2021 Year In Review: In the past year we faked it. In the new year WAGMI🚀🚀🚀
WAGMI is a new buzzword associated with the Web 3 and NFT space and it means “We all Gonna Make it”.
And because you’re most likely reading this on new years’ day, Happy New Year.✨✨✨
2021 Highlights
- Got my international Passport.🔑
- Got my first job with Onebank.✨
- Spoke at 4 events, including DevfestUyo.🗣
- I turned 25.🥂
- 3months working with the fantastic team The @ Company as a technical writer.📜
- Improved my skills and income.⚡
- I Loved unconditionally.😍
- Mercy and Bosun got married.💑
- I spoiled my family a little before Christmas, and I look forward to extending this to my friends.🍩
- I joined #Fitfam, and I have been smashing it😂 till Christmas happened.😥
- I attended a wedding and wore a proper Asoebi for the first time. Congratulations, Amarachi, on your wedding.
- Worked as a discord moderator for an NFT Community.🚀
- Invested chikini(small) money into Crypto.😎
At the end of 2020, I badly wanted to write a “year in review” article. I badly wanted to publish my own, even with the chaos and hurt. I published Obiagu Grew in early January.
This Year is gradually turning out the same way. Because I don’t know why it’s the 31st of December, 2021, and I am sitting in bed and struggling with putting my words together.
Although I would’ve loved to make this a premium read, I can’t promise that because of Omo! I just want to keep to my end of the bargain, publishing a year in review. Whichever way it comes out, y’all have to pardon me; my writing ink ran out.
I’ve lived the past two years living different lives, trying new things, challenging myself, adjusting to the new norms, making new friends, losing old ones, quitting jobs, building relationships, taking on new challenges, breaking down, and getting up.
If you have the time, join me as I share my:-
- Lessons Learned✍🏿✍🏿✍🏿
- Losses and Wins✨😥
- For 2022 📜
- Challenges I may face in the next Year 🏋️♀️
- “Thank you” to the “YOU” that matters.🤲🙏
- In the coming Year…✍👐
Lesson Learned
🏋️♀️ “Nothings’ really hard to learn.” It appears super complex, challenging, and impossible because you haven’t done it before.
Think of skill, any skill you think is easy for you to just pull off, remember how it was when you first learned it, and look around and see how people who are currently learning that skill are struggling with it.
I learned this the hard way. I always thought, “Oh, this is damn hard,” before I start learning something new, especially in my tech journey. But once I took time to learn, I realized it wasn’t as hard, and I did most parts without even thinking so much about it.
Now, when I need to learn something new to get my job done or just to kill my curiosity, I just say to myself, “It seems hard because I haven’t done this before, you got this, Cynthia,” and I dive right in, less scared than I usually used to be to learn something new. And I am proud of myself for this.
Also, surround yourself with like-minds. The most significant additions to my contact list this Year were positive humans and staying positive. Samuel, Godsent, Temi, Omar, and David, my 2021 hypemen. Omar said, “Cynthia, you do so much, and maybe you should give yourself more credit.” I think sis could’ve beaten me up if she had the chance that day.
Godsent always reminded me that we are gods, and I learned to speak more positively about myself.
In all you do, have people that know who they are; they’ll help you stand tall. There’s nothing that feels better than having a contact list filled with humans that see you.
The most important lesson I learned was “Opportunities don’t get served to you on a golden platter”, I wrote my thoughts here.
Now to the Losses…
I got so used to getting rejected that I just knew I was down bad. I knew I was going to get rejected but I’ll apply anyway.😂
I started 2021 broke, scared, and unsure of what or how I’ll live for the rest of the Year. I remember after Q1, people already had winssssss, and I couldn’t relate; Daughter of Zion was too broke to even subscribe and show up online.
Some that stood out for me:
- A rejection mail from Flutterflow for a technical writer position.
- Rejection mail from Ire for the AI Udacity scholarship.
- A rejection from a Scholarship board for my MSC.
- A rejection mail from Codemagic for the technical writer position.
- 40+ other job rejections🤪
- I didn’t read as many books as I would’ve wanted.
- I struggled to focus in 2021.
And with so many rejection emails, I have learned to endure, learn from each experience and be better. With all the losses I had this year, I was happy to learn from the experiences.
And then a Ray of Light Struck and Obiagu had some good Wins.
Overall, I think I had a good run. I learned a couple of lessons, becoming a better and stronger human. First, I had to quit a Flutter job that paid me 15k after working for a month and even during the Christmas holidays.
So, I started the Year jobless, a good thing I had some savings, and because I was bent on getting an international passport, that was my first buy. With 34k naira in my account, I walked into the immigration office and applied to get an international passport. I remember coming back home feeling super excited about heaven-knows-what.
But yeah! That was my first move. Now I think about it, I think I did it just to have something positive happen in my life because my Q1 was super not good. I got my international Passport in February, just before the whole of Nigeria decided they wanted to pause processing passports.
Invite me to your countries, my foreign friends. Thanks in advance.
Career (Part 1)
After a troop of rejection emails, I decided to stop applying and just put my work out there more. I took to Linkedin, Rebranded my Linkedin Profile, and started writing about me, what I loved to do, what I learned from books, and whatever I learned from my daily living. I went from less than 300 connections to over a thousand in less than 3 months.
At that time, I got the attention of an “Ololade.” He reached out and asked me to apply for a technical writer role at Sterlings’ Onebank.
In summary, after about 6 weeks and 4 rounds of interviews, I got the job. I started working with the team as a technical writer.
Getting a job helped me do what I love; the first thing was paying for a gym membership.
Diet and Health
I had a good healthy year. I started my fitness journey early in the Year (January). However, all I did was run every morning around my avenue, daughter of Zion couldn’t afford a gym subscription.
Fast forward to June, just after a month of getting a job, I started at the gym and :
- I Lost 5Kg after spending 3 months going to the gym.
- Gained some muscle and toned up a bit.
- I ate lots of good and healthy meals.
- Reduced my soda intake, and I love my body more.
Sad story? I think I lost it all during the holidays. But yeah, we go again in January.
In all, I went on this journey with my best friend, and I inspired a couple of people to start considering staying fit. So yeah, this was a worthy winner.
Friendship, Love, and Family
If you know me well, you’d know that I don’t joke with people I care about, love, or like. This Year was a challenging year, but I made new friends, got closer to some acquaintances, got better at understanding, and loved people I care about.
I had a list of things I have wanted to do for my family since 2019. Glad to say I was able to do all of that this year.
My parents are super happy with how much I’ve done and achieved. My siblings are now happy to talk about things they love to do and want because they know I got them.
My partner(Dave) doesn’t know this, but the gifts I got him in 2021 are just the tip of an iceberg. Darling, you’re gonna be spoilt, silly.
In the New Year, I want to show up to my friends. Buy them gifts and spoil them, silly. Maybe not as much as Dave but yeah, y’all get it.
Travel
In 2021, I didn’t travel a lot. I spent most of my time in Uyo, and I also visited my family in Anambra state. Traveled to Abuja to get my official documents from my high school.
I badly wanted to travel to a new location and work from a cozy Air BnB apartment with my favorite humans for a month, but that’s for another time, hopefully in 2022.
Countries I am considering? I know weird choices like Mauritius, Rwanda, Benin Republic, but I just need that. I am open to better suggestions and ideas. Plus, my budget is twenty thousand naira.😂😂😂
Social Growth
I made some terrific friends in Uyo. Nothing profound, but I am counting on strengthening most of these friendships in the New Year.
Online:
- Twitter followers grew from 6k+ to 8k+.
- Over 1400 connections and followers on LinkedIn.
- Medium followers grew from 4 in January to 80 as of December 2021
- I published my blogs: Cynthiapeter.com and likeamfive. Tech.
- I wrote over 30 articles, 4 API Documentation, One onboarding resource, a security policy for a fintech, and lots of internal documentation.
Spiritually
All I want to say is, “I love God, and he sure as hell loves me too.” I started fellowship @ “The Evening Church,” and I have seen Christianity differently from what I have come to know, and I am proud of this human.
In the New Year, I want to own a physical bible, so I study more and learn more about the scriptures. I want to give more and help people as much.
Career (Part2)
It’s 3 months working with the fantastic team The @ Company. This role allows me to try out new things and share ideas to grow our community and deliver better developer experiences.
Working at the intersection of Development, marketing, documentation, and developer relations, I am humbled by the tasks and challenges I face.
The past 3 months have been challenging and overwhelming. And the next few months will be better because I know better and have better humans in my corner.
— — —
In 2022
This past year, I crawled, learned to grow, and be a better human.
- I want to be better at what I do in this new year. I want to be a successful technical writer with trailblazing track records of outstanding jobs done and delivered.
- I want to build a community of technical writers.
- I want to mentor at least one person and help them become better.
- I want to earn more because I love the good life money gives.
- I want to travel.
- I want to spoil my family and friends more.
- I want to take on courses and finish them.
- I want to read more books — at least 12 books by the end of December 2022.
- I want to be more productive, read more, write more, and grow better.
- I want to learn to ride a bicycle, drive a car, and swim.
Ok, this is a long list, but yeah, I can do this.
My biggest challenge?
Myself. I struggle to focus, and this reduces my productivity. I want to find a productivity hack that lets me utilize time and be productive with my daily hours.
If you have any productivity hacks, please share. Thank you.
Thank you
This is where I get emotional. I had people in my corner in 2021, and to these unique humans, I want to say a huge “THANK YOU.” Y’all made me better as a human and even in my career.
In all, I had a great year. The losses, win, and lessons learned made it a great experience. I look forward to some more greatness in the coming year. But most significantly, I look forward to a more focused and productive Cynthia.
Happy New Year.
