Haijun Si

2025

2024 was a big year for me. I graduated college, got my first job, and reshaped alot of my habits. All of these things wouldn't have been possible if I didn't set goals and manage my expectations to achieve them. To celebrate the new year of 2025, I created some yearly goals to keep me on track with the major areas of my life.

S.M.A.R.T Goals

I first heard of this acronym in my Engineering Leadership class (shout out to the professor if you're reading this). The idea behind SMART goals is to make the goals you want to achieve actually happen through strategically defining your goal.

Specific: The goal shouldn't be something vague, instead it should be something you know exactly what you want to achieve.
Measurable: The goal should have a way to track progress and determine how its achieved
Achievable: The goal should be realistic and attainable, considering the resources that you have.
Relevant: The goal should align with your broader objectives and priorities.
Time-bound: The goal should have a specific deadline or timeframe.

My Goals

With that in mind, I came up with three goals I wanted to achieve in 2025, with Health, Education, and Career as my priority.

1. Health

Health is a major focus for me in 2025. While I'm generally healthy, I'm aiming to improve a few key areas. My goals include mastering three new quick and healthy dinner recipes (under 30 minutes) that fit seamlessly into my weekly meal rotation, and establishing a balanced workout routine incorporating both aerobic exercise and strength training at least three times a week.

2. Education

Beyond physical well-being, I'm also prioritizing intellectual growth. My main goal is to be reading alot in diverse topics I'm interested in. So in 2025, I'm going to read a couple of books:

Fiction: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I read this book about 2 years ago, and it was one of my all time favorites. I'm looking forward to reading this book again, hopefully to help inspire me more about moving to California.
Nonfiction: A Promised Land by Barack Obama. One of the most influential figures in my lifetime, I've always wanted to read his work. I'm excited to learn about his life journey and see what his thought process was like behind navigating world issues like the financial crisis.
Programming Books:
- The Pragmatic Programmer by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt. A must read book for programmers. I'm hoping to learn importatnt principles for writing better software.
- Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann. This was my required textbook to read in Cloud Computing, which I didn't read it at all LOL. I've heard how influential it is so I want to check it out.
History: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Recommended by my dad, I'm eager to read another history book.
Self-Help:
- Building a Second brain by Tiago Forte. I suck at taking notes, and reviewing them. Hopefully I can learn a thing a two that'll make me remember where I write my notes.
- On Writing Well by William Zinsser. Last time I took an writing class was in high school, and I want to improve my writing.

3. Career