A New Start
I’m a little late to the scene, but I figured better late than never. With the new year and a new age, I figured it’s important to get started with some goals in different areas of my life. Some are going to be harder than others, probably because of the pandemic, but fear not, where there is a will there is a way. Others are probably going to be loosely defined and I’ll refine them as the year goes on or I’m able to make more sense of what I want.
- Learn to say no.
I’ve grown up with the mentality that taking opportunities in every which direction is extremely beneficial to growing your network and repertoire of skills and what not. The reality is, understanding what you want and what you need is more important to achieving your goals. Limit the opportunities you take up and make sure they are high impact ones.
2. Getting fit
Man, I’m only 21 and I feel like I’ve aged 16 years over the last few months. With the pandemic and general isolation over the last year, it’s been really easy to stay at home and really do nothing. I’ve really started to see the benefits of even doing something as small as a daily walk, or just cutting out processed sugar over the last 6 months. I feel better and I’m able to focus on things longer.
Long term, aiming to get those 6 pack abs ;)
3. Spending more time Reading
Honestly, this one speaks for itself, in the realm of books I want to get through maybe 2–3 a month. Alongside a few research papers to expand my technical knowledge either in tech, math or medicine applications. You can never go wrong with learning new things.
4. Building cool stuff
Just working on developing those technical tools on a personal level, and obviously working to a nice California internship, or an internship where I can really make a difference.
5. Focus on developing passive income.
This ties into the last one, learning new skills and finding a small market that I can devise a new tool to solve a problem and generate some passive income is a big goal for me. Either to do something with stocks or a business / tech solution. We’ll see more to come on this ;)
6. Building up self-esteem or knowing what I want
I’ve spent most of my life with a rather low self-esteem, and it’s not something that I need pity, but something I look forward to building up this next year. Being surrounded by so many talented people at Waterloo initially left me some imposter syndrome. But, I’ve started to understand that we all worked and have something to share with each other. Just gotta find my place.
7. Writing more
This goes hand in hand with the reading. What’s the point of consuming information and not really seeing if you’re not able to apply it in some way? So expect to see some new interesting content over the course of this year, whether it be in the realm of startups, tech, or just general life advice or lessons that I’ve learned.
This is getting kind of long so I figured I’ll just list out the rest as bullet points as a TLDR. I’m not looking to get everything here, but a majority at least.
Personal:
- Keeping in touch or trying to maintain good relationships with friends
- Read at least 2–3 books a month
- Reading 10–15 papers a month
- Writing 3 articles a week on anything
- Becoming more fit (working out more often)
- Focusing on obtaining a chess title
Technical Goals:
- Build some cool shit
- Write/Being involved in a research paper
- Implementing some quant algorithms / financial modelling
Side Hustles:
- Building passive income
- Start a podcast with friends
- Investing more aggressively
- Get some cool certification
2020 has been a wild ride. But for the most part I’ve managed to come out strong and healthy so I’m feeling blessed for that. Also, super lucky to have the friends that I do, and can’t wait to see what’s next in 2021.
Cheers,
Vardan
