Personal challenges serve me well as my themes to focus on in a year and grow with them. It's that time of the year again to reveal what I'm setting out to do in 2025!
As it turned out in the past years, my brain already starts thinking about the next year's big challenging scary endeavor before finishing up the current one. To enable myself to keep going and completing that first, I'm taking notes for next year whenever any thought pops up. And as usual, I share these raw notes for my future self, mostly unedited. Here are those I took during 2024.
Consider security certificate as next year challenge (as I want to start speaking at security conferences, and grow into security related jobs, or just be taken seriously, or just prove it to myself)
Just reading books - catching up on all
Start a capture the flag (CTF) team, finally
Maybe just continue new contributions anyway - at least 3 of them will continue overlapping into 2025
Definitely include fun activities and self-care, like games, books, volleyball and fitness, just rest, and more - was way too few this year
Focus on the fun in learning (while continuing ongoing 2024 endeavors)
- fun: gamify things (participate in 1 CTF)
- frequent: deliberate regular practice as a habit (including CTF teams, solo puzzles, programming exercises, etc.)
- foundations: learn theory for conceptual foundations, e.g. using flashcards, for “prove and show yourself” situations, potential interviews, and certifications (do 1 security related certificate to validate yourself and increase your market value)
Theory and practice: a flag a week, a cert a year - security first, development second
Journal
Fun, practice, theory - integrated in everyday, leaving space, in this priority
Focus on new job
Practice and theory, emphasis on fun. Security and development. Only constraint: 15min on anything every day, computer games every week.
Have two buckets, do one of each every day - depending on energy that day:
- security or development, play or theory (CTF, book, flashcards, kata, build, ...), alone or with others
- joy for self-purpose and care: play (not casual), draw / paint, read fiction
Make use of what works even on bad days: habits and streaks
Be mindful of other tasks and commitments: conference speaking, work, open security conference (osco), leadership workshops, card deck game, accountability partnership
Build in system so I can't automatically fall back on the exact same easiest thing every day
Blog every week what I learned, allow myself to post in bullet points only to still learn in public and share insights, also for my future self
Idea from Tobias Geyer for keeping myself accountable regarding self-care: accountability buddy :)
You'll notice duplicates and different formulations of roughly similar ideas. I usually just add notes as I go on purpose so I see how my thinking evolved over time. Also, some ideas I've listed in 2024 had been overhauled and outdated by reality in the meantime. For example, I don't need to prepare for my entry in a security role and related interviews any longer, I already had to do them without said prep - and I made it! I'm still so grateful. Certificates would still be useful of course for market value and some seem to be actually useful regarding their content. Maybe something to head for the year after.
That aside, looking at my notes, can you see the red thread showing up for 2025 already? The things that repeated in my head over and over? I see it and yet I need to write it down and formulate it out. Why? It helps me get down to the core challenge, forces me to structure those thoughts into a clear hypothesis and allows me to check in with myself from time to time to see how I'm doing and hence keeping myself accountable. This way I can also make it public, which again holds me accountable in a different way. And another one is to have a learning partner to check in with from time to time (thanks for being there, Toyer Mamoojee!). Or maybe multiple, e.g. one per topic or realm, and why not? Whatever works. I'll figure out what will work for me this year.
The Challenge
What is the actual challenge for me this year? Well, this one needs some background and explanation.
I got challenged throughout my career, even life, regarding what I'm doing, what I'm not doing, or not doing enough of it, or not be enough, or be too much, and whatever. Be it the evergreen "you're not technical (enough)" while certain people will keep moving the respective goalpost just for the sake of gatekeeping and keeping me busy and preoccupied with trying to reach an unreachable goal, no matter how often I've proven I am indeed technical. And where I'm not yet, I'm capable of becoming more technical. It doesn't stop with this classic, though. I've also heard "you're not your job" a lot of times. While in general I agree, this one stings just as well, given how much I enjoy tech and work on a variety of tech-related things in my non-work time. My identity is manifold and at the same time parts of it are indeed deeply rooted in my job. I'm fine with it. I'm super privileged to love what I do for a living and gain a lot from it for the other parts of my life.
There are more challenges like these two examples. I've actively invested in unlearning my people pleasing tendencies for some time now. It's hard. On bad days, I fall back to old behavior patterns. On some days, I get past them without feeling overly selfish. And yet they come back to me time and time again. My inner critic is very trained on getting loud whenever I might disappoint people and their expectations to me. No matter how conflicting they might be (hence setting me up for failure), or whether I concur at all in the first place. I don't want this inner fight anymore that costs so much energy and focus when it's not needed (there are valid topics where the inner critic is a very useful mechanism, it doesn't exist without a purpose).
I want to set out to calm these inner voices that are especially strong in moments when I feel dumb, that I'm not knowing my own craft well enough, or that I'm not being allowed to enjoy my craft no matter my current abilities. I've once again had quite a few of these moments in 2024, like during a code retreat at a conference, in a work situation with a former teammate, and more. They sting, they hurt more than they should, and I take them to heart way more than is helpful. They linger in my head and take up way more space than they deserve instead of me just acknowledging that this happened and moving on. Instead of just building on the countless positive indicators that I am going my way the way I do and it's fine like it is.
One particular case when my inner critic gets too loud is the following. Whenever other people use specific terminology related to what they're doing, e.g. techniques, patterns, strategies, you name it - my brain struggles to remember what it was about. That doesn't happen for things I've been most used to as I've had plenty of opportunity to practice over the years, let's say "exploratory testing". But if someone says "dependency injection" I'm beating myself up for not instantly being able to provide its exact definition even though I've also had plenty of touch points and made use of this concept over and over myself. And that's what's nagging me: my inner critic shouting "I'm blanking out, but I should know, I should be able to explain!" and certain outer critics pointing out "see, I told you you're not technical". While at the same time knowing that first, there are lots of folks who don't judge me for it. Second, I've just not had the same opportunity to learn and practice certain concepts compared to others who focused on it. And third, my brain and body need a lot of repetition to memorize anything, I've learned that already in my childhood. So now I could do lots of different things; I could keep whining about it, I could stop bothering, or I could give myself more opportunities based on my specific needs and calm those voices. For 2025, I'm choosing the latter.
A dear community friend told me that haters gonna hate - whoever wants to put me in any corner will do so. No matter what I do. I can only control what's in my realm, which is my own inner critic demanding to prove myself to myself and others. Therefore, I need to focus on myself.
That is exactly what makes this challenge scary for me. It's about facing my inner demons and taking action instead of just letting them roam around. It's about focusing on me and not on what the rest of the world tells me or I assume they would tell me. It's working on myself. My last challenge of 2024 was very outward facing, contributing to community. This one is contributing to myself.
One more thought. Going back to my previous challenges, a whole lot of them are about gaining confidence. To speak on stages. To go deeper into coding. I also have a whole talk on gaining technical confidence. See a pattern? Even after 15 years in tech I'm still seeking for that inner and outer peace of a calm mind. This year it's on. On my own terms, in my own ways, I'll find a way to become calm enough. Never jump to perfection, right? Just continuously do steps to become better. And calmer.
My Needs
This year, I took additional time to reflect on my new challenge, goal setting, and especially my own needs. Here are a few things that really helped me gain further clarity.
- Cosima Laube shared a great technique, the "W.I.N. manual" (W.I.N. = What I Need). She asks to note down our answers to a few questions. The core one is "What do I need to do well, enabling me to be the best version of myself?" Daily, weekly, monthly, a few times a year? And lastly, what are things that are not helpful at all, that drain my energy? This exercise doesn't take long, doesn't have to be overly comprehensive, and yet reveals a lot of insights. For me my needs are focused around taking care of my body and brain, managing my cognitive load, giving myself calm space and time where I can think, taking continuous tiny steps. Allowing the pieces of the puzzle that I pick up as I go form a picture over time. Giving myself joyful and playful moments. My energy drainers and detractors revolve around pressure: due dates, social expectations (or my interpretation of them), allowing myself to be pulled in other directions, my ambition setting myself up for failure and getting angry at myself for it, my brain trying to puzzle out incompatible input and getting stuck, my body alerting me on neglected needs or even forcing me to stop.
- This reflection made me remember an exercise I had done already in 2023, thanks to a dear former teammate who worked on making our company's work environment more accessible. She introduced the idea of creating an "inclusivity passport" to gain clarity on our own needs and offer a way to communicate those of them that we want to share with our colleagues. It asked us to think through our needs when it comes to touch, vision, hearing, speech, cognition, and anything else. It was immensely helpful for me and I gained further insights about myself. For example, I found myself listing most of my own needs in the cognition category. Here are some excerpts, that are especially relevant for my personal challenge: "I need time to think without too tight constraints. I can only focus on one thing at a time. If my cognitive load gets too high, I literally won't be able to think at all anymore, everything slows down to a halt. I can get very anxious, hence I'm trying to keep myself in a calm place as much as possible - that's where I do my best work and in general am the best human I can be. Hands-on repetition helps me learn new things."
- I have a magnet board at home. Over the years, I just added to it, leaving whatever was there before. A few days ago, I decided to redo it, and look what I came across as reminders from my past self: "Calm is a choice". "Sometimes we need to stop to be able to think". "Energy is limited". Yep, so very fitting.
- Last week, I happened to listen to a podcast with Brook Schoenfield where he dropped a few gems which resonated heavily with me. Let me incompletely paraphrase some core points here: "Keep listening. Just because you don't know what's going on doesn't mean your brain won't get enough of the background over time to begin to reveal the form. Don't be in a rush, let it happen, it takes a while (unless you're naturally predisposed). For us mere mortals we gotta wait and do the time, eventually it takes form."
- Mark Techson posted a video on how to nail the goals you set yourself. He asked three questions. First, what was holding you back in the past from getting this done? Well, for me it was often no action just talking, plus investing time in other things that drained my energy and capacity - basically not keeping space for this and especially my own needs. Second, what do I stand to gain if I actually hit this goal? What's in it for me? My response was peace of mind, calmness, the "I got this" feeling, confidence. But also less worry, less anxiety etc. over things that are not worth it. Gaining back control over my own mind and the things I have in my own hands. Finally, what do I stand to lose? Phew. My self-belief, confidence and trust in myself. Hence, all the things I could do and have impact on where I need exactly that. Control over my life as I allow other people to dictate it.
Listing all these needs and thoughts and seeing them right in front of me, I realized that these are all things that I have in my own hand. Phew... I can literally gain back control and choose to be calm and slow and steady. Or whatever else is helpful in the moment.
Last year's challenge was very fruitful and yet turned out to be very stressful as well. This year, knowing there will also be a lot going on in life in general, I want to take it slower. Because that's what my brain and body really need. As ambitious as I am, I want to start taking things in ways I can take them best. Slowly, steadily it is.
The Hypothesis
I believe that learning in ways that fit my own personal needs, every day for just a bit, combining theory and practice, will soothe my inner critic, and allow myself to focus on the joy of (re)discovering knowledge and skills while holding space for whatever else I want to use my time for during the year.
I've proven the hypothesis when my inner critic focuses on their original task again to alert me on actual concerns, and I've had a good time with what I learned and worked on.
The Experiment
I like to keep my hypotheses on a higher level, rather overarching and generic while crisp enough, yet I also yearn for concrete details that will guide me on my first steps and also help with evaluating the hypothesis in the end to prove or disprove it. Here's the tangible experiment I have in mind to test the above hypothesis.
- The learning topics pay into application or cloud security in some way. Narrowing things down a bit should provide focus while still being broad enough to provide plenty of flexibility to see where my energy is going.
- It's completely up to me whether I go for theory or practice on any day, as long as both parts are represented every week.
- For theory, I'm going for systems that helped my brain learn back in formal education - like using flashcards to memorize terms and definitions. I acknowledge that I need repetition first before I grow understanding.
- For practice, there are lots of options to choose from, like capture the flag challenges, developing a practice project, contributing to open source, building tools for myself, and so on. These can be very temporary throw-away projects or things that have long-term value. Anything counts as long as I apply my knowledge and practice deliberately.
- To support my brain, I build a habit of doing something every day. Can be as tiny as a 1-minute effort or as big as spending hours. Just something to do and focus on. It doesn't have to bring me further and I don't have to make any perceivable progress of sorts.
- Every week, I check in with myself if what I'm doing brings me joy. As simple as that. If yes, great keep going, if not, I change one thing and then see the following week whether this improved the situation or I keep experimenting.
- I take note of moments when my inner critic gets loud again on things where there's no need. I just take note, there's no need for further reflection (it'll happen anyways without myself forcing it in). I just acknowledge this happened.
To capture the last two, and maybe also my basic needs, I'll probably start journaling again. I might or might not blog about what I learn as well. I think in writing, so stuff like that really helps me. I'll figure out what works, I can make up my mind any time during the year.
The Timeline
I'm officially starting my challenge right after publishing this post. I keep it running for at least 4 weeks. I'm stopping latest at the end of October 2025. This time it's a hard stop wherever I will be at that moment in time, there's no prolongation. I might stop any time beforehand whenever I see it's not helpful, or causing me a miserable time.
This year, I've tried a few things out already before posting this. See what might work, set up a basic structure to start with. Weighing a few things in my mind, see how it feels. Not overdoing anything, as whatever I come up with should also fit in a very busy day. Experimenting a bit upfront just helped me formulate this challenge.
The Hashtag
Why is a hashtag or tag line important to me? This is how I refer to my challenge in my own mind. It's also how I describe it to others, so it helps to make it descriptive, crisp, and concise. It took me a while to figure out a good one for this challenge yet it was crucial to gain further clarity of its core. Sometimes it's about trusting the process and believing I'll get there.
After trying out lots of different variations, I settled on #CalmAndSteady. That's the phrase my mind kept coming back to. It already sticks. I can just as well let it stick. Yes, I'll be learning stuff as I go. Yet the core is all about me and how I approach things and how I respond to things. It's about which system and space I create for myself, catering to my own needs and caring for myself. Calm is about grounding myself, finding that inner peace and quiet, freeing myself from anger and anxiety where possible. Calm my inner worries and give me back the time and energy to focus on what's important to me. Calm that critic. Steady is about keep on keeping on, taking tiny step by step. Not overdoing, not jumping to perfection, just consistently keeping at it. Progress and growth will follow.
I wanted to formulate things positively, so "calm and steady" works. It also works for other parts in life. For example, I really want to get healthier again while my body reminds me of my age every day. I need to take it a lot slower than many years back, and not rush at all; otherwise, I'll have to pay a price and be even more patient with myself again. So yes, this year is a "work on myself" year. Calm and steady includes that patience that I'll need with myself to wait until pieces come together and fall into their places. It also includes that peaceful inner state of mind that keeps me enabled to act, no matter what else might come on the outside. I'd very much like that. Especially given the state of the world.
Anything else?
Oh, there will be plenty of "elses" throughout the year! Lots of things will happen. Life itself, a new job, a new role, conference speaking, sports, games, books, travel, friends, family, the world, whatnot.
This challenge is intended to fit neatly into life and still be helpful. Let's see how it goes. Off I go!