End of Year Review of How 2021 (and 2020) Went For Me

I’m following the theme of popular blogs around the web by posting an annual end-of-year review . However, there’s going to be a few twists: * I’m going to keep it concise to a just a few major points rather than every little goal since I doubt you want to listen to three hours of talk. * It’s going to be a podcast form rather than article form. Hopefully, this style will be more entertaining and story-driven than an article. At the least, I found it easier to talk about it than write it. * I’m covering the last two years because they seemed like one to me with all the quarantining I’ve done due to Covid. I do delineate the different themes and goals/achievements/failures for each year, though. As a bonus, I filmed a casual, candid, uneditted YouTube video on how to make New Years Resolutions that stick that you can watch below. Hopefully, that’s helpful. Enjoy this podcast episode! There were various themes and ideas discussed, including mental health in a time of social distance, how learning to cope with being secluded can help you later in life, turning your obstacles into advantages, why some failures are okay, and more. If I had to highlight one or two major themes, I’d leave you with this: * We all wish for so much to happen so quickly. We underestimate what we can do in ten years, while overestimating what we can do in a year. There were years when I hoped for some major breakthrough, but deep down, I felt like this year would be more or less the same as before. And I was usually right. And maybe part of that’s okay. Some changes take a long time to manifest. Saving a bit extra money or getting on a slight caloric deficit may not have noticeable changes in a few weeks or months. But within years, there can be some huge changes. * And some goals need drastic changes, which aren’t easy or comfortable to make. I cover in the podcast what some of these were for me and what finally motivated me to make the necessary changes. It’s okay to be slow, kind to yourself, and plan for these changes. * 2020 & 2021 unearthed a lot of excuses people make around lack of time. When they had the time, they still just didn’t want to do it. * 2021 went well in terms of the amount of thank you messages I got thanks to all the student-focused study tip videos I made. One in particular got a lot of traction. However, it didn’t go that well in terms of any revenue I made. I don’t make much from my digital brand, and things stayed relatively flat despite trying new things, like promoting my course and focusing on YouTube.