Inspired by this awesome post, I want to take this time to reflect on my life goals and what I hope to accomplish by the end of the year.

2018 was a wonderful year where I have been able to grow a lot personally and professionally. I was in Santa Barbara for my last gig. During my time I have made lifelong friendships, explored various hobbies, and even tried new things outside of my comfort zone.

I want to take this space to jot down my goals for this year. I have a few big projects that will push my boundaries this year in hopes to help me grow as a person.

Create a niche website that delivers value

I have entrepreneurial dreams and as a practice and first steps, I want to build a niche website. I expect fully to make tons of mistakes but that is how I’ll learn and grow. This will be the biggest projects this year. Through this project, I hope to learn the following:

• Learn more about product management
• Make me a better web developer
• Learn to delegate responsibilities and not do everything myself
• Solves a real-world problem

Complete reading my booklist

I want to develop the habit of reading books more rather than scrolling through my blog feeds. This is a really tough one because nonfiction can be very dry and boring. Blogs, on the other hand, are intentionally click-baity, appeals to our emotion, and take less mental energy. But they can easily be a form of procrastination. It's also hard to ingrain the information in my head. Reading books, on the other hand, has a much better return for my time and information stick much longer.

Here are the list of books I aim to finish this year

• The Effective Engineer
• The 4 hour workweek
• The E-Myth Revisited
• The Lean Startup
• Becoming - Michelle Obama (Audiobook)

Besides the obvious benefits of reading, I hope to achieve the following goals:

• Learn more about entrepreneurship
• Get better at removing distractions. Unlike reading articles, books require a longer attention span. That means I’d have to kill all unnecessary distractions like the following:
  • Being away from my phone
  • Social media: Yes I have a social media addiction problem. I am currently adopting a less aggressive version of this guy by setting timers on my social media phone apps.

Travel more

After my recent trip to Barcelona with my family, I realized how much I missed out on traveling. My trip expanded my horizon beyond the Southern California bubble. This year, my goal is to save money for traveling.

Replace solo activities with social experiences

By solo activities I mean Netflix and video games. I want to replace those with more lasting memory activities like hanging out with family and friends. This would strengthens my bond with my beloved ones. After all, I am an emotional human being and selfishly in need of a support system.