I think 2017 was a successful year for me.

Not everything went as planned but it went quite well.

My goal for 2017

I had three big goals for this year

• Lose weight.
• Get Involved more in test community.
• Be more positive.

There were few smaller goals:

• • Do 52 books a year challenge.
  • Work on your communication skills.
  • Make bicycle trip around Ireland.

Not All of them Were a success. Probably reading it, you noticed that some of them are vague. Which rise question how did I know that I have succeeded. Yeah, I realized it too. That why on my first retrospective of goals, I’ve decided to update my goals. To be more measure able.

Let’s Start with my biggest success.

Losing weight.

My highest recorded weight was 113 – and it was already after few week of me trying to lose weight (I was too afraid to go on the scale before).

My final goal was 85 kg. And Stretch goal 82 kilograms.

At the moment of writing it, I am 87 kg with my lowest weight being two weeks ago 85.
But this goal was redefined.
Danny Casey – a great guy who is doing boot camp in my office building. He told me I should stop that at this point I should stop losing weight and concentrate on keeping it and changing fat to muscle ratio.

So I call it a success.

I own this success in significant part to Danny his classes were the big boon.
Another part was my motivation. Losing weight at itself was not enough motivation for me. Fortunately, around May one of Sam Haris podcast with Gary Taubes changed it.
I was already on losing weight back then, but one sentence in that podcast pushed me to work even harder. Gary said something I knew, but sometimes you have to hear it from outside.
He said that the way how long our brain stays useful and its health is connected to our physical Health. And If we don’t want to „lose our mind with age” we have to keep our bodies in good shape.

Me in February

Me at end of march

And Here I am now.

So Whats are my goals for in 2018?

• I want to give shot for ABS (Stretch goal)
• I want to try the triathlon.
• I also want to be able to do ten wide pull-ups (And as stretch goal I want to find place with salmon ladder and give it a go)

My second goal for 2017 was

Get Involved more in test community.

I have started attending Ministry of Testing meetups in Dublin from their first event in November 2016.

This goal wasn’t as clearly defined for a long time.
My first Idea was to kill two birds with one stone.
And do work on my communication skills. Guite often even if I have a good idea or valid objections I find that I have the problem with expressing it Cleary and Briefly.

That why I have created this blog and decided to speak at meetups and conferences.

Doing this blog is especially challenging for me. I am Dyslexic, and writing never will be my strong suit. But despite it, I think I am doing alright.

So after a year, I have done 31 articles, I have presented on two meetups I have participated in at least 11 meetups. I was speaking at three conferences, and I was attendee on one more.
I belong to 4 online test communities (Although I could be much more active there)

As with point one what was my motivation testerzy.pl -one of the oldest source of testing knowledge in polish part of the internet. Did article about testers worth observing in 2017

My goal here Is little more long-term than one year. I am aiming at it full realization at the end of 2019. I want to end on the similar list like the one made by testerzy.pl for the year 2019. So this year was a warmup. 2018 is the year I plan to do more.
And then 2019 is the year where I plan to prove that 2018 wasn’t the fluke.

And from this perspective, I think in the year 2017 I did great work to build solid fundaments for next two years.

Now Let talk about Last big Goal.

Being more positive.

I never managed to quantify this goal. And that why I probably can’t say I’ve succeeded. I still whine a lot (but less). But I am willing to try new things even if I am not convinced they will succeed.
I Decided to call it A failure in setting up a goal and I am taking him back to drawing board.

52 Books challenge

I failed this one. I’ve finished 44 books and started another five that stopped reading cause I didn’t like them.

But I gave up on this goal around the 30th book I realized that reading it that pace I am not learning too much from them. And that was the problem. So I’ve decided to forfeit this goal and do it at a slower pace.

Having said that I had read few fantastic books:
'Brief,’ 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus,’ 'Think Fast and Think slow,’ 'Nobody wants to read your sh*t,’ 'Mob Testing.’

So the goal for next year, Is redo fast reading course. And read more than 26 books. At least 13 of them has to be nonfiction.

And yes I do realize that it is kinda ironic while Working for Kobo company selling ebooks I have a problem with doing one book a week. 🙂

So what about the last one

A bicycle trip around Ireland?

Well, the goal was to go by train to West of Ireland. And do some driving there.
This never happened – When I had time there was no weather. But if you notice I did some bicycle tour around Dublin.

So, all in all, I think this year was successful.

See you in 2018!