2022 New Year’s Resolutions

A list of goals that I plan to maintain throughout 2022

Typically New Year’s resolutions are goals that are made that are hard to keep and maintain. Usually, they are far-reach goals, a sort of unreasonable expectation of the self.

I plan to keep this a list of habits and larger goals. A list of things that I am actively trying to incorporate into my life. They might have started this past December and that I’d like to keep in my life. They also might be goals that I have set for myself in order to learn more about myself and expand my worldview. They could also be just general things I want to try to do and achieve.

And so, my 2022 resolutions list in no particular order of importance is:

1. Go on more walks/runs: This generally just implies getting out of my living space and reaching my daily step count goals. “More” is a very vague term, and so more concretely, I’ll say “leave my house at least 2x a week during weekdays”.
2. Process my core beliefs: Ah, yes. Core beliefs from my childhood that affect how I connect with people. I want continue to understand myself and my behavior. From a friendly Reddit comment on a Reddit post I found, I’ve found this book: Love Me, Don’t Leave Me. So far, it’s been very helpful in giving me more awareness about my decision making and behavioral patterns.
3. Daily journaling: I started journaling recently to process my emotions when I feel panicked — however, when I looked at my journal, it was almost entirely negative. I realized that if I journaled daily, I could also jot down some positive notes and feel a little bit better about how my days are going. Negative memories already stick out more anyways.
4. Confidently solve LeetCode Mediums/Hards: A part of me still wonders if my perfectionist mindset that was so very strong during my high school years still has a strong hold on my decisions, and sometimes I find that it does. I know I only recently (halfway through undergrad) discovered that I liked programming a lot more than I liked thinking about electricity, and so I still feel a little behind compared to others despite having taken and passed equivalent courses to CS majors. I already feel progress, and although school has made it hard to be consistent, I’ve since graduated, and feel that I can put in the time+energy to truly “git gud”. A more concrete form of this goal is to get the HackerRank Problem Solving (intermediate) certificate, which is on-par with quite a few coding challenges I’ve taken.
5. Pay off my student loans: As I’ve said, I’ve graduated. And unless the government decides to extend the 0% interest on student loans benefit to the end of 2022, I’d have to pay off my loans by July. I’m fortunate enough to be living at home with my parents, so I recognize that my personal expenses won’t be high. (And if I do move out, I’d be employed by an actual employer. 😐)
6. Apply to 50+ SWE/consulting positions: I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel good enough for one of these jobs, but at least I hope that in conjunction with list item #4, I’ll be able to apply as I improve and hope to see that improvement manifest with more final round interviews 😅. I’ll also be looking for career-accelerators/hiring agencies for help as well. Casting a wide net has proven to be useful for many.
7. Explore other career options with science communication: Within the past year, I’ve discovered an ever-increasing desire to bridge the gap between the general public and the tech world. My more serious start to blogging on this platform is evidence of this. Careers are flexible, and while I thoroughly enjoy producing a well-programmed product, I want to also communicate about it. There’s definitely room to do both.
8. Reach HSK4 level in Mandarin: This, I must say, is a recent goal from within the past 3 months. I’m Chinese-American, and despite my conversational fluency in the Shanghai dialect, my inability to fluently communicate in Mandarin is not helping me find a job. There’s this fun Chinese writing app that I discovered called Skritter, and I’ve configured the settings so that I can actually practice my writing skills on a mobile device. It’s also slightly gamified in terms of having a progress bar, so I genuinely am having fun with it.
9. Do something creative with code: I originally had this entry with the intention of completing a solo coding project, but I think something that’s more meaningful is to come up with something creative I can do with code. By doing this, I’m not locking myself into a specific type of project, and at the same I’m able to challenge myself with making something meaningful and can call my own. No matter how much LeetCode I do, if I don’t find the time to make something, I’m just completing problem sets and not solving real problems.

I could probably fill up this list to 10 items to make it a clean number, but I don’t really want to force it. I wanted to make sure that these goals were recent enough that I could write them down and hold myself accountable to accomplish them. Happy New Year!