Year in Review: 2018

2018 has been a wonderful year regardless of the setbacks that happened, it was truly my best year yet. I have probably grown more this year than any other year in the past. Last year, I had lots of goals I wanted to achieve before this day, while I completed most, attempted a few and completely didn’t do some, looking back, I’m grateful for the position I am in because it wasn’t so 365 days ago.

Coding 👨‍💻

This was a huge part of my life this year, I put in a lot of efforts regarding growth and improving my skills as a developer. I even did an eight months internship. I was able to learn new skills. This year alone, I learnt Vue, Node, React, React Native and other toolings and technologies involved in Web Development. This was the part I was mostly focused on, I didn’t have a Job and that was my drive towards improving my skills, so as to become employed before the year runs out.

I started and completed the #100 Days of Code challenge and it was both fulfilling and gratifying. I wrote about my experience here

I didn’t spend much time on building projects as I would have loved. Although I made up by learning a ton of new stuff, as everyone will say, the best way to learn is building projects and experimenting with what you have learnt.

Internship

This took a major chunk of the year, from April to November. I was part of LearnFactory’s first ever internship program. Apart from the obvious task of learning new skills and improving my already known skills, the best thing that happened to me at LearnFactory was the amazing people I met and became friends with. They made the whole experience worth it and I’m only grateful to have such kind of people in my life.

Reading 📖

This year, I set myself a goal of reading 12 books and I failed spectacularly. At this point, I don’t know if I value reading or just want to read because everybody on the internet says so. This time around, I’ll just read when I feel like and not necessarily because I have too to meet up with a certain number of books to read like 12 or 100 books. How do people even read up to that amount?

Blogging ✍

Again, I failed at this. I was only able to write a few articles and just one technical article. blogging is hard, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Even though this is something I really want to do, it’s not easy actually sitting down to write an article. The mental stress involved can be terrifying, nevertheless, I’ll have another go at it this year and see how I fare. This time around, I’m not putting any pressure on myself, I will write when I find the willpower to and if it’s something I know will be worth the time and effort.

Life

I became 23 this year and it’s becoming clear to me that I’m not getting any younger. I feel old already and I’m not even close to where I want to be. But while it’s easy to always reflect on the negative and how bad things are, we sometimes fail to see how far we have grown. I know for sure I’m not the same I was this time last year and that’s something I should be proud of.

On boxing day, I lost my childhood best friend. It was a painful experience and I was shocked for some days. He was a good friend. Although we weren’t that close anymore because we have stayed apart without seeing each other for long periods of time and met different people, I do feel bad and responsible that I wasn’t able to be there for him and be closer than we were. But I guess that’s life and things like this happen. This just means I should value friendship more and remain close to those who are true friends and have been there for me.

Moments spent with family, friends, making memories, all the laughter and smiles and kindness and joy I have felt this year should not be taken for granted. Regardless of how things may seem like at the moment, I’m grateful for the life I have and I wouldn’t wish for another.

2019?

I have huge goals for 2019. One thing I have come to realized over-time is that it’s important to have goals, no matter what anybody says, goal setting is a major way to build motivation and willpower to achieve greatness. I have found out that writing my goals and looking at them as often as I can keep me excited and hungry to continue to pursue them to fulfilment.

My goals this year were incoherent. For 2019, it’s clearer and simple. While I want to do everything, it’s important I know what I truly want and what is really worth doing for myself that will have a positive impact on me. This article by Dereck Sivers comes to mind.

I won’t say much about my goals and what I hope to achieve but in terms of coding, aside from the everyday hustle of learning and improving your skills, I’d love to be employed. This is my main focus for 2019 and hopefully, I don’t have to wait too long to achieve it

I am grateful for my close friends, Tony, Andrew, Zoe, Ada, Oluchi and all the interns I spent time with at LearnFactory. Thank you for always being there for me. None of this would have been possible without all your support.

2018 has taught me a lot of things. I learnt about friendship, collaboration, team-work, selflessness, self-love, how to be deliberate.

Here’s to a great year ahead. 🍻