New Year's Goals

Pragmatism, perseverance, and patience are three essential qualities required for anyone wishing to achieve their goals. Pragmatism is one that I'm good at. I can assess a situation, determine what's going on and what needs to happen, and then choose the most effective next step based on what's possible and desirable. Pretty easy, really. Most folks are good at this one.

Perseverance is the quality of continuing toward something of worth even when it seems too difficult to do so. Seven times knocked down, eight times got up. Getting up to run when it's thirty degrees outside, studying a language instead of turning on the teevee, losing the job or the contest or the girl and still showing up the next day, ready to go.

Patience. It's nearly a lost art in this day and age. The world moves so fast that it seems possible to get anything one wants, right now, with little thought given to how the mechanism works or who might be affected in the process. In this arena, waiting for something goes against the grain. It's even more difficult when you're plugged in 24\7 and constantly in gogogogo mode. I've always had a fondness for trade and vocational schools. Could I start one that teaches patience as well as plumbing?

Here, in no real order, are some of my goals for 2011. This is not a complete list, and things will be modified as time goes along, but it's a reasonable start.

Fitness
Goal: To run a sub two hour half marathon.
Fitness goals are the easiest. I can say, "I'll run a half in this time, and to get there I'll do this and that." A simple progression of steps leads to the prize. What are my steps here? Well, I'll run three halves (Rock 'n' Roll Dallas, White Rock, Dallas Running Club) interspersed with selected 5- and 10k runs. I'll lift a training program out of Runner's World magazine, do all the cross training I can stand, and work to get lots of rest. In the meantime, my general fitness will improve, which is the real effect I want.

Home
Goal: To finish all of the paintwork before the newest arrival arrives in June.
This is also an easy goal to set, the steps are clear and well-defined, the outcomes known in advance. The biggest challenge here is finding the time to complete all of the little tasks that have remained undone since SWWNO was born. Finishing the doors, cutting in the ceilings, repairing the hardware, sealing up the windows, replacing the cabinets, and killing off the persistent clutter are all things that can either be done one at a time in a one task per day manner, or they can be done in a ten minutes here, ten minutes there way. Since I really don't ever have two free hours to string together, I'll have to do it a few minutes at a time.

School
Goal: To get my GPA back above 3.80 by the end of the calender year.
I am not sure I can do this one. Time management is the bugaboo, but the real monkey wrench is school-life balance. Studying with partners is far more effective than studying alone, yet my family requirements dictate that I spend the majority of my time at home. There's nobody here I can study with. Except maybe the cat :-) Perhaps technology can help out here. Skype or some other videochat program might do the trick.

Self
Goal: Lots of little ones - become fluent in Russian, pick up the guitar again, reconnect with my interest in drawing, find a church.
Sometimes goals are little more than a laundry list of to do action items. They have to get done before you can move on to the next things, though. The goals in this category will probably change and evolve over the course of the year.

Career
Goal: Publish two articles in a peer-reviewed forum (Journal, Magazine, et cetera).
Research is at the center of a good science-based career. The desire to know more, translated into action via the application of physical laws, is the essence of engineering. Getting into the field requires some fee, some toll to satisfy the troll on the bridge. Publishing research is a great way to get a foot in the door. I'd like to do something with dissipation of wake turbulence and also with high speed propeller research. Oh, I also need to start looking into grad school.

That's it for now. I don't seem to have time for much more. There are more goals - something about a garden and writing short stories. These goals aren't yet really flashed out, so they'll have to wait for another post.

Happy goal-setting!

Cheers,

-- Zach