What is the point of having goals? They allow us to go closer towards some kind of life and freedom that we want. I think it’s important to have goals as they help us to guide our way. I think Tony Robbins or someone said that having a goal is like having a destination and a map when going on a road trip. Without it, you wander around aimlessly.
I think there are multiple different kinds of goals. There are goals like what kind of work you want to be doing, and there are goals like what do I want my life to look like in 5 or 10 years. There are goals of where I want to live, what hobbies I want to do, and more. I think at this point in my life I want to focus on a few key goals:
- What financial situation do I want to be in in 10 years
- What do I want my living situation to look like in 6 months
- What kind of work do I want to be doing in the next 1 year, and in the next 5 years.
It’s easy to get confused when thinking about goals, because for some of us there are so many things we want to do. Or we don’t know what we want to do at all. I feel actually both of these ways, and it goes back and forth often. I want to rock hard in my web development career, but I also want to work on scoring gigs as a DJ, I want to start a store selling physical sewed products (like drawstring backpacks to start with), I want to host events, I want to create a successful blog and video site and following. Derek Sivers (https://sivers.org) mentioned in a podcast with Tim Ferris that it’s possible to work on something different in your career for 10 year spans each, and be able to accomplish multiple things in your life. Sivers called this “not being a donkey”. He said that we shouldn’t be stifled by indecision, because we can choose to do one thing for a while, make great progress in it, and then move on to something else.
Areas of focus in web development
I feel like at this point, I want to continue growing my passion for web development. I want to focus on the areas and projects of web development that excite me the most, and that make it possible for me to grow the most. I think it’s a great career and it offers so much freedom and opportunity that I really value. Because of being a freelance web developer – being able to work remotely and choose how many hours a week I work – I’ve been able to live in California, Seattle, Portland, and New Orleans in the past year. It’s been a lot of fun, and I plan to continue traveling and exploring new places. I want to live in other major cities in the U.S. like Miami, Austin, New York, and Las Vegas – and eventually move to Europe and Asia, to live in Barcelona, Thailand, and France.
I really like to write and to make videos as a web developer. I get alot of satisfaction when I see that I’ve made videos that have helped people. I love when people comment on my videos and tell me that this helped them alot. This means that I am filling a space of demand in the market, and that is a good thing. Making videos and blogs is a great way to help others and also simultaneously build your own brand and reputation. I think spending an hour a day or so on building blog posts and videos related to web development, goals, and even book reviews, is a great way to continue to grow myself, and to show the world who I am. This will help me to not only move into work that I increasingly enjoy more and more, but also to be able to discover in myself what it is that I am really drawn towards. There is a book that I am wanting to read about this by Seth Godin, called The Dip. He supposedly talks in there about how in a career you can find periods of boredom, but you can push through and keep discovering your passion within your field. (I actually just went on Audible and saw that the member price was $6. Picked it up right away).
Some web projects are a lot more fun than others, and some days are just boring
Coding projects
I know that there are some projects that I get really sucked into. In the past these have mostly been projects where I am learning how to do something new, and building some somewhat complex functionality by using raw code. I enjoy the puzzle aspect of creating solutions with code, and it really feels like creation to me. It’s fun being able to do so much in the web with the power of code.
Making videos
I really love to make instructional videos when it comes to coding. It gives me a great feeling of satisfaction when I publish a new video. I like it because it shows to the world what I am working on, what I like to do, and what my talents are. I think my YouTube channel is a great portfolio for myself. I enjoy making YouTube videos, and if I continue to grow in this area I believe I will even be able to monetize the videos that I make. It sounds like a great side hustle.
Writing blogs
I enjoy writing, and it helps me to think more and to reflect on ideas that I have currently. I feel that writing a blog like this is very useful, because it gets out all of the ideas that are floating around in my head. I’ve found that just thinking about things in everyday life is not nearly as useful and introspective as writing about it, or as making a video about it.
Goals – What are my main 3 goals
I want to know what my top 3 goals are, and I want these to be in my conscious and subconscious focus, so that I can continually move towards them, and so that I have something steering me.
Goal #1 – Web development expansion – Work with more clients to have choice over projects, and more flexibility for traveling overseas
My first goal is career oriented. I want to grow my client base as a web developer. This will allow me to have more choice of projects to do. It will grow my skillset of negotiating, writing proposals, and touching up my portfolio. Having a larger client base will mean that I don’t have all my eggs in one or two baskets, and it will also allow me the freedom to move overseas and still have steady work. This will be great for especially the first few months or year of moving overseas, so that I can have some stability and continue working as a web dev when I move over there.
How to get there
- Go on Upwork and find more jobs to apply to
- keep writing blogs
- keep making videos
- work on social media marketing
Goal #2 – Owning a single-family rental property
I just met a man named David here in New Orleans, and he was talking to me about real estate and his rental properties. Real estate is something that I’ve been interested in for a couple years, and me and David were both fans of the Bigger Pockets Podcast, as well as Brandon Turner’s book, The Book on Rental Property Investing.
My second goal is to own a single family rental property, within 2 years from now. I will be able to save up $20k for a down payment in 1.5 years, and then I will have 6 months to find a property and close. I will be able to have rental income and this will help me on my move over to Europe.
How to get there?
- focus on analyzing real estate properties and having an eye on the market
- listen to Bigger Pockets podcast
- Keep working 30 hours a week at least and saving 20% of that every week for investment in a rental
Goal #3 – Get some gigs as a professional DJ
Being a DJ is something that I really enjoy, and something that I’ve been interested in trying out professionally for many years. I have been encouraged by my mom, sister, and friends to go for this professionally, but I haven’t made the leap or put the time in yet. I feel that sometimes you have to focus to put aside time for your hobbies, otherwise other things can end up filling up your life (and as Derek Sivers said in his “hell yeah or no” concept, if we let little mediocre things fill our time, we don’t have the time to do the things that really set our passion on fire).
How to get there?
- create a playlist for playing at the clubs in New Orleans
- go and offer to play at all the local bars and clubs. You have the freedom to play any day or night of the week. You can offer to play for free if you want.
- Build up sample sets of 5 minutes long, and longer, to give to the club managers.
- Practice DJing a few hours every week.
- Go out and busk in Nola twice a month
- work on your social media for your DJing – instagram, facebook, soundcloud, etc
Bonus Goal #4 – Live in a new city every 6 months
I want to move to a new city and live there once every 6 months. I might do this by eventually buying a van and living and working in it from there. I did this in the past, and it was alot of fun.
How to get there
- make a plan for when and where to move
Other Goals – for later
Other goal – selling physical sewed products
There are other things I really want to do as well. One of the main ones is to start a business selling physical sewed products, as I mentioned above. I want to sell these at music festivals and be a music festival vendor. This is one of my other top goals that I’ve been wanting to do for many years, but have never taken serious consistent action on. I will continue to put this on hold for now, in favor of my goal of being a DJ, and my other goals. I can’t have too many at once, and even with the goals that I have now, you don’t really want to be working on more than one or two at a time (as Dain Miller and Gary Keller would say in his book, The One Thing). It’s important not to split focus too much, and to concentrate on one or two at a time, to get where you want.
In short, I’ll list my other goals and desires here. These will be things to revisit, after working on my above main goals. I think it’s important to keep revisiting your goals, and keep making sure on track, but to not switch up too much. As Napoleon Hill says in Think and Grow Rich, you want to make decisions quickly, but change them slowly.
Other goals list:
- live and travel in van
- sewing business
- dj – keep busking in Nola – make an IG – make a playlist to play at clubs and bars
- Professional dj at weddings
- Host underground events
- vendor at festivals
- security company at festivals
- host my own festival
- host my own events
- host underground events
- wildlife biologist
- plugins
- videos
- festival structures
- Web dev agency
- Web dev marketer
- Animations business
- photographer
Forest image by Podu Stricat on Unsplash