillars

I divide my life into five major pillars. I’m always looking to make progress in each of them, but I put specific emphasis on a few at a time. I’ve learned the hard way that major, simultaneous change in all pillars is difficult to manage and makes me unhappy.

• Career
• Personal and Hobbies
• Home
• Relationship
• Friends and Community

H2 2016 In Review

The second half of 2016 was focused on Community, Hobbies (Music and Travel), and Home.

On the positive side, I exceeded my goals around DJing after a slow start, and 2016 was a year filled with informal gatherings at our home, Deep Haus. In contrast, Burning Man was substantially more difficult and taxing than I expected, I didn’t get very far with music production (yet), and we spent a little less time traveling internationally than I expected (~40 days).

Overall, I was reasonably successful against my major goals and I’d give myself a “B”. (This feels like a good outcome to me; Consistently getting an “A” implies my goals aren’t ambitious enough.)

Friends and Community

• Burning Man: Start a new Burning Man camp, recruit a core set of campmates, and establish a presence on playa. [B+]

Personal and Hobbies

• DJ: Learn how to DJ techno and house music. Play and publish at least two live DJ sets. [A-]
• Music Production: Learn how to use Ableton and publish at least 1 music sketch per month. [F]
• Travel: Spend at least 60 days outside of North America. [B-, actual: ~40 days]

Home

• Home: Furnish the house nicely, and host people casually (or formally!) at least once a week. [A+!]

Major Goals For Q1 2017

The start of 2017 will be primarily focused on Work / Career, Hobbies, and my Relationship. I have two specific, measurable, achievable major goals in each of these three life pillars. I expect to hit at least 80% of these goals.

Work and Career

• Business: Start and work full-time on new business by the end of Q1 2017.
• Product: Launch a new product publicly by the end of Q2 2017.

Personal and Hobbies

• DJ: Play at least one live DJ set and publish at least two studio mixes in Q1 2017.
• Music Production: Produce and publish at least two new music sketches per month in Q1 2017.

Relationship

• Relationship: 2 specific goals, [REDACTED].

Experiments / Stretch Goals

These are a series of other, smaller goals that I’d like to accomplish over the next few months. Some are stretch goals. I expect a lower achievement rate (roughly 50%) on these and they are strictly less important than hitting my major goals.

Work and Career

• New Connections: Meet with at least 10 new people professionally by end of Q1 2017
• Startup Investing: [REDACTED]

Personal and Hobbies

• Music / Events: Organize and host at least one critical listening event by the end of Q2 2017.
• Music: Establish a lightweight brand for my musical work.
• Snowboarding: Snowboard at least 9 days during Winter 2017 (Stretch: 15 days).
• Nutrition: Try an Intermittent Fasting experiment for at least 4 weeks in Q1 2017.
• Exercise: Hit and maintain 10% body fat and 160+ lbs by end of May 2017.
• Travel: Visit and stay in NYC for at least 3 weeks, Europe for at least 6 weeks by end of September 2017.

Home

• Cleaning House: Conduct a thorough “spring cleaning” by end of Jan 2017.

Relationship

• Relationship: Two specific stretch goals, [REDACTED].

Friends and Community

• Deeper Connections: Get to know [REDACTED] better by spending at least 5 “deep hang-outs” with each by end of Q2 2017.
• New Friends: Add two new close friends by end of Q2 2017.
• Burning Man: Recruit new campmates, decide on focus areas, and delegate work by end of Q1 2017. Take on only one major personal project.

Other Personal Themes

I’m also continuously working on a few personal themes, without specific / actionable goals. Each of these can generally be boiled down to a fear response.

I find that allowing fear to drive my decision-making is among the most frustrating situations I can find myself in. To address this, I try to be particularly honest about these fears and aggressively root them out. It’s an ongoing challenge and I’m not nearly as successful as I’d like to be.

• Fear of Judgement (Manifests as: Procrastination / Perfectionism / Communication slowness / Not asking for help)
• Fear of Missing Out (Manifests as: Slow responsiveness in planning)
• Fear of Disappointing Others (Manifests as: Not setting boundaries)
• Fear of Losing Agency / Control (Manifests as: Poor time discipline, Poor delegation)

Non-goals

In updating my list, I considered a wide variety of other focus areas that I’m interested in. In order to avoid spreading myself too thin, I decided these are non-goals for right now.

• Festival: Organize and host a music + art festival. (I really want to do this, but I think it’s a bit too much to take on right now.)
• Meditation: Start a daily meditation practice. (I might still do this if it serves my other goals, but I’m not setting it as an explicit goal yet.)
• Writing: Some sort of daily / weekly writing goal.
• Books: Read <N> books per month. (I read a lot of short-form non-fiction on the Internet and don’t make enough time for books. Realistically, I don’t see this changing soon.)
• Auto Racing: Visit the racetrack at least once per quarter. (I desperately love auto racing, but it’s taken a backseat (ha!) to other hobbies.)
• Photography: Something something take better photos and post them more.
• Art Projects: Make a thing in VR. (Seems fun, but much lower priority for me than other forms of art.)