Thoughts: Goal setting + covid

I’ve recently been putting a lot of thought into moving forward. Asking the typical questions (e.g Where do I want to be in 2/3/5 years).

The answer is not as clear as I would like it to be. I am a planner and an achiever. I like to come up with goals, plans and then execute on them. This last 12 months, I have allowed myself to take a step back from that aggressive pursuit of ‘moving forward’. The reason is obvious, Covid-19 has come and thrown a spanner in the works of everything. Life as we know it is not the same as it was 12 months ago. It is not then unreasonable to allow ourselves the freedom to take a step back and just try to deal with everything else that is going on.

I am not saying that I have stopped setting goals or planning ahead. It is just that I am being extremely kind to myself at the moment in terms of what I can expect to achieve.

Some days it is hard to be motivated. Other days, things click into place and it is full steam ahead.

I am at a point in my career where I have three paths ahead of me:

• Continue as an individual contributor
• Pursue a technical leadership track
• Pursue a people management track

I have a lot of experience as an individual contributor, as do most engineers, and various experiences within the other two paths. (Leading large features, agile process, mentoring, hiring etc..)

My professional development target for 2021 is to figure out which of the three paths I want to pursue. It means searching for opportunities to explore skills along those paths.

I already have some ideas. I love working with a team and improving process/output. I have been a certified scrum master for quite some time and despite not having been as involved in such endeavours in the last year or so. It is definitely an area where I love to work and provide value. I have also done a lot of mentoring. Most commonly with new starters and interns but I like helping people to better themselves or to solve a problem that they are dealing with.

Basically, I’m leaning towards leading a team (either as a Technical Lead or People Manager) as my next step.

Here are some of my (be kind to yourself) professional development goals for 2021:

• Read at least 2 books on leadership or management
• Complete at least 1 course on leadership skills
• Seek out at least 2 mentoring opportunities
• Have at least 4 career conversations with leaders I admire

The keywords here are “at least”. I’m setting these goals as the minimum I would expect for the year. Ideally, I would be doing more, but covid has had a tendency to derail plans and swat ambitious goals away.

This is a small post and I definitely wrote this one more for myself than for any other reason.

It is ok to be having a hard time, to be less motivated or to feel a bit lost and hopeless. We’re almost at the end.

Take care of yourself.