| Great question, and there's a lot to say about it. As with most things, there is no right answer, but here's a starting point: If you are sitting here thinking "I need some goals. What are some good goals for me?" then you should start by thinking about the things you are good at and the things you enjoy and finding the intersection. Alternatively you can think about things you think you might enjoy that would require learning new skills, or things you might not enjoy as much that could be useful in your life. Once you have a topic, or a pre-existing non-motivating "do your best" goal, there are a few situations: 1) If you're a complete beginner and need help figuring out what a good project could be, I discussed some some thoughts in a previous post [1]: Good beginner projects tend to be more or less copies of things people have done before.
I also recommend reading a how-to book and asking more knowledgeable friends for advice.2) If you know somewhat more about the topic and you're struggling to get a different, more motivating perspective on a goal, I recommend doing what physicists usually do: putting the hard problem in the context of an even larger problem. To do this, ask why you want to accomplish the goal you're contemplating. (If you don't know why, go to step 1, or maybe you shouldn't be doing it.) I gave an example in the post of moving from "I should work out because that's a good thing to do" to the meta-goal of "I want to look good for beach season." Or you could move from "I want to learn to program because that's a good thing to do" to "I want to build Ticketmaster for my school" (for example). 3) If you just know you're interested in a general topic and are looking for ideas, I have so much to say about this it needs a separate blog post. This is definitely the best place to be. What other characteristics make a useful goal? Also a topic for another post, but you can probably guess by now that I think one good baseline is whether you know specifically why you're doing it (beyond "it sounds like a good idea") and whether it is measurable enough that you can proudly tell someone specifically what you've accomplished. [1] http://www.isaacsukin.com/news/2012/08/i-want-learn-programm... |