Reflection on accomplishments and planning for the next steps

This is Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-newer podcast. We will accomplish our goals through sharing experience, improving tech skills, increasing business knowledge, and embracing life. Let's dive into the next episode. Hello and welcome back. We are in that special time of year where we are almost to the end of the year. At this point, depending on where you're at, you may have already gone through your holiday time and given gifts and open gifts and taken pictures and eaten a lot of food and all that good stuff. And so this is a good time, I think, for us to talk about what's next. And this is a question we probably ask ourselves on a regular basis or should. Because one of the things we should be doing is have a well-defined set of requirements or properties of completion. So that when we set up a product or project and we say, all right, we're going to do this, then we should have some things that are recognizable and clearly defined goals. And then once we've achieved those goals, we can declare victory. We can say, we are done. This is complete. And this is a perfect example is the holiday season. You spend a lot of time, you decorate stuff, you prepare food, you go out and get gift lists and then go purchase the gifts and wrap the gifts and all of that stuff. And then you're done. Now I think this is a good example of what we should do with all of our tasks. When we are done, one of the things that usually happens is we, especially if we've pushed hard for a while to get that thing done, and this goes for a lot of things in life, maybe like a graduation or a wedding, weddings are probably huge, buying a house or buying a car and going on vacation, things like that, where you get it done. You get to the point where you can say, okay, I did that. And then usually what you do is you take a deep breath and chill for a little bit. You relax. You soak in it a little bit and just usually revel in the completion of whatever that task was. And you get to enjoy it for a little bit. And that's one thing that I think we need to make sure we do is when we complete these goals, when we achieve these objectives, whether it's a personal thing or whether it's our organization, there should be some moments to gather thoughts and just revel in the moment. Enjoy the feeling of victory or completing. There should be some sort of payoff for this. Maybe it's just contentment for a while or maybe extreme joy if you just won the World Cup or the Super Bowl or something like that. But now, unfortunately, I guess, or maybe it's fortunately, then we need to figure out what's next. And so we've gotten to the end of the year and there's probably several things, I would hope there are several things that you've accomplished, that you've completed. And now maybe in this mad dash to get to the end of the year, maybe you took some of the and topics we've talked about and you really pushed to complete a couple of extra things before the end of the year. You set the goal that you wanted to complete them for the end of the year. The year came up pretty quick. You sort of got into that last minute frenzy and then you got it done. And so we take a deep breath. We enjoy it. And now what's next? Where do we go from here? Now we've talked about a lot of different things that you can do. You can advance your career. You can look at side hustle projects. You can look at little utilities and things like that. But when you get to the end of something, especially if it's significant, there's a few things that I think you can keep in mind that will help you plan the next steps. Now one of them that I think is very critical is assess your burnout level, essentially. Because sometimes you get to the end, you complete something, you achieve something, and you're essentially done spending resources on that. Now maybe because that's a one and done thing. It could be, I don't know, let's say it's a world record in juggling, just some random thing. So once you've achieved it, basically it's done unless somebody else comes out and eliminates or overrides what you did. Essentially you got it done. A first would be great. If you were going to go be the first X to do Y, or maybe just in your life do this thing for the first time, well, you're not going to be able to do it for the first time again. And it may be something you just want to accomplish. Maybe you wanted a skydive. And so you went out and you jumped and you did all the training and all the stuff you needed to do and you did a skydive. You jumped out of a plane and landed safely. Another thing to assess is, is this something I want to do again? Is this something I want to continue to pursue? Is it worth the effort to continue down this path? Or is this something that I'm, for whatever reason, either that was too exhausting or I've done too much like this, where it's time to change directions? So that's a very important thing. Because there is much like we have this natural propensity, I think, to finish things, even necessarily if they're not, sometimes when they're not good to finish, we also have this propensity to keep going. Because there is a momentum that was built. We talked about it and we've used it in the past. We use it to get to completion, to get across the finish line. But now that you're across the finish line, now what do you do? Do you jog to a stop or do you pull the big parachute like the drag racers do? There's this momentum to keep going and it's a very important time for you to consider, do I want to keep going or do I want to dig my heels in and stop and change directions? Because this is the best time to do it. You just completed something. You can go out on top, as they say, you've got it completed. So if you don't want to move forward on it, if this thing was too costly or too exhausting or just too boring, now is a perfect time to change gears. You can say, yes, I did it. I'm going to go do something else. And this applies in a lot of areas. Whether it's hobbies or side hustles or other projects or personal relationships, whatever it is, there's a lot of different places in life where there are moments of completeness or finishing that are perfect for us to say, okay, we can make a clean break of this thing and move on to something else. So obviously we stick to a project and technical bent here. So the thing to look at is, was this technology, this platform, this line of business, was this stuff that I enjoyed or not? Is it something I'm done with? Is it something where I can say, you know what, I've done this and it doesn't have the same appeal to me anymore? If so, this is a time to examine what is it, essentially what is it that was not pleasurable? What is it that you did not like that essentially is a reason or maybe the reasons why you do not want to continue with this thing? And again, this may be very difficult because you may feel like you have a victory and you want to build on this victory and you need to go in the same direction in order to build on that victory. And that's not entirely true. Look at the famous Michael Jordan got a whole bunch, racked up a bunch of NBA championships. And then, I don't know that he necessarily got bored with it or something, but he decided, you know, I'm going to go play, I want to try baseball. I'm going to go do that. Very much a change in direction. He easily, at that point, probably could have at least challenged for another championship or who knows, three or four of them. I don't know where his age was or anything, but also he may have gotten out then because he, maybe mentally, he wasn't where he needed to be where he said, you know, this just doesn't have the same appeal to me that it used to have. And so let's take a look at this. Maybe again, it's just we've gotten through another year. Maybe we didn't necessarily complete anything, finish anything, but we've gotten through another year. And as we are looking forward to the weeks and months ahead of us, are there some things that we did that we don't want to do anymore? And so that's, you know, our first thing is the negatives, I guess. Are there some things that we need to stop? Now the flip side of that, are there some things that, you know, either we enjoy or maybe that we stumbled across that we enjoy and we want to do more of those? Sort of a classic pros and cons kind of thing is you look at what have we done? What are we doing, I guess, as well? What do we like? What don't we like? So now as we're wrapping up the year and shifting gears and setting New Year's resolutions and things like that, let's look for ways to minimize the negatives and maximize the positives. Let's analyze what of the things we completed that were pleasurable or contentment or whatever that they brought to us and look for ways to continue that. But then likewise, looking at things that caused us frustration, how do we minimize those? How do we reduce those? And it can be a side hustle that we just have to kill, that we just have to stop. And of course, now stopping it doesn't mean necessarily that that thing itself dies. Maybe it's a time for us to essentially outsource it. We could, if it's a business, we could maybe sell the business or maybe we train some people up and let them take over so we can go off in a different direction. This is not uncommon. If you look at particularly entrepreneurs, because I think they always like new challenges and so there's a certain point, it doesn't have that newness. It doesn't have the same appeal. And so you will see some of them, especially the serial entrepreneur types, that they'll go and push really hard and get something done and then move on to something else. And it's not like they just burn the bridges behind them. Instead, they find ways to basically off put the work that they had to do to get there. You can either hire people up or, like I said, find other resources, sell the company, whatever it happens to be so that your work and your success and your achievements will live on. But you don't have to, they don't have to take anything more out of your life. You've succeeded, move on, do something else. It's not quite retirement, but it's sort of like retiring from that concept, that project, that task, that side hustle. They say, you know what, I'm going to let this thing go on and go in whatever direction it goes. I'm not going to be worried about it anymore. I'm going to let somebody else worry about that. Now, the positive side of this is look at what it is that you enjoy doing. We talked about this a couple of episodes ago, but I really think this is valuable for us as we build experience, is to look at what it is that we like and what we don't like. Too often, our experience is just experience. It's just, hey, I've learned another skill. I added another certification. I got another degree. I got another successful project. You know, whatever it is that is your, you know, another smiley face on your report card kind of thing. That does have its own appeal to some extent, but especially as our experience grows, there's a point where you just, it's just more of the same. The fact that you have, you know, 75 smiley faces instead of the 72 that you had a month ago, really it has a diminishing value of return. So one of the things that I think the people that are most content and really at the end of the day, successful in their careers, the things that they do is they find where their strengths and their joy and contentment live, and they find ways to keep pushing on those and find ways to avoid the things that they don't like as much. An example, maybe there's certain languages that you enjoy writing code in. Maybe there's certain types of applications you enjoy building. Maybe there's certain types of customers that you feel the most fulfillment in serving them. Maybe there's certain aspects of software development that you prefer over others. Maybe you're a designer. Maybe you gather requirements. Maybe you're more into testing or implementation or deploying. Maybe, you know, maybe you're one of that rare breed that really likes maintaining stuff as opposed to creating new things. Maybe you like back-end work versus front-end work or vice versa. These are all things that unfortunately you can't just go read a book and say, oh, you know, take this test. People probably try it, but, you know, take this five minute test and you'll know exactly where you need to go next. What you need to focus on. It's not that simple because you're not that simple. We are complex beings and there's a whole mix of things that we like. And also important to this exercise, we have seasons of life. They're in seasons of interests. You know, early on, and this is not uncommon, particularly in tech, early on, people are really driven by the technology stuff, you know, learning new things. And it is not uncommon for them to get to a certain point where they say, you know, I'm tired of learning. I want to work with people. I want to manage people. I want to mentor or lead. I don't want to worry as much about new technologies as much as I want to just really refine my knowledge and share it with others. That's, you know, whatever your direction is, there's nothing wrong with it because it's the direction that you take. Just make sure that you spend the time to review what you've done and what you've accomplished and choose a direction that makes sense to you. And since it's near the end of the year, it's a perfect time for that reflection. Maybe this will give you some adjustments to your New Year's resolutions where you actually keep them as you go into January and the year ahead. Challenge for the week is exactly what we've talked about. What is it that you have accomplished? What is it that you've completed this year that either there is enough of it that you want to continue and so you need to figure out what's the next level? What, how do I build on top of this? And you may already know you may have tons and tons of features that you came up with while you were building version 1.0 of that product. And the other thing is, are there tasks or accomplishments that you need to just call it quits with that? Where you need to say, OK, I got that done. I did it. And I don't really feel like messing with it anymore. I want to move on to something else. Which may be a perfect opportunity of sort of a vacuum of work where you can expand your rise a little bit and say, well, what is, you know, does this provide me an opportunity maybe to do something I've never done before? And maybe it's in a work sense, just to give an example, maybe it's something where you got enough of the you got a project done from a programming point of view. And it allows you the opportunity to go and learn more about some of the other departments and how they work and maybe help them out, which also allows you to maybe expand your skill set and go learn how accounting works or finance or human resources. Or sales or marketing or any of those other groups. Take advantage of your victories, not only to savor them, but to use them as potential launching points for your next victory or series of victories. And that being said, as this is maybe we're getting towards the end of the year, get a little bonus here. So go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week and a great year ahead. And we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Developer North podcast. For more episodes like this one, you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon and other podcast venues, or visit our site at developer.com. Just a step forward today is still progress. So let's keep moving forward together. 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