New Year New Me? Maybe So

Happy New Year everyone!

We’re about one week into the New Year and with this comes a refreshing clean slate. Many people say that they’ll do “this or that” with themselves for the New Year. While that might be true for a week or two, most people fall of the bandwagon. And that’s okay. The start of the New Year doesn’t suddenly change the flip in your mind to ban McDonalds from your diet, reprogram you to be a 5 A.M. workout person, or make green juice taste like candy.

For myself, about a year ago to the day, I started the Flatiron School Software Engineering Bootcamp. I entered the program new to the coding world and instantly felt imposters syndrome. At the start of 2021 I set goals for myself that I completed and failed.

Some of the things that I completed was graduating from the Flatiron School, always trying my best during my live coding assessments, communicating with my teachers and peers when I needed help, and generally never giving up when facing adversities.

Some of the things I failed was not coding every day during the year, as shown by my GitHub commits. I also didn’t drink as much water as I could’ve and I could’ve gotten my daily step count up. But that was last year.

This year I’m setting goals for myself again both publicly and privately, and here I will share them with you. Partly to hold myself accountable and to know these words of mine will forever be plastered on the internet, and partly to have a place to store this list of mine to use as a reference. Here we go

1. Committing to my GitHub account at least every other day at the minimum. I’ve been limiting my computer time for a couple of weeks now. I currently work remotely full-time and am experiencing minor carpal tunnel because of this. I’m getting it checked out so I can dedicate more time to my Software passion.
2. Making two LinkedIn posts a week to remind the job-centric folks that I am looking for Front End Engineering positions.
3. Walking at least two thousand steps a day. This might seem minor but there was a point in my life when I walked ten miles a day. Although I live in New York and it gets cold, bundling up should allow me to spend more time outside and away from screens.
4. Listening to new genres of music. For the past three years my Spotify top artists has been a rotation list of the same four people. I need to branch out.
5. Exploring Women In STEM, Women in Coding, and Latino in STEM programs and workshops. It’s a great experience connecting with other people in my position, and who work in the field.

Here’s to the “New” Old me.

Me. All day, every day.