So I’d planned to already have this done and published before the new year rolled around, but life got in the way…  and I mean that in a good way!  I’ve said this before but it bears mentioning again that creating and sharing a list of goals helps to serve as a reminder and a means of accountability for meeting those goals.

So here’s my list for the upcoming year:

Speaking.  I hit a home run with this goal last year, exceeding my goal by 3x.  So for this year, I’m going to set my goal at 10 speaking engagements for the year.  I’ve already got a head start on this, having booked 2 for this month alone with the possibility of a third.

Blogging. I was a bit short of my goal of 104 posts (2 per week) for last year, so I’m going to set that same goal for next year.  One item to work on is to get better at scheduling posts to maintain consistency and avoid peaks and valleys.

Writing Articles: Totally blew it on this goal last year.  I’m going to set a goal of 3 technical articles for this year, which is less ambitious than my goal for last year but is reasonable considering the anticipated busy year.

Training Videos: I’ve done several training videos over at SQLShare.com (formerly Jumpstart TV), and had planned to do many more last year but only completed a handful.  Since these videos are short and narrow in scope, there’s no reason I can’t record 10 of these short videos by the end of the year.

Do More of The Work I Like: This is a less quantifiable goal, and I admit that I’ve borrowed this from Chip Camden, an independent software engineer who frequently blogs about career topics, consulting life, etc.  With this goal, my aim is to “work myself out of a job” for those tasks that I’m less excited about, so I can focus on delivering better business value based on my strengths and areas of passion.

Find 2 People to Mentor: I’ve got several unofficial, casual mentors – and some of them don’t even realize it!  By my definition, a mentor is someone who altruistically shares his/her knowledge with someone else and takes an interest in that person’s career.  It doesn’t have to be a formal relationship, nor does it require exclusivity from either party.  My intent here is to identify a couple of positive individuals who are long on passion and drive and are looking to move to the next step on the career ladder.  I don’t hold myself out to be a career counselor, but I’ve come up through the trenches and would expect that there are some folks who could benefit from my experiences, both bad and good.

It’s my intention to make a realistic evaluation of my progress periodically throughout the year so I don’t end up trying to cram a year’s worth of goals in to the last quarter.  I’ll post back on my blog as I progress.