This post is more of a retrospective for me and my thoughts this last year. As I look ahead to the new year and the goals I want to achieve this upcoming year, I first want to look back at the previous year.
This last year, I didn’t have any defined goals. I wanted to do a few certifications and push myself harder, but nothing like a SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) goal. Reflecting on my undefined goals, I can say I lived up to those, which meant I didn’t accomplish much. I’m kind of disappointed in myself. My goal is always to get stronger in some aspect of security. This is because I don’t want to move into management, so I must continue to get stronger technically, and I can’t say that I did this year.
I’m also slightly disappointed in my goals at work as well. I have an overarching goal, and looking at the start of this year to now, I can’t say I’ve been able to accomplish it or even taken a step toward it. And with all this reflection, it’s also hard not to compare myself to others. I have to say, when I see others’ long lists of accomplishments, it’s hard not to beat myself up a little. When I sit down and figure out what went wrong, I don’t have any excuses. I didn’t make any SMART goals nor set time aside to improve for work and personally.
It’s not like I didn’t do anything. I did complete Blue Team Level 2 and Certified Cyber Defender certifications, but I can’t say that this helped me get stronger or these certifications pushed me to some limits I couldn’t achieve prior. It’s unfortunate but true. If I was asked, I took these certifications to help guide others on the best use of their time for the next certification. I think one of the biggest things I was missing this year was a daily routine.
A couple of years back, I had a goal of compromising 60 Hack the Box machines in a year. This would leave me a little over one box a week. What was good about this goal is that if I took some time off, it required me to put in more time in the following weeks. I also allowed myself to watch walkthroughs and get hints if i got stuck. I also allowed them to be all easy boxes if I wanted. The goal wasn’t to be the best or do insane boxes but to sit down at least once or a couple of times a week and figure out challenges. That experience helped me grow my skills with Linux, privilege escalation, enumeration, and, more importantly, a hacker mindset. After that goal, I felt accomplished and can honestly say it has helped me be a better blue teamer. This is what I need to do this year.
It might sound like I’m being hard on myself and not giving myself enough credit. I’m being honest with myself and trying not to sugarcoat it. I usually need more time than others to grasp a topic, so I know how important it is to devote time to improve. So, even though I’m pretty disappointed in myself, this retrospective put in perspective how I will need to make goals this year. I want to return to that daily routine as that’s when I’ve seen real growth. I don’t have SMART goals at the the time of this writing, but I know I need to make them otherwise, I’ll have a repeat of last year, and that type of pattern can’t continue.