Twenty-Twenty Won

2021 Year-End Review

For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to write this before the year ended. But who sets these rules? I find writing these reviews retrospective; the very act of putting my thoughts into writing makes me clearer about the new year and I couldn’t round off my holidays without ticking this off.

2021 was such an eventful year for me — it felt like three years in one.
Sadly, we lost more people to Covid in 2021 than in 2020. If you haven’t already, please get yourself vaccinated. Here is not the place to go on a five-thousand-word rant but available evidence shows vaccines reduce the risk of serious illness, hospitalization and death.

I’m most grateful for relationships: for old, rekindled and new friendships. I had friends with whom I shared my struggles, work colleagues who were always there for me, and mentors who pushed me in the right direction.

I’ll cut right to the chase and list the major highlights of 2021 and my intentions for the new year.

2021 Highlights

Officially finished college 🎓
Ahah, I submitted my bachelor's thesis in 2021 after leaving school for almost a year. I also got inducted into the Engineering profession — lol. I miss my classmates, organising events and everything else apart from reading my books. Oh yeah, and I started NYSC, please don’t ask me how it’s going :)

Practised mindfulness 🧘🏽‍♂️
I got back to my daily meditation practice in 2021. I love to spend a few minutes a day in Headspace, right after my devotion. Today, it’s hands-down convenient to be consistently overfed and undernourished. This has made me cut down on my news intake and mindless scrolling on Twitter.

Read a lot of great books 📚
I read 18 books in 2021 and even started more that I didn’t complete — I stopped the ones I didn’t find interesting. A tip that helped was reading 2 books at the same time. What I found interesting is the eclectic mix of books I consumed; I read books from my church, read about why Africa offers exciting opportunities to build profitable businesses and read fictional short stories of people living in Port-Harcourt. My Goodreads has all the details if you’d like to delve more.

Ran an incredible campaign (at my last job) 📲
I spent the most time in my last company interning as an Assistant Brand Manager for one of our everyday-use brands. I loved my time there and my most interesting project was a digital campaign I led to sensitize customers to buy our bigger product sizes. We met our targets on most fronts and I’m indebted to my fantastic manager who consistently created opportunities for me to shine.

Switched jobs 🕴
Like I hinted in my 2020 review, I was just settling into a new job this time last year. Honestly, I wasn’t actively looking for other opportunities then ‘cause I was enjoying the role. So, when an opportunity came, I almost let it pass, but a mentor persuaded me to take it seriously and give it my best shot. The burdensome decision of whether to take the offer or not can come later, so he said. (P.S: There’s a school of thought that advocates interviewing yearly at other companies even if you’re not looking to switch. While I don’t fully subscribe to it, I think it’s an interesting take. It ensures you’re a competitive talent and also keeps you abreast of the current market pay for your skills)

I prepared hard for the case interviews and did my homework. By the time I got the offer, I was already convinced it’s a better opportunity: the amazing conversations with my interviewers, talking to alumni of both companies and probably the sunk cost of the work I had already put in.
I’m 4 months into my new role and I’m glad I made the switch. It was Oga Bezos who recently talked about the realities of loving your job:

If you can get your work-life to where you enjoy half of it, that is amazing. Very few people ever achieve that.

Because the truth is, everything comes with overhead. That’s reality. Everything comes with pieces that you don’t like.

You can be a Supreme Court Justice and there’s still going to be pieces of your job you don’t like. You can be a university professor and you still have to go to committee meetings. Every job comes with pieces you don’t like.

And we need to say: That’s part of it.

I enjoy way more than half of my job. So, that’s a win!

Moved full-time to Lagos 🚌
“Full-time” because I had been working out of Lagos for a while but I didn’t move here, thanks to remote work. Thankful for my kindhearted host here and amazing friends like Olaide, Lagos has been nice to me so far.

Fueled my curiosity through documentaries 🙇🏽‍♂️
I’m an incredibly curious person and always want to learn random and even some not-so-useful stuff. Curiosity Stream could be my best expense last year. For just $20 a year, I get to watch great documentaries on why bubbles’ sizes affect the taste and aroma of sparkling wine or learn about innovations underway to increase energy production by 75% between now and 2050. I committed to watching a documentary each month this past year and made a Twitter thread of them here.

Had meaningful money moments 💸
In 2021, my relationship with money got better significantly. Sometimes, I now decide what I want to buy before I know the price and it’s a bit comforting. I stopped obsessively comparing prices — it’s honestly not worth it (for me). This doesn’t mean mindless spending though, I still track my monthly spend in a spreadsheet (as the consultant that I am, haha).

What’s for 2022?

I’ve never been a big New Year Resolution’s person as things often turn out not the way I expected. But I try to set intentions for the year and keep to them no matter what situation unfolds.

I’m inserting an excerpt of my 2020 review below:

In 2021, I’m gonna be intentional about everything. About my spiritual growth, my relationships, my personal development, my financial independence, my career growth, about attending owambes. Not leaving anything to chance.

I’m repeating the same to a greater degree in 2022. It’s a year to take big and bold steps as prophesied at my church 🙏🏽.

One thing I’m adding is to give in to some spontaneity and enjoy life’s little moments. In Mark Manson’s words, “the most meaningful moments in life do not show up on your calendar or to-do list”.
I had a conversation on this with Seun last evening and he called such moments “rhythm breakers”—couldn’t think of a better phrase.

So here *raises a glass filled with Martini rose, peach and pomegranate* is to a monumental 2022! 🍸

Shout out to Jesujoba for always reviewing my posts before I put them out here!