This year I have set a few goals for myself this year. I understand that a lot people do this; some, but not all, fail at keeping annual goals. I want to share them to have some type of accountability and try to ensure keeping my goals.

I have an interest in taking an actual Photoshop class to develop  my skill in the program and to become better at it. The second goal is to learn Object-C, the programming language that is the foundation of Cocoa for the Mac OS X platform and Cocoa Touch for the iPhone/iPod Touch. With this knowledge, I hope to develop an application for the iPhone platform and maybe for Mac.

This is a very big undertaking as I am not very knowledgeable in this type programming language: HTML — somewhat, PHP — a little. Compile code, once in a while with step-by-step guide but to build something. This will be a big undertaking. To compile things from scratch is not as easy at it seems. I understand that it’s not going to be easy, but a part of me really wants to do this even though I might not succeed.

This is something I’ve wanted to do, to develop an app, since the original SDK was announced in 2008 but never got around to it. I think what has changed since then is not that I more knowledgeable about the platform or anything, but that I have accepted that I will fail… a lot.

This is not to boost or brag about how smart or awesome I am in order to build an application but to learn new skills and adding hobbies. This is to challenge myself by doing something different and breaking routines.

I try not to create routines. Creating routines leads to being a rut, being predictable. While that makes some people happy… it makes me mundane and miserable.

For the time being, I am considering attending SXSW in March and WWDC in June in order to accomplish my goals. I’m going to try to take this fairly serious and go for it. It seems like I’m becoming a bit of a modern renaissance man, well-rounded. I might actually have to thank my parents in instilling so much of it unto me.

Although the term Renaissance man is taken from a past period in history where men were knowledgeable and good at many things of their time including the arts, the sciences, philosophies, war craft, and other labors of the mind, I attempt to become something of a modern day Renaissance man completing myself with the knowledge of a digital world.