My 2022 Review
And prepared the foundations for my 2023 goals! 🎯
Hey there! 👋🏼
This week I went through one of the activities I like the most: my yearly retrospective and the first block over my 2023 goals.
I have to be honest with you. I find this extremely satisfying.
So last Friday, I booked the day off and reserved a couple of hours for sitting down, espresso in hand, blanket in my legs (old lady style) and thought about 2022.
Every year, I evolve the way I do this review and get more from it. This year was no different. I’ll run you through my process.
Let’s dive right in.
The first thing I do is an open essay-style summary outlining the year and how I relieve it from an initial perspective.
This initial encounter with this retrospective exposes how different a person I am compared to the 2021 December me that created those goals.
If I need some aid or visual cues, I go through my yearly data, for example, how many km I ran, or through my calendar to help me trigger memories.
When this summary is complete, I run through the following list (based on Ali Abdaal’s Annual Review template):
What I’m grateful for
Pretty self-explanatory. I’m not the most expansive person in the world, not even when I’m writing for myself.
I prefer to do a simple one-liner per item I’m grateful for. I don’t need to detail it that much, just the right words.
I felt incredible freedom when I switched from my Apple Watch to a classical watch.
The way that Mamba Mentality still makes me want to be better. WWKD - What would Kobe Do?
What I discovered this year
I like this category. The idea is to outline podcasts, personalities, apps, tv shows, movies, habits, and every new thing that I either started this year or that came into my radar.
This list always makes me think about what I was doing or listening to before.
Artists: Sam Ryder
Podcasts: My First Million
Newsletter: Milky Road
Personality: Justin Welsh
What didn’t go according to plan
Contrary to popular belief, our year isn’t filled exclusively with successes. Some things fail, either due to our fault or external reasons.
In the same way, I advocate a blameless post-mortem at work, I do the same in my review.
At this point, it doesn’t matter who was to blame for why things didn’t go according to plan.
It’s important to raise my awareness of where the year didn’t go well and accept it.
Didn’t read as much as I wanted to.
Had way too many injuries that affected my training regime.
Life lessons
If I were to summarise the insights I gathered throughout the year, this would be the section to list them.
It’s the moment where I consolidate the lightbulb moments into a one-liner.
It made me feel very smart to get a bunch of these 🤓
Things change. Don’t try to avoid it. Open your mind and welcome it.
We all have some emotional attachment to specific projects. There’s no need to lie to yourself. You need to have the clarity to put that emotional attachment aside when making decisions. That’s maturity.
Stuff to work on for next year
This is where looking at my year goals and what I achieved or not comes in handy.
I go through every item and write what I want to continue working on next year.
This can be from doing a better job keeping track of my finances or a project I failed and want to do again next year. Sometimes I add info that will drive my curiosity.
Restart DCA in selected ETFs
Run an official 10k race by the middle of the year
How would investing into real estate work for me? What is my budget? What is my ROI? (This is the curiosity stream)
Bucket List
The crazy unrealistic list that I want to achieve one day.
This is the moment to be crazy, not think about consequences, and list out whatever I want.
Have financial freedom from my 9-5. Work purely for pleasure.
Read over 20 books in a year.
Before closing this retrospective, I write a clear list of pillars that will act as the foundation of 2023.
Mine are simple:
Finance
Health & Fitness
Family & Friends
Fun & Adventure
Career & Personal Growth
And these are the top 3 things I need when preparing to write my 2023 goals:
A crystal clear understanding of what my pillars are - what is important to me
Have a list of what I feel I need to work on the following year to help me do an initial block
Have a bucket list, so I tweak my goals and efforts towards what I want to achieve
Well, that’s it from me. I’ll go through how I create my goals and follow a strategy that helps me achieve success in a future article. I hope you have a fantastic weekend, and this issue will motivate you to review your 2022.
If you're not finding value in this newsletter, please consider unsubscribing. There are no hard feelings, and I appreciate your part in my journey. Perhaps in the future, we'll meet again!
If you are enjoying the newsletter, the best compliment you can make is to share it with one person.
Thank you for being part of my journey!
Have an incredible week! 💪🏼
Parada 👊🏼 A Leader's Mindset