choong pw

Applying agile practice to life, once a while is good to retrospect our own life, the progress we made, and how to do better after that.

Truthfully, I am grateful to be where I am now. Able a decent living while still enjoying doing the things I am passionate about. By all means, is not 100% of all the things I like to do. We also need to let go of things we are good at to move on to the next stage. For example, I do miss hardcore programming, but I still try to find time to do it during my off-hours.

To grow is important to be intentional about your career. Because is intentional, you have the conviction to deliver on your day-to-day job or even exceed the expectation.

If you look at most of the successful people, very unlikely they “follow the wind” all the way. Even if is by chance, there is certain action and triggering point that is intentional enough to make the change.

As a programmer, I believe at some point will be at a stage where programming language is not a matter of preference but choice; Building software is not a matter of not doable but solving with the complexity base on the given time.

If you’re at this junction, what would you do?

I am fortunate that life plays out well for me so far. Able to have the courage to make the change that aligns with my goal (at that given time). Have to highlight this, because is not permanent. At this point, nothing is stopping me to go back to being a programmer. At the same time, I enjoy the visibility of the manager role to see how a good company operates, and work with other non-engineering units such as People, Recruitment, Marketing, etc.

The key takeaway is to identify the things that are meaningful to you. Is even better if you can continue to build on experience. Talk about the compounding experience (salary to say).

Now what? We need a game plan in a new domain which I am unsure of.

Talk to people. Parent, manager, coach, or mentor. They might or might not be able to provide extra insight or advice. But, it doesn’t even matter.

It works for me. When you share your thoughts with others, you’ll tend to reinforce your idea with a better plan. By expressing it out, you need to structure it and in some cases create more questions and answer back for yourself. Just need a listener who you can trust. Talk about self-fulling monologue.

Observe everywhere, get more data points. Within the company, externally as well, or social media, etc. Identify your unique strength that is common and different. This way, you can be intentional and set some direction to growth for the next couple of years.

And yea, best friend Google. Probably able to find more in-depth there too. Limiting here to just my opinion and brain dump.

If you have lived or worked for long enough, try to reflect on how much things have changed over the past decade. Some small action you did or did not compare with your friend. And you’ll notice that those action’s outcome when compound over time is huge.