2023 in Review
Writing is cathartic and I invite you to try it out...
Introduction
There is always a trigger that ignites your passion or pushes you to do something you like. In this case, there are two articles that read today (31st of December) that nudged me to write this year in review.
The first one is coming from
, where she wrote a beautiful and inspiring piece:
and right after reading Deb’s piece, I stumbled across another great one from
,
Disclaimer: I’m not going to share any experience, nor framework that you could apply right away. Just the simple idea of reflecting on your 2023. As simple as that.
Ebb and Flow
In both newsletters, there was a simple idea that made me reflect on this idea that we normally categorises the years a good or bad, depending on the number of events, whether they are joyful or catastrophic.
Nonetheless, there is an interesting take we all could relate to, which is the idea of the ebb and flow of life. Deb shared a wonderful paragraph about it:
This is the ebb and flow of life. Some events are joyous, and others are tragic, but in this regard, the experience is universal. Taking the time to be with those memories, even the painful ones, allows us to reconnect with what’s most important.
Simply put it, the fact that I’ve had 3 different jobs in 2023, is not a reflection that I got a shaky year in term of working relationships, but the fact that I took the courage to leave my stable job, to a one that was more promising where I learned a lot, although it didn’t go as expected. Same at my current gig. I said that I was “never” going to join a consultancy company, and here I’m doing PMing things that I’ve never imaged I could have done before.
Going back to Deb’s point. The milestones are not everything. What happens in between those milestones is the more interesting one, but we normally neglect it.
My invitation here is to think about those things that happened in between those milestones, regardless if they were joyful or tragic. Why were important? What did you learn? What would you like to highlight as part of it?
We are biased
Unfortunately (or luckily) we humans are biased. We know that, but unfortunately we take some of the most simple and stupid exercises for granted. Looking back is one of them.
Even when we take the conscious decision of looking back to see what happens, we tend to recall the recent events, things that we want to recall, and we give more relevance to events that are not. This is how we are. We are messy, and we cannot measure our progress linearly (this is the main connection with the ebb and flow of life).
The main takeaway from John’s newsletter that it applies also to our human nature and life is (changing a bit the wording to resonate with our own personal journey):
[Our life] is constantly changing. "What got us here will not get us there" is a constant in any environment with opportunity and uncertainty.
Unlike the linear skill acquisition seen in some professions, progress in [human life] can be non-linear and less predictable. [You] may experience breakthroughs or setbacks not just because of internal changes but also due to external factors that are out of their control.
The comments that arises reading the previous paragraph are:
Changes are inevitable, so embrace them and learn how to surf them
The one who survives are those who can adapt, not the stronger one.
Take it easy, changes are already hard enough.
My year in Review
3 different jobs in 2023 (Nexthink, Erudit, and Thinking With You)
Joy of joining a startup
Sad of having to leave the startup
Many trainings, courses, and workshops that taught me new skills
Had the chance to visit my family and I got my mom coming over to Spain
Visiting new places as part of holidays (Bari)
Scary medical intervention with my wife (everything is ok too)
New product side-projects where we have sown the seed (and hopefully harvest them in 2024)
14 newsletter written in 2023 (and 100 subscribers)
Workout 85% of the days of 2023 (and got my wife to changing habits)
Running two 10K races
Bought a new car