First Post — Goodbye 2022

Hi guys. This is me and me is this.

Like many among the living human race, I recently took some time to reflect on the ambitions I had at the start of 2022.

Though necessary, it was a tough mental process. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it. In truth, I never enjoy reviewing myself. After all, who does?

Although there were some significant ups and downs, as was to be expected, there has been steady growth. I have grown from the man I was in 2019, and I am undoubtedly a different person from the boy whose mother had to coerce him into making a yearly plan in 2014.

Here are a couple screenshots from the Notes app that show a list of my objectives for 2022.

GRE is carefully designed to emotionally drain you. What is that RC?

I divide my goals into various sectors — career, personal, spiritual, etc.

I planned to learn how to swim this year. My little sister also planned to learn how to swim this year, but only one of us was successful. It wasn’t me. While she learned, I can pen a 200-word essay on why I didn’t. Major L.

One of my major wins was deleting pictures from my gallery—yup, you read that right.

I had been putting off removing over 20,000 unneeded photographs for years, but the academic union strikes in Nigeria gave me plenty of time. Good riddance.

Beyond reflecting, I made some projections for 2023. I considered trying something new—quarterly and monthly plans—and making them very visible (James Clear’s first Law). This is a result of my aim to use regular goal-reflection as a driving force for development.

Also, I’ve decided to try tying each goal to a person (accountability partners). I need to be held accountable for my slipups asap. Why? Well, because Pearson’s Law holds.

“When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates” — Pearson’s Law

So, I’ll be disturbing my friends very soon! 😁 If things go according to my scheme, next year should be significantly difficult. But things don’t always go according to plan, so let’s see.

I stumbled across my journal from a previous yearly review. It posed the question, “What was the most significant lesson you learned ?” My response was

“No matter how properly planned or prepared you are, some things will still end in tears. That being said, there’s no excuse for poor PREPARATION.”

Lest I forget, I’ll be writing here more often. Your comments are also welcome! Have a wonderful day and Happy New Year.