Hello 2021 and my new beginning
“New beginning” again? Yes I know it is a cliche to start a year with “new beginning” mindset and continue on forgetting about this as the year progresses. But before you judge me, please finish reading this short blog post of mine.
How I started 2020
On my first day of 2020, I took a vacation to Phuket, Thailand for 14 days and my mindset was simply just “I will not have any new-year resolutions for 2020 because I knew I would not achieve them all”
That was such a toxic mindset and throughout 2020 I achieve what I exactly what I planned — nothing. I gotta say I really regretted it. Despite all that happened in 2020, I came to think that what if I did set my mind on things that I would like to get done instead of “resolutions”, it would have been different.
How I should start 2021
We all have a list of things that we would like to do or achieve. One of mine is to write a blog about my career and how I improve it.
Therefore, I decide to kick off my 2021 with 2 things I have always wished to achieve:
- Writing a blog
I wanna do it differently though. I don’t want to write about how I read books, take course or attend some meet-ups (I doubt if I will ever get to attend any meet-ups any time soon). I want to write stories of my life as I gradually improve myself for my career path or gain more skills in the progress. Medium seems to be the write platform for me. - Learn ReactJs and deploy one project
As a 28-year-old man, I have always told myself I am too old to learn ReactJs and that’s not true. If I set my heart on it, it should be done. Truth be told, I really want to relocate to work in Europe and knowing ReactJs seems to be a perfect gateway key. I know I need time to brew up my experience and skills since I started late but Europe can wait and if the time is right and of course my skills are right, I will, one day, achieve my ultimate goal.
Things I should get rid off this year
I consider myself a hybrid product designer and developer, which means, I can design and code. Some may call me a “duck” because duck can swim, can walk on land and fly with limited height. Basically, they are very versatile animals and I have felt that way throughout my career. I can design banner, I can design logo, I can design good-looking websites, I can perform UX research, I can develop from simple blog websites to e-commerce ones. But where do I fit in such a large “tech” world?
Nobody would choose a “generalist” over a “specialist”…
See, now that is how I would NEVER achieve my goals. I tend to have negative connotation towards my skillset. People talk about “imposter syndrome” and how I feel about myself really matches the symptoms of the syndrome. Though, I do not want to call it a syndrome. I want to call it as “lack of self confidence” because I do know I am good at what I am doing, I just think I need more affirmation to back my skills up.
While I will spend my year learning new skills, I am definitely going to look back at what I lack and try to improve them.
But firs thing first, self-confidence.
Conclusion
The not “resolution” resolutions I have for this year may be very few but I really believe they are powerful enough to change “me”.
At the end of 2021, I will come back and look at this blog post to see how I have changed.
See you in the next post :)
