Over last few days I have been off from work and for the first time in many years I have actually stayed away from computing over Christmas break. This has been very good for me. I genuinely feel relaxed, recharged, refreshed and by all means ready to take on another year. I have setup few goals for myself and I am following the advice of writing goals. Writing your goals provides a higher degree of enforcement, so I have read in some motivational book. I am going a step further and publishing my goals. Other than setting goals I have also created a vision statement for 2009.

2009 will be an year of learning

And to realise the vision I have setup the following goals for myself.

1. Read at-least one book a week. This includes both technical and non-technical books.
2. Write one certification exam per month. This will motivate me to study a technology in-depth.
3. Keep One .Net Way alive and kicking. Since its launch I have had good response and the statistics also look fairly good. However a lot can be done to take the site further.
4. On the personal side (partially) I’m setting myself up for healthy diet. There is no way I can go for those slim-fast-and-die-famishing diets. Just plain common sense stuff for me. More greens than read meat. Why do I say partially? Simply because it has a direct effect on my professional life. The more healthy food I eat the more alert and energetic I can be.

Try not to change things I cannot. This is actually not a goal but a way of thinking I am adapting. Recently I had my hopes up for certain things to happen. When they did not happen I felt a bit disappointed. I gave it some thought and I found that no matter how much I try I cannot change certain things. Especially the ones I do not control. So rather than getting upset about them I have decided to concentrate on activities that I can influence directly without anyone else’s intervention.

The question and a very big question is about achieving these goals. Because this is the first time I am setting some sort of a New Year’s resolution/goal regime for myself,  I am all enthusiastic about it.

I wish myself luck.