I recently watched this video at a friend’s suggestion and the video talks about the concept of “the wheel of life” and how one can use it to review their year by categorizing their life in different sections.
I liked the idea of putting different parts of my life in categories, so I am also going to try and do the same. However, I will make my own set of categories which would be inspired by the video and my own life.
So let’s start with the first category.
Career & Finance
I wanna start by reviewing how I did in the career and financial aspects of my life. Currently, I only have one source of income which is my career itself and thus I chose to put both of them in one category.
At the start of this year, I was in college and I was earning inconsistently from some internships or freelance projects. That was until June because in June I started working at Adobe as a full-time employee. Soon after starting my job, I realized that I was very inexperienced in managing my finances.
For the first few months, It had a really bad effect on my mental health because I underestimated the expenses. However, as the year progressed I got better at handling everything and now I don’t cry at the end of every month because I couldn’t save enough money lol.
I paid some of my debt this year (though the majority of it is remaining), invested some money in the stock market, saved a few bucks for my future life, and most importantly spent just the right amount on myself and my family.
However, I still don’t think I am fully comfortable with money management and finance-related stuff. I often find myself running away from financial decisions and I still get frustrated because clearly I don’t understand how money works.
But I am hopeful that this is going to improve in the years ahead and I’m happy with my progress so I’ll give this category a decent 6/10 this year.
But at the same time, I think I performed beyond expectations in my work life and that should bump up the score a little bit.
A 7/10 maybe (?)
Physical Health
2023 was probably the best year for this category.
I managed to increase my weight to where I wanted it to be (65Kgs) and I went to the gym more often than not. Most importantly I managed to establish a system in my life that motivates me to do one thing or the other to achieve my fitness goals.
I can now run 5Kms very comfortably at an average speed of 10 Km/h or even more on good days. I can also deadlift 80Kgs, bench 50Kgs, do more than 1 leg day in a month, and I also had visible 6-pack abs at some point in the year.
Overall I am very happy with this category and I’d give it a solid 8/10 this year.
Hobbies & Passion
Alright! This is my favorite category because I fulfilled a few of my dreams this year hehe.
I’ve always wanted to have a full-sized piano and I bought one. I also went on a trip with my newly found friends and that was awesome. I recorded and edited a few short films and then deleted them a few weeks afterward because they were shit.
On the bright side, I gained a lot of confidence in myself and I felt more comfortable showing my skills (however bad they might be) to a wider audience.
I danced, sang, and played Piano, Ukulele, and Harmonica (just a little bit). I wrote blogs, made my digital garden, started a newsletter, took mock interviews, and did a few other things that I’m super proud of. I even tried rock climbing and enjoyed it a lot. I ran. I ran a lot this year, probably more than the last year. I cooked some good food, read a lot of good books, wrote some letters, spent a few weekends in a bird Sanctuary, met a few old friends, and overall had the best time of my life.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that this category gets a perfect 10/10.
Relationships
Umm! I am not sure, do we really need to talk about it?
Relationships are complicated and to be honest I was never really good at holding on to them or making newer ones. And I’m pretty sure I am still bad at both of those things. However, this year changed my perspective of relationships and how I feel about them in general.
I spent a lot of time alone this year. But there were only a handful of moments when I felt lonely and the biggest reason for that was no doubt my friends and the newly gained perspective on life.
Now I don’t want to talk too much about it in this blog (I will write one later maybe), but I’d say it was a good year for this category.
I learned how to see people for what they are and how to shower them with my love without having too many expectations. I made stronger bonds with my old friends and I also found new friends this year.
Overall I’ll give this category a 7/10.
“7 because I still don’t understand the concept of romantic relationships.”
Conclusion
As I was finishing this blog, I realized that my year was full of learnings and new experiences in pretty much all of the categories. And even though I did okayish for the most part, I feel proud of the learning aspects of everything that I did this year.
Now, let’s calculate the average score for the year from all the categories shall we?
*drum rolls*
This year was an 8/10 for me.
Pretty solid eh? How was your year? Tell me about it.
