2023 review
Last year I did a yearly reflection for the first time and set a focus for 2023. Now that the year is coming to an end, it’s time to sit down and reflect again.
This year I will structure my reflection slightly differently. I will use the wheel of life. For each area, I’m giving a score based on how well my current state aligns with my desired state.
Health
Body
Highlights
This year I did a lot of sports. In the first half of the year, my focus was on bouldering. I climbed a lot. After 5 months I injured the joints in my big toe & thumb, forcing me to take a break. I had climbed at an intensity that my muscles could tolerate but not my joints. In addition, I was not resting and stretching properly.
In the summer, I joined a tennis club and tennis quickly became my new passion. In the first month, I made the same mistake of playing too much too quickly and with poor technique. This led to a very annoying and persistent wrist injury. That taught me the importance of correct technique in tennis. I quit group classes and instead started working with a private coach every week along side rallying with friends. Working with a coach has been a game-changer. Definitely worth the investment, especially in the beginning. Poor technique leads to bad habits, increased chance of injury, and poor performance. The longer you play with wrong form, the harder it becomes to unlearn. All that to say, it worth making sure you get the right guidance from the start.
In October, I went to a tennis camp in Crete which was super nice. My tennis improved a lot and I made many new friends.
I also played a football game once a week almost the whole year which was great for my stamina.
At the time of writing this, I'm in the best overall shape of my life.
I finally adopted a skincare routine and began to treat my back & shoulder acne which I’ve been neglecting for years.
I also started stretching more regularly and paying some attention to mobility, although not as much as I would’ve like to.
Areas of improvement
Sleep more. Reading Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker has made me realize that sleep is a crucial area of my life that I have been neglecting for far too long. Looking at my sleep tracking, for the past month I’ve been sleeping 7h on average and with quite irregular sleep and wake times. Not great. This is a key area I need to pay much more attention to. Sleep is the foundation for a healthy life. Literally everything depends on good sleep.
I have not maintained any regular morning and evening routine. I keep making them too elaborated. I don’t give myself enough time. When unexpected things happen (which they always do), I miss the routine and then give up. Underlying all of that is a lack of discipline and too high level of perfectionism.
My posture still sucks. I have not worked on it consistently and I keep falling back into poor habits.
More strength, mobility, and flexibility training is needed to create balance in my body.
Mind
Highlights
Played football games regularly throughout the year which has been foundational for my mental health and a huge source of happiness.
Went on a series of fantastic summer vacations which beyond being fun, helped me disconnect from work and reflect on my direction in life.
In May, I went on a scuba diving trip to Mallorca with one of my best friends. We took the PADI Open Water Diver certification together. I have been to Mallorca a dozen times with my family as a kid, but this was the first time visiting with friends. Learning to dive was an exceptional experience. I loved it.
In June, I went on a trip to Zumaia with my dad. A coastal town in Basque Country surrounded by beautiful nature. We spent the week hiking, swimming, and eating good food.
On the way back, I stayed in San Sebastián for a day. I wandered around and walked to the top of Urgull which had a nice view of the city.
Later in June, I went to Sweden with another of my best friends. We spent a few days exploring Stockholm and celebrated Midsummer the before taking the ferry to Vaxholm, stayed in the castle and went kayaking around the archipelago.
We left Vaxholm and travelled up to Uppsala, my hometown. There we rented mountain bikes to get around the city and of course we had to go mountain biking. We decided to go off trail and got lost in the Lunsen nature preserve. I have never seen so many mosquitoes in my life. Thankfully we brought mosquito repellent. As the saying goes, the adventure doesn’t start until something goes wrong.
The next day we went strawberry picking and I caught up with an old friend from primary school which was really nice. Felt nostalgic to be back feeling very different from when I left but the city and my old house and school looking almost exactly the same.
In July, I went on another trip the the Basque Country with my dad. First, we stayed in Espelette, a small town between the mountains and spent the time hiking and eating great food.
This summer I fell in love with day hiking. The views were breathtaking.
We then spent July 14 (Bastille Day) in Saint-Jean-de-Luz where I saw the craziest sky view. After a beautiful sunset, it was lighting on one side of the city and fireworks in clear sky on the other.
In September, we had great weather in the Netherlands so I went to tick off a bucket list activity with a colleague. We went skydiving in Texel.
Then in October, I went on another trip with my dad, this time to Portugal. First, we stayed a week in Sesimbra and spent most of the time on the beach. The weather was perfect and the water was clear (but very cold). I had some of the best seafood in my life in Sesimbra. We also went to see the old castle which had a beautiful view of the coast.
Then we went to Lisbon for a few days. It was a beautiful city filled with cool streets, beautiful old architecture, interesting shops, digital nomad cafes, and amazing food. Lisboa Tu e Eu 2 was one of the best restaurants I’ve been to to in a long long time.
Then to end of the summer I went on the tennis retreat in Crete with my tennis club. There, I did my first (unofficial) tournament which was a lot of fun. I met many wonderful people, made new friends and my best friend also followed along and we went scuba diving together.
Areas of improvement
In the first half of the year, I got sucked into work and neglected most other areas of my life. It was the culmination of an addiction to work that had been growing since I started my first social media brand back in 2017.
I know that I can easily get addicted to things, including work so I have to be careful with this moving forward.
All the summer vacations helped me disconnect and come to a few important conlusions.
Having clear boundaries between work and other areas of life is crucial.
Sometimes it’s ok to work overtime, as long as it balances out in the end. I don’t believe in forcing yourself to work 9-5 every day. There needs to be flexibility.
Implement preventive measures to avoid addictions from forming.
I made significant improvements in the second half of the year but still have to work on not getting sucked into work.
Last month I handed in my resignation at EVBox and next week in the new year I will be joining Road. Because I’m super excited and I know there will be a lot of things to do, it’s especially important that I keep these lessons top of mind.
Soul
Highlights
This year I’ve intentionally spent time introspecting. I’ve been narrowing down my core values, beliefs, and principles. I’ve also been thinking a lot about what makes a good life and what I want to do with my life. These are tough topics and of course my thinking will change over time but I feel it’s important to continuously reflect on this.
Despite the hectic times, I read 17 books this year, quite balanced between fiction and non-fiction.
I’ve made a conscious effort to apply the Stoic philosophy in my life. It helped me stay calm amidst the craziness at work and enjoy life more fully.
Nothing is burdensome if taken lightly — Seneca
I’ve also been reading the meditations of Osho throughout the year which has prompted a lot of reflections for me.
For the first time, I’ve maintained a journal throughout the year. Putting my thoughts on paper helped me ease my mind. It will be very interesting to look back on it years ahead.
Areas of improvement
I feel like I’m lacking rituals around introspection and journaling. I’d benefit from having routines and planned time dedicated for this.
While I did maintain a journal, I was quite inconsistent. For several months I only have a handful entries. Maintaining a morning / evening routine which includes journaling would help greatly.
Work
Mission
Highlights
In my role as Product Owner at EVBox, I exceeded expectations in all areas of my job while I also expanded my scope. In January, I took over the management of the marketing CRM system (using HubSpot).
In the first half of the year, I led the website rebrand. This was an amazing professional experience & learning opportunity as I got to hire a senior UI/UX designer (Sander) along with a development project team. In total, I led a team of 10 people in agile as we completely redesigned all EVBox websites (over 3,000 pages) and developed a new design system using design tokens in the space of 4 months. I learned ton from managing this project and from the people I got to work with. The results were super well received and we achieved our success metric targets.
I also led the rebrand of all templates in our CRM system and developed a new HubSpot email component library & set of templates for the organization.
Another cool project that I got to lead was the implementation of a new company-wide website analytics platform. This allowed me to really deepen my web analytics knowledge.
Throughout the second half of the year, I gradually enforced better work-life boundaries and improved my delegation and prioritization skills.
I started recording all my work in a work log (a.k.a., brag doc). This is something I would hiughlu recommend to others.
Towards the end of the year, I realized that I’ve achieved everything I could at EVBox and it was time top move on. In the new year I’ll start a new challenge at Road.
New year, new job.
Areas of improvement
I didn’t document anything publicly. I developed a new personal blog site using Gatsby before summer and posted a few book notes and blog posts. After that, I barely posted anything. That’s a pity because building my personal brand is key for the long-term direction in which I want to take my career. This will be a key focus point for 2024. That’s why this month I moved my website to Squarespace which makes it a lot easier to make design changes which frees up time for writing. I also will need to schedule focus time for writing every week and come up with a system to consistently record and refine my learnings and thoughts so that I can efficiently convert them to content.
I need to reduce multitasking and time spent on overhead tasks. Multi-task slows me down and decreases my ability to focus. Overhead tasks are usually not valued so I should be minimizing my time spent on them, and also critically evaluate if they are necessary in the first place.
Properly implement deep work sessions. I keep allowing myself to get distracted by incoming messages and requests.
This year, I started categorizing tasks using the LNO framework. However, I didn’t categorize ruthlessly enough and I also didn’t respect the given priority sufficiently. I find myself spending too much time perfecting O and N tasks.
Moving forward, I need to have a clear daily agenda with a top goal. I too often spend too much time on inconsequential tasks while putting off more important ones. When there is no place, it’s easy to just pick up what comes along.
Money
Highlights
This year, I consolidated my investment accounts so that everything is in one Dutch bank. This was a bit of a struggle but worth it as it makes things easier.
I maintained my personal income statement throughout the year. I spent more than expected but for the most part on experiences and quality things that I needed.
At the end of the year I opened a savings account. Generally, I don’t believe in them but given that a large chunk of my assets was in my current account losing value due to inflation, it made sense to move them to a savings account instead. I also realized that having a (relatively) large sum in the current account makes me think you are richer than I actually am and thus I spend more. All the more reason to limit the amount in the current account to what I’ve budgeted to need for that month.
My salary is good for this stage in my career and I can afford a comfortable life in Amsterdam. However, it’s barely enough to buy a decent apartment and I realize more than ever that I will never get wealthy on a salary alone.
Areas of improvement
I didn’t follow through with my monthly investing plan. This is partly due to how uncertain the market was but partly because of lacking discipline and de-prioritization of my finances in favor of other life areas.
Yet, I know how important consistency is when it comes to personal investing so I am committed to making a change here.
Growth
Highlights
This year has been full of personal and professional growth.
I learned a ton on the job by proactively taking on challenging projects. Leading the rebrand of the websites and CRM system was my highlight this year at EVBox.
I took several courses from Reforge which significantly improved my product management skills and I paid for a premium subscription to Lenny’s newsletter which has been very insightful in how to thinking about various areas of my career.
In 2023, I read several perspective-changing books. The main ones being: 4000 weeks, The Pathless Path, and Why We Sleep.
In the summer, I obtained my Open Water Diver scuba diving license.
In the second half of the year, learned to better enforce work-life boundaries.
Areas of improvement
Inconsistent reading. I tend to have short phases where I read a lot followed by long phases of barely reading anything. I need to develop a habit.
Once again, I feel like I didn’t spend enough introspecting and journaling.
I can get a lot more value out of my Reforge and Lenny community memberships if I’m more active and dedicated. In 2024 I want to be more active there by engaging in discussions with the fellow members and being fully dedicated to the programs I decide to take.
Relationships
Romance
Highlights
In the first half of the year, I was fully focused on work. I barely made any time to hang out with friends. I maintained regular family calls but was mostly distracted. I didn’t go on any dates. Full focus on my career.
Areas of improvement
I’m usually very good at being alone but coming out of that period in June, I felt more alone than ever. I decided to go on a few dates but eventually came to an important conclusion that I was doing it to escape my feelings of loneliness which is not good.
This was a progressive realization but a powerful one and it made me now completely shift my focus to being happy and at peace alone in my own company.
Family
Highlights
Throughout 2023, I kept up the tradition of maintaining almost regular evening calls. This is starting to be increasingly difficult now that everyone is in different places doing different things but I’m determined to keep this going in 2024 and being more present in the calls and share more positivity.
I went on fantastic trips to Basque Country and Portugal with my dad.
Despite the crazy work schedule, I visited my family in Paris four times this year.
Areas of improvement
My sister is growing up so fast and I feel like I don’t spend enough time with her. Somehow I want to change that but it’s difficult with her insane schedule in Paris. Hopefully that will change when she graduates next year.
I also want to spend more time with my mom and go on more trips together.
While it may feel like I see my family enough, lately I’ve realized that’s not the case. Do it before it’s too late.
Friends
Highlights
In the second half of the year, I did some reflecting on my values and realized I value friends a lot but up until that point did not demonstrate that. I was determined to change that.
In the summer, I went on several trips with my friends: Mallorca, Stockholm / Uppsala, and Paris.
I began to meet up with friends in the city a lot more regularly for dinners, movie nights, or trying out new activities together like kayaking and archery. This helped deepen those relationships.
I also started to have regular check-ins with old friends that I want to stay in touch with.
The tennis retreat in Crete was also a great chance to meet new people around a common interest.
Areas of improvement
I’m very happy with the friend group that I have now and want to continue to deepen those relationships moving forward.
I also want to make more effort to stay in touch with friends who I want in my life. I’ve really come to realize how easy it is to lose contact with good friends if you don’t make an effort to stay connected.
Overall
All things considered, 2023 has been my best year yet. People often say that the years in uni are the peak but that has been the opposite for me. After school and uni, I started to truly live.
The first half of the year was extremely intense, with work dominating my life. I learned a ton but also sacrificed a lot. Launching the redesigned website at EVBox (on time) was a major professional milestone that I'm proud of. This project strengthened my resilience but also truly made me realize the importance of work-life boundaries.
After that, I had an amazing summer with a series of fantastic trips with friends and family on which I was able to truly disconnect from work for the first time and reflect on my life.
In the second half of the year I started to act on those reflections and learnings. I started doing a lot more sports, deepened the relationships I cared about, and took a more balanced approach to life.
I now what I still need to work on and where I want go so I’m excited to head into 2024 with a renewed focus, clear goals, and a happy growth mindset.
“If you can get 1% better each day for one year, you’ll end up 37 times better by the time you’re done.” — James Clear, Atomic Habits
