In the last three years, I have experimented and proved that the only way to keep versioning in a new better version of myself is first, being completely aware of all the sides and edges of myself. Figure out my true powers, recognize, embrace and work on my weaknesses and flaws, the better I know myself, the better I will become in all areas as a developer and human being.
This is my first year where I can overwhelmingly say I had a clear career and life path in the short and long-terms. This is the year where I can say I feel proud of myself and at the same time disappointed at some stuff. I have achieved important goals towards my life and career purpose I went forward but I fell down as well. This is LIVING, my friend!
I achieved a certain level of success on my own terms both on the personal and professional side. I developed a new level of self-discipline, I made progress on it. How much or less really doesn’t matter. Progress is progress.
Probably, for most of you when you see the headline about retrospective it brings to your mind something like the popular retrospective meeting we usually have after we finish a sprint. Agile teams, yeah!
I decided to make a self-retrospective to simulate the most popular thing in the world of agilisim. The retrospective meeting when the team discusses the three main things: what things went well, what went wrong and what needs to be improved. I turned it into my own life and career evaluation.
I will start off with the things that went well, to get the courage to then talk about the one that went wrong. Nobody wants to talk about that and expose themselves out there. isn’t it?
What went well
The next few points are the facts which in one way or another went well for me at a certain level on my own terms. They gave me the opportunity to grow and improve myself as a developer and a human being. Actually all of them made me a better version of myself while I am was doing them, most of them scared me and threw me away from my comfort zone, at the end of the year I can say I achieve it.
I got a new exciting job
Almost at the mid of the year, I got I new exciting and challenging job. This meant to be one step closer to my biggest dream. Furthermore, it is so special because I wanted to start to specialize on the frontend side since I had been working as a web developer which is good but not aligned with my future path in the software development field, so that, the opportunity came up. I got a job as a React Developer.
I started to write more seriously
At the end of the year, in October to be exact, I decided to write more seriously. I just wanted to unlock my writing skills and enjoy this new process. I wanted to figure out what system, schedule, topics, and moods worked well for me and I am still in that way. I remember so well when one of my pieces was accepted on Better Programming publication. I was so happy and excited so I knew that I was doing the right things which in turn I enjoyed and I knew to turn to be helpful for others behind my screen.
I decided to expose out there
Most of us are scared to share our thoughts and what we know. Because we are always thinking about how people out there will react and think about us. The thing is the more you get out and share your thoughts the more you know yourself.
Consistency is more important than intelligence
Thanks to that decision I got 3.5k+ Dev.to followers and I was awarded as top Writer on Medium on the advice topic as well as I went from 5 to 165+ Medium follower in just one and a half months. I am not bragging I am just happy to see my philosophy working. “Consistency is more important than intelligence”.
What well wrong
There are some things that went wrong this year. However, they taught me a lot of lessons.
I am 33 years old so I am feeling tired after my 9–7 pm full-time journey. Some few years ago I went to bed late without the next day feeling tired or energyless the game changed. Now I do not feel the same power I need to go to new techniques to get the energy.
Another thing I think went wrong was the fact I didn’t invest money and time enough on learning new stuff or in the best case I was learning randomly which is not good for tracking and sharp your skills on what you are trying to master them.
I didn’t spend enough time with my loved ones. I was struggling with other stuff that didn’t let me spend quality time with them. This is one point I must fix next year.
The imposter syndrome sometimes is still killing me. I am still struggling with this part I need to work a lot on it.
I went on more debts than the previous year. I got more income but credit cards, student loans, home loans, hit me strongly. I have a plan to solve it I hope it will work.
Things I need to improve for 2020
I need to work on soft skills. How I will achieve it? I will record videos about programming, especially around React topics or frontend stuff. In addition, I would like to experiment to record videos about learned lessons, self-improvement, motivation, productivity I really want to decode my life one day a time.
I will apply for my first technical talk. No matter where I will offer it I just want to get out of my conform zone.
On the technical side, I will continue digging into the Javascript concepts I want to master the new feature and advanced concepts. I need to catch up with the micro frontends, web assembly, composition, and functional programming.
Final Thoughts
I just wanted to say thanks to all my friends, followers, colleagues, and family for being part of this voyage. Happy New Year. Just keep fighting on your dreams at some point will come true.
Thanks for reading!
