When I was heading towards graduation and began looking for job interviews, I got a great book called Zen and the Art of Making a Living by Laurence Boldt. It was an intimidatingly huge book (over 600 pages!), but it was chock full of good advice and was one of the best books I ever read.

One of the advices given was to have the courage to search inside yourself to figure out what you truly want. This advice seems very trite, but it took me a little while to realize how important this advice was. Do you really want that house in the elite suburbs with the fancy European luxury car that has enough room to fit your 2.4 kids in? There can a big difference in what you sincerely want and what you think (or were told) what you want. It sometimes take real courage to differentiate the two.

Finding My Life Goals
I am an openly-admitted nerd… for one of my life goals, I always wanted to work in hi-tech and be involved with developing new products. Right now I am working on four R&D projects, and with two of them I serve as the PI (the principle investigator, another name for the project lead). The two that I am the PI for have their product launches occurring in early 2008. So far, I’m on track to take care of my first life goal, but I still have enough time to muck things up.

Although I’m a big-time computer nerd, this goal doesn’t completely do it for me. It took me reading the book by Boldt to realize I needed to be truthful to myself when asking what I would want to do in life. I wasn’t just a stereotypical tech-guy… there was more to me than that. There is a creative side in me, a side that created worlds and fables in my head. Eventually, I created a few nearly complete stories that I carried in my head for over a decade. Going back to the introspective question that Boldt’s book asked of me, “What do I truly want?” I wanted a second life goal… to be a writer.

That was particularly hard to admit, because tech-guys typically are not good writers (or are simply too afraid to write). Do Have you ever published any work of fiction before? Well, not really. Have you ever demonstrated an ability to write prose? If I recall correctly, I think the answer is never. Do you honestly believe you can be a writer? Well, if you really want me to be honest, the answer is “Yes!” Why? Because I have to believe. I was already showing honesty when I realized I wanted to tell stories and to be a writer. I cannot stop the sun from coming up tomorrow. Since tomorrow will bring a new day, I have no choice but to believe I can be one day closer to my dreams if I work at it.

Now What?
I have no intentions of quitting my day job - I want to do both. My first goal was straightforward… being a tech-guy comes naturally for me and things just worked out. It’s my second goal that I know that won’t “just work out.” Thus, the real reason for this blog. 7P Productions is my methodical approach to make this particular dream come true. That’s why I’m exploring personal productivity systems… I need help. Project Panther will be my first book as a writer, and I’m using it to test out these productivity systems.

Now that I have been honest with you, it’s your turn to be honest with yourself. What are your life goals? Do you have the courage to be honest in answering that question? I hope so… I don’t want to be the only one to be chasing an impossible dream!