In December 2022, I embarked on my Quest to do “100 Days of Journaling”. This is a completely private journal for me to write and record videos on my thoughts. Just a mental dump to help with my mental health. It was an interesting experience, that I will write about in a post sometime on this site.
There was a lot I learned about myself, and improved upon myself during the 100 Days. A main one is that I need to take more off my plate so I can manage my life better. Looking at my previous 5-year plan, I realize there was A LOT on it. Many of the bullet points felt like they were incredibly idealistic, and so specific. They didn’t feel like they had a solid reason for why I wanted to complete them in 5 years. More so, just that they were the ones I “would like to do in 5 years”.
5 years is a lot of time. If I just had a single focus I can choose to be: A piano playing master, a machine learning expert, a competent gymnast, a profitable blogger. However, all of these skills would only be manageable if any one of them were my PRIMARY focus. I chip away at dozens of skills a day thinking I’ll be an expert in all of them in just a few year’s time. However, just doing them a little each day–while moving the dial forward–wasn’t really effective. I know I can be far quicker in learning a new language if I spent hours a day, every day, just doing that as my hobby. Just doing it about 10-30 minutes a day, every day, makes me as fluent in 2 years as it would take someone who does it as their main interest for a month or few.
Doing Less to Achieve More
My aim is to try to take on less so I can spend more time on a few skills instead of little time on a lot of skills. This means re-designing my 5-year plan, and subject to change in the future. My idea is to not really think of this as a “If I had 5 years to learn Piano, what would I like to get accomplished?”. That puts me in the mindset of primarily practicing Piano for 5 years, instead of the reality that I’ll be doing Piano in addition to a few other life interests.
So, I brainstormed the skills I do want to for sure get better on focusing on in my current state of life. Then I thought “What can I reasonably achieve in 2 years for any of these?”. This allows me to still set my focus on these varying interest, but not pressure myself to try to get a lot done. The 2 year idea creates 3 years of fudge time. Great! Now if something does pop-up I have the leeway to process it in my life, and adapt. As I slowly sunset these goals as I complete them, I can allow myself to spend more time on those uncompleted, or re-evaluate what I do want to complete.
The 5 Year Goals
All the below activities aren’t end-all-be-all goals. They are simply directions for where I want to go. If I’m feeling lost of where I want to go in my practice, or just feeling de-motivated, I have this list I can consult for aid.
- Piano
- Be done with piano lessons (Reason: Focus on completing Quests individually, but passively. Can move onto practicing other instruments).
- Can be completed by: Compose 1 original song (Studying music theory and completing music books)
- Can be completed by: Play and record 1 Quest item song (Practice Synthesisa and buying music sheets can help)
- Development
- Publish Questimize.me for Multiple users and set it to alpha testing (Reason: Want to set this for commercial use, passive income on dream project)
- Can be completed by: Just spend time coding this at least 30-min a week
- Get paid for Machine Learning. Either by putting up a model for sale, being officially assigned to do it as a project at current job, or get a job specializing in it. (Reason: want to solidify familiarity with ML related Quests)
- Can be completed by: Getting Google Certs
- Language Translation App has data collected, model drafted, and a plan designed( Reason: Want to make language easier to study, Quest item)
- Can be completed by: Data collection is the biggest obstacle, learn to optimize this through things like OCR apps
- Volunteer
- Be part of a nonprofit board (Reason: Future long-term career goals)
- Can be completed by: Lack of confidence in communication is being the obstacle. Work on leveling up speaking, and complete speaking Quests
- Going outdoors and help out, Regularly (Reason: Always has been an interested career choice, can fulfill voluntary)
- Can be completed by: Park Patrol, fulfill 30 hour commitment. If Park Patrol is not an avenue, explore other positions with outdoor aid commitments
- Mental health
- Be done with therapy (Reason: Want to be able to manage my day-to-day better, and be happier)
- Can be completed by: This is your choice, but don’t force it. When you feel you have the necessary tools to manage your health and still thrive, feel free to step back
- Media
- Publish 1 comic for Level Every Day(Reason: Want to create a biography, will be good for mental health via reflection, good entry to future Quests)
- Can be completed by: Finish drawing Quest (Drawing in 30 days)
- Can be completed by: Start to draw and experiment with comics regularly
- Post 100 posts for Native Survivalist(Reason: Work on survival and cultural skills)
- Can be completed by: This can be completed later down the line, just stick to maybe a couple of posts a year
- Post 10 videos for Native Survivalist (Reason: Work on survival, culture, and video skills)
- Can be completed by: This is to work on getting over performance anxiety
- Physical Health
- Be done with personal trainer (Reason: Want to save money, and be capable of completing the rest of my Quests independently)
- Can be completed by: 5 Muscle-Ups
- Can be completed by: Handstand 30s (Ideal 60s)
- Can be completed by: 30-min working out per day, every day (This is to assure routine is there)
- Splits stretch (Reason: Quest item)
- Can be completed by: Doing yoga 3-5 days a week
- Supplemental goals[Not required, just further goals if I complete the others]
- Complete one flip (Reason: Back into Parkour/Gymnastics. Also quest item)
- 60s Handstand (Reason: Quest item)
- Enroll in Martial Arts and do that regularly (Reason: Love doing Martial Arts, been wanting to get back into it — May need to get Lasik)
- Life-time
- Complete 12 Quests a year, each year (Reason: Be active in completing my Quests)
- Can be completed by: Aiming to do 1 Quest a month