This post is a break from my typical posts around the build out of my home hacking lab or anything to do with Pluralsight. I decided to document the beginning of a process of building my own app by explaining the reasons behind it.
I was on vacation in August enjoying some down time to relax. While traveling to and from each destination, I had time to take note of changes in my life and where I wanted it to go. What I noticed is that while I felt like I had achieved most of what I set out to do, there were gaps between where I was today and where I still wanted to be. I felt like while each of the areas below were good, there is always room for improvement and I shouldn’t settle on where I was if I could make it better.
I decided that:
- I want to be a better husband and father.
- I want to achieve and maintain a better mental state.
- I want to have hobbies again and share them with my kids.
- I want to cook better food and healthier meals to share with my family.
- I want to get in better physical shape again and feel more energized everyday.
- I want to finally build something of my own and gain the independence and freedom that comes with it.
Those are big statements that I am sure everyone wants to achieve to some degree. How am I going to break these down into manageable chunks and actually achieve them?
Building habits to achieve a goal
A few months ago I read a great book on working to become better called Atomic Habits. If you have never read it, I highly recommend purchasing it or reading a copy from the library. It is a great book that will motivate you to be better. In it he discusses a concept of changing habits to get 1% better everyday results in a 37x improvement over 1 year. You’ve probably seen the concept in images that look something like the one below.
To achieve everything I want to achieve, I will need a system. To create a system, I need to do a combination of setting measurable goals for the next year, and creating habits that will lead their achievement.
Solving my own problem by building my own app
Based on my larger long term goals above, I decided to set measurables goals for achievement in the next year. These goals will help me improve multiple aspects of my life and be a better me. I am still working out every specific goal and building the habits around it. My plan is to document in their own posts tied to each category because each are worth their own post.
I realized in planning this out that I would need a good place to track all of my goals, habits, and progress toward them. Since one of my goals is to build something of my own and gain the independence and freedom that comes with it, building my own app is the perfect way to get started. There are other benefits outside of independence and freedom. Building this will help me brush up on my coding skills. I will learn a new programming language, and gain experience creating a modern web application.
I plan to stick with something simple to start and build from there. Using what I know seems like the best way for me to get the underlying application working.