Reflecting on My 2022 Goals

While reflecting on my 2022 goals, I realized, although it’s cheesy to say, that 2022 was honestly the year that I fell in love with myself. I even fell in love with the fact that I wanted to improve my internal and external blemishes. The fact that I am slowly but surely becoming the person I want to be, and that person is becoming more evident day by day, has made me fall in love with myself.

The person I was at the start of 2022 feels radically different from the person I am at the end of 2022.

1. Depressed and desperate for change is how I’d describe the person I was at the start of 2022.
2. Joyful and brimming with hope for the future is how I’d describe myself at the end of 2022.

How did I transition from one extreme to the other?

My Mindset Shifts in 2022

1. I decided to fight for myself.

I focused on what would make me happy today and get me out of bed. That became my driving force for everything in 2022. Staying in bed made me feel depressed and stuck. So, I just had to get out of bed and find something that would excite me enough to leave my bed.

2. I read The 12 Week Year.

My top 3 takeaways: stop planning goals for the year and start planning goals for the next 12 weeks, stick to only 3 goals every 12 weeks, and track your progress weekly for each goal (e.g. skating once a week or drinking water once a day).

3. I wrote down 9 goals and 9 projects for the year.

I think goals are your top priorities for the year and projects are more minor things you want to get done, but don’t necessarily have to prioritize.

What really changed things for me was getting extremely specific about the milestones for each goal, and the steps to accomplish each milestone.

• For example, I set a goal.
• To reach the goal, I set 3 milestones.
• To accomplish each milestone, I made a list of 3-5 steps.

The goal evolved from an idea to an action plan. You can take those steps, implement them into your daily routine, and reflect on your action steps on a weekly basis.

4. I decided obstacles are no longer excuses.

When the indoor rinks closed in January 2022, I skated in -20 degrees at an outdoor rink for almost 20 days. Why? Because it made me happy and got me out of bed.

If accomplishing your goals really impacts your mental health, and you believe that time is truly finite, then you can’t allow obstacles to stop you. To achieve your goal, you need to try a different approach. You have to. It becomes essential to your existence at that point.

My 2022 Challenges & Wins

I only accomplished 3 of the 9 goals I had in 2022. And I only accomplished 3 of the 9 projects I set in 2022. The fact that there’s a pattern here suggests that maybe I just need to make fewer goals for myself this year. Instead of 16 goals for the year, I’m planning to set 10.

The Biggest Challenges of the Year

Saving:

I really struggled in this area. I could blame inflation, but really, it’s me not prioritizing stewarding my money well. In 2023 I want to radically change this area of my life because I know it will dramatically change the remainder of my 20s going forward.

Writing my book:

I’m proud that I read more craft books. I organized my books in Scrivener, started outlining, and worked on mood boards and character profiles. But I didn’t write my book this year. I just didn’t. If I don’t have a manuscript that I can forward to a beta reader or an agent, then the book is incomplete.

Creating a short film:

Yeah, this one was realistically never gonna happen. There was no equipment and no funding to even make it possible to execute a film in the way I would want to. It’s understandable that I might put this goal on the back burner as I focus on other goals (like writing my book), which will propel me forward in life a bit faster, simply because I’m more excited about it.

Start snowboarding:

I thought I’d make it to Blue Mountain by the end of 2022, but I never did. I needed at least 3-6 months to plan this trip since it would involve other people, and I just wasn’t ready. In my ideal situation, I’d like to start snowboarding at Blue Mountain and then I’d like to continue with lessons either in Toronto or somewhere that’s a 1-hour drive away from my home.

Completing my Notion setup:

I did make progress on it, and it is about 60% done, but it’s incomplete. Ultimately, I’d like to sell my Notion setup, so completing it is one of the necessary steps in that process.

Applying for grants:

Yeah, I kept missing the deadlines for grants, and furthermore, once again, didn’t have a proper and organized game plan. I realized that when I put effort into putting a game plan into things, I yield results. But, it’s challenging for me to do that for so many goals, which is why I only accomplished 6 of 16 intentions.

Creating websites for other people:

I didn’t complete any websites for family or friends that I had promised to. Some of it was outside my control, but I definitely could have found an alternative way if I put in more effort.

Learning Mandarin and German:

After binge-purchasing an insane amount of Mandarin, Korean and German textbooks in 2021, you’d think I’d make a lot of progress in my language learning. Yeah, zilch. I didn’t even sign up for in-person classes, which I know I will need to stay accountable for learning.

The Biggest Wins of the Year

Black Belt:

After 6 years, I finally did it. Was it the most perfect belt test I’ve ever done? Actually, no. It was definitely worse than my black stripe test. But it got done. I have my official Kukkiwon license as a worldwide recognized black belt, and that is just the beginning for me.

G-License:

I scratched this goal off in March. I took the G test and passed on my first attempt after driving for over a year with my G2 license. And I still have some things I want to improve on when it comes to driving. But I’ve gotten drastically better over the years. I would say my technical skill is a solid 8.5/10. However, my mental fears and obstacles are sitting at a 6/10. There are some things I need to overcome in that sense when it comes to driving.

Figure Skating & Inline Roller Skating:

I did what I wanted to do, and then some. I slayed this area of my life, and it reaped a lot of rewards. The #1 reward was pure unadulterated joy and fun in my life. I learned how to do a fast 1-foot spin and spent my summer roller skating on rooftops at sunset. And most importantly, this area of my life really improved my social life. This is because as I shared my skating adventures, a lot of old and new friends wanted to come along with me.

Online Presence:

I took a hiatus from posting on YouTube and my blog in 2021. I honestly didn’t know when I would return to YouTube and how I would show up. But, I just knew I wanted to be at peace when I did decide to post on YouTube again, and I’m proud to say, I am at peace now. I’m no longer chasing career success on YouTube. I’m treating my YouTube channel like my blog – a diary. A place to record meaningful memories. Nothing else, nothing more. This means I can post when I want to, and not just to appease an algorithm. My career is in filmmaking and novel writing, not on YouTube. YouTube is just a side project that helps me express myself, similar to this blog!

Writing More:

While I didn’t complete paragraphs in my book, I did publish paragraphs on my blog this year. I wrote so many blog posts this year, and I took pretty cute photos for each blog post too. It’s going to be so fun to look back at these posts in the future.

Social Life:

This area of my life has taken the cake. I transitioned from spending most of my time alone in the first half of the year (and enjoying it) to spending most of my time with other people in the second half of the year (and also enjoying it). I think this area of my life has taught me the most life lessons and I truly think that making bucket lists of activities for each season of my life this year (apart from Spring), helped me to look forward to things. Having things to look forward to, I believe, is probably the secret to happiness. And knowing that you have the autonomy to do those things, with or without anybody else, is really empowering.

Maintain long and healthy relationships with everyone in my life:

I definitely learned how to reduce expectations from friendships, choose new people who I allow into my life better, and put effort into maintaining relationships with old and new people in my life. I used to struggle with choosing people, whether they were driving instructors or personal trainers. But, when I look at the people in my life now, I’m thankful that I let go of the people who were no longer serving the person I was trying to become.

I collaborated with brands I love:

I collaborated with Whoosh and EffyDesk this year on my Instagram and YouTube channel, and I reached out to both of them. Plus, I figured out a pitch that works for me when it comes to partnering with brands and I plan to use it to work with other brands I admire in the future.

I met and saw my favourite band in a concert:

I created a 30 under 30 bucket list earlier in 2022 and I literally manifested meeting One Ok Rock that same year. And yes, I met and spoke to the band. Taka’s head touched mine. And I have it on video. I will never forget this day (it was exactly how I imagined it and so much better), and I’m so thrilled I’ll get to see them headline for Muse in March 2023.

My Mantras of 2022

With that said, I want to share some of my mantras from 2022.

“Whether you wanna come with me or not, I’m doing this.”

If I wanted to see a movie, I would see it, whether my friends wanted to see it with me or not. And I applied this mentality to absolutely everything because I was and I still am sick of waiting on people to join me to live my life. I think being able to do the things you love to do, in your own company, is very empowering and transformative. The funny thing is that the minute I started thinking like this, more people started coming with me to do things, and my social life started to pick up.

“If you’re not doing something about it, you don’t get to complain about it.”

There are things in my life that I want to complain about. But it’s funny because those are usually the things I’m taking ZERO action on. So, if you’re taking zero action on something, that means you’re not ever trying to change the situation. If you’re not putting effort into changing it, you don’t get to complain about the struggle.

“Lean into who you already are.”

When I turned 26 this year, I think I officially accepted that I’m always gonna be a working professional who has colourful hair, wears beanies with piercings on them, listens to alternative rock music, is hyper-fixated on things and doesn’t look like the typical instagrammable Christian. I was trying to separate all these identities, only to realize that these interests have always been mine since I was born, and therefore are just who I am. It doesn’t have to make sense to anybody else, or even me. It just is what it is. I like what I like. I show up how I show up. And I can’t fit into any corporate, Christian or stereotypical “black person” boxes, so I might as well just be a messy amalgamation of what I already am and keep it moving. After all, that’s what makes you unique right?

“Just try it, and see what happens.”

That’s what my figure skating coach said to me when I was struggling with breaking in my brand-new skating boots. She told me to wear them looser and try skating, which is the opposite of what I was doing before. So, I just tried it, and suddenly there was no break-in period for my newly purchased skates anymore. They just felt comfortable. Therefore, this is a mantra I’m carrying into 2023. Sometimes, we’re so stuck in the old way of doing things or we have beliefs about how things will turn out before we’ve even tried them. So the next time you don’t want to try something completely different, just say to yourself, “Let’s just try it and see what happens.”

My Life Lessons of 2022

1. Be patient, vet & choose people in your life better and don’t rush into anything new without giving yourself time to reflect.
2. By letting go of people, you make space for new people to enter your life. You also make space to give energy to those new people and foster those relationships.
3. Create seasonal bucket lists. They’ll make you happier.
4. If you want to be more vulnerable, you need to practice vulnerability. That one uncomfortable conversation you dread initiating, or allowing yourself to overshare in an area that you usually keep private, can actually be necessary for personal growth.
5. You can’t prioritize everything in your life. It’s impossible. Balance is a myth. But, you can AND YOU WILL naturally prioritize one thing in your life over another, and that’s not a terrible thing. In fact, that is exactly what balance should look like. Balance is not a perfect and equal pie. It’s a pie with different-sized slices. Whether it’s a career, relationships, health or something else – it will be a different-sized slice, depending on the season of life you’re in. True balance is recognizing that your priorities and attention to areas of your life will change. This will cause things to be less relevant temporarily, in order for another thing to grow.
6. There is a season for everything. Sometimes, you have goals, but don’t have the desire to work on them yet. It doesn’t mean they’re not significant to you, it just means this is not the season to work on them. When the time is right, your desire to take action on those goals will be overwhelming and undeniable.
7. Staying curious attracts opportunities to you.

Favourites of 2022

Shows: Love Between Fairy and Devil, Grey’s Anatomy (rewatch), The Oath of Love, Ancient Love Poetry, Falling Into Your Smile, and An Incurable Case of Love (rewatch)

Games: Genshin Impact and Kena: Bridge of Spirits

Songs: Save Yourself, Let Me Let You Go, Head High, Ghost, Love of Cang Lan, Shut Down, Pretty Savage, Snakes, Anti-Hero, Smells like Summer, Alone, First Love, Gold, Jireh