I'll kick off the discussion with some of my goals!

• 1) I want to get more involved with Open Source. Last year, I made a goal to make my first contributions to open-source projects, and this year I want to improve upon that goal. I will contribute in some meaningful way (code, documentation, testing, etc. Not just opening an issue.) at least once per month, with a stretch goal of twice per month. In addition, I will contribute to two projects that I have not yet contributed to.
• 2) Develop a sense of empathy for users. I want to better connect with those using the products I create, and I need to be able to think like a user not a developer to accomplish this end. I want to explore user-interface design concepts while learning to use a tool like Figma or Sketch, so that I can dedicate time purely on creating the experience that users want without getting blissfully lost in the technical development. I don't have much of a roadmap yet for this goal, but I would love some recommendations from the community here!
• 3) Invest more time in documentation and testing. Especially at work, where deadlines are tight, it can be hard to justify time for documentation and testing. But as I have seen over and over, these two aspects can really make-or-break an open source project, and I want to start to change the norm of internal projects just having no documentation/low bus factor

I want to become better at expressing my ideas without having to get fully into the code itself. Being able to create specs, mockups, better pseudocode practices, etc.

As I do more instruction giving compared to just coding, I need to turn some of these weaknesses into strengths.

Great discussion idea, we’re doing the same in my team so this is timely.

For me I have three goals for the upcoming year.

1) AWS solutions architect certification. I’ll be getting hands on by delivering a project using their RDS product Aurora and studying towards certification.

2) building data models. As an analyst I use the models but have never built one. My manager is going to guide me through the consultation with the business stakeholders, using new technology (to me) to build and deploy it, then presenting it back to the stakeholders and analyst users.

3) I couldn’t really put anything concrete behind this as a measurable goal but it’s something I see the seniors doing ... being less reactive when requests come in and being more considered in how I deal with them. Sometimes passing it on to someone else or just closing it off because it doesn’t fit with our roadmap this time is the answer

I often joke with my wife that this is my feeling about goals.

But in general, I have consistently held the goals to learn as much as I can and to grow as a human being (one example: emotional intelligence). Usually life finds a way to make those happen. Often in ways I never would have selected myself. :) So I don't set specific goals, but I keep several ideas in mind that I want to explore in case opportunities come up.

I was debating posting something like this, mainly because I need to have my goals for this year solidified in an hour (we switched to a new tracking system, so I didn't bother until now).

I'm similar to that Vince Vaughan video mainly because I don't care for the constant push push push to do more and more every year, whether that be personally, professionally, or financially (consider the horror of a publically traded company that only made as much profit as last year).

It should be fine that I'm considered one of the best in my department. I shouldn't need to be better than best every year. I just want to keep doing my job and getting my direct deposit every 2 weeks.

Short Term:

• Get into a better-paying more coding/less marketing type job, preferably remote
• Start to develop side income streams to continuously build up passive income

Longer Term:

• Develop enough side streams/businesses to not really need to do anything to survive.
• Make something that has a positive impact on someone's life.

I've never been one to set goals, but if I want to figure out my career path, I need to start before it's too late.

I want to get something on github. I've got some old perl scripts I may upload, although I may try to re-write them in Ruby. I also have a poker hand evaluator written in Java.

Well, in the next months, I want to gain better understanding in the Linux Kernel - so I've started reading a few books and have some driver ideas in mind that I intent to implement.

Another thing I want to do is to start blogging - I feel like it will be nice.