JohnDon’t fret, I’m here to an additional article count to the millions of “2021 Reflection” or “2022 Goals” being written as we end the wild 2021 year. In hindsight, it has been a true rollercoaster year. If I am being honest, it has been one of the hardest years of my entire life (i.e. due to covid), but yet, still one of the best.
2021 Reflection
First, the effects of covid on my family members, specifically losing my grandma to it, completely devastated me. Not to mention the many Hmong people I know or know of that were also affected by covid. Covid also made it hard with work-life balance transitions, unknown financial burdens, and stress stemming from political battles and other topics such as relationships. The good that happened was that my beautiful wife gave birth to our healthy daughter Everly, I completed my MBA program from University of Michigan – Flint, I accepted a connected vehicle data engineer position at Ford Motor Company, and most of my family members that were affected by covid, recovered. I think it is important to remember that there may be the bad, but don’t forget about the good.
2022 Goals
In terms of goals that I set for myself to accomplish in 2022, there are a few, but I’m glad I can take the time to dedicate to them. Previously, my MBA program took most of my bandwidth outside of work. With that time freed up, I think I can accomplish these goals – with the exception that if my daughter wants more daughter-daddy time. I broke things down into four main topics: career, health, professional development, and personal development.
Career
I originally had a goal to find new employment as a data engineer at a “big” company. Fortunately, Ford Motor Company was gracious enough to provide me with this opportunity before the 2021 year ended. Having said that, the real goals I have for my career is to output the best work needed for this position. I believe once the holiday spells blow over and we’re in knee deep with work, I can develop clear goals that are directly associated to my career at Ford. Until then, I still have a lot of training videos to get through anyway.
Health
I often hear that health equals wealth, and I agree with it. With such a busy year, health was often taking a backseat to everything else going on. I can also tell that I don’t function as well as I used to. I’m slower to think on my toes, my mind bandwidth has is limited, and I feel sluggish in general. My goals here are to run two 5Ks and maybe a 10k or the sort. The idea behind this is that I know I won’t be able to run these without preparing for them; thus, exercise and eating well is required. Becoming healthier would be the side-effect that I’m hoping to gain from this idea.
Professional Development
I’m a firm believer that it is important to keep learning. The good thing for me is that I love to learn, especially if it is going to benefit one’s professional career. The three items I have for professional development is to learn basic sign language, basic Spanish, and add some form of certification/course.
Sign Language
To be exact, the American Sign Language (ASL) is what I want to learn. This goal stems from me wanting to communicate with my childhood friend’s brother. It’s been nearly two decades of knowing my friend’s brother and I’ve yet to be able to have a good conversation with him. Not only that, but I’d imaging being able to communicate with others that may not have the luxury of speaking would put a smile on their face. From a career perspective, I believe it can open up doors that may have otherwise never even exist.
Spanish
I’ve always wanted to learn Spanish. It’s one of the most popular spoken languages around the world. I wish I would have paid more attention in high school; I probably wouldn’t have this on my goal list if I did. It’s all about communication for me. If I can’t communicate with you in ASL, English, or Hmong, maybe I can do it in Spanish. Also, my love for soccer puts me in positions to utilize it on and off the field all the time.
Certification/Course
This is one of those things to make sure I stay in tip-top shape. I’m not sure yet what I’m trying to go for here, but I know it’s important to keep the brain muscles moving. My initial thoughts were AWS certifications or maybe something along the lines with Six Sigma. Anything from a technical or managerial standpoint would benefit my career.
Personal Development
From a personal perspective, there are many things I wish to achieve on my own time. They are learning about my Hmong traditions, traveling, learning about classical music, and learning about graphic design.
Hmong Traditions
If you don’t know, I am Hmong. If you don’t know who the Hmong are, here is your quick history lesson. The Hmong, also referred to as “mountain people”, helped the United States army during the Indochina War (a.k.a. the Secret War) by navigating the jungles in return for passage to the US. The US ended up leaving the Hmong in the jungles but eventually bringing the Hmong to the States. With that out of the way, the Hmong have many traditions that are usually passed down via mouth and not written. Being born and growing up in the US, these traditions were not a priority for me since my pops took care of everything. My focus was on school and work.
Now that I’m a little older, education is on hold, and work is good, I think it’s time to look back on my Hmong history. I not only want to know everything for myself, but I also want to be able to tell my children who we are all about and why we do certain things.
Travel
With covid still heavy around the world, these travel goals are specifically to get to my in-laws house as much as possible. The reasoning behind this is to ensure my daughter knows who her mom’s parents are since they live outside of Michigan. My daughter will have more than enough exposure to my side of the family, but I want to make sure she knows both sides of the family.
Classical Music
I have always had an interest in classical music, especially everything around violins. I never took out personal time to go anything further than watching and listening to YouTube videos. I’ve already started on this goal, researching about Bach, Vivaldi, and Beethoven. Nothing much, but starting is better than wishing.
Graphic Design
Being able to be creative has always been important to me. I’m not the best artist, composer, or anything, but I do enjoy doing all of it; especially making simple graphics. There is something satisfying about creating a simple funny graphic and then putting it on a poster or a shirt for the world to see. I never had any formal training, but I will be taking time to focus on learning basic graphic design and the psychology of it all.
Conclusion
Looking back on my initial draft of my 2022 goals, one main issue for most of them is that I do not have a metric to determine that the goal has been completed. For now, I’ll be managing it as I go and taking time out every day to spend on them until I do figure it out. Also, this is just a draft for now, who knows what will change as time progresses. For now, I’m content with trying to pursue these. Wish me luck! Goodbye 2021, hello 2022!