As I decided to shift the focus of the blog towards career and lifestyle, and this is the first post not only in a while but also in terms of the new series, it makes sense to start with some introspection. Below are a few random lines on how I feel about 2017, what I am proud of and consequently grateful for but also what I wished I did more of in the past year.
The reason I chose the introspection perspective is this article from Inc. about “31 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Setting Next Year’s goal“. As I was starting to think about 2018 goals and what I want to achieve in the coming year, I came across this article and I really liked how the questions touched on both professional and personal perspectives, and they really made me reflect on what were my achievements the past years, what were my failures, what I feel most proud of and how did I evolve throughout the year.
2017 finished on the high lane professionally, and I am quite proud of what I have achieved this year. I have changed industries and jobs in April and while it was a tough decision monetarily, as my finances took a hit, in the end it has definitely paid off. I had my promotion announcement in December which means that as of January I will be not only in a better position title wise, but I will also be much more satisfied in terms of salary. While my promotion story is a little bit bittersweet as I have ended up living the office politics and dynamics (probably more on that later on), I believe I have done a great job in positioning myself as a strong candidate for fast promotion and I gained the full support of my manager and my team which in the end made it possible.
While the early promotion was the result and I am very proud of having achieved that, what ultimately made it possible were the opportunities that popped up along the way, the responsibilities and attitude I had and also the support I received. I am very happy with the way I grew professionally this year and especially in two fields: first being able to quickly identify and solve problems while overcoming my doubts (and in a SaaS environment I can guarantee you there will always be something going wrong), and second starting to learn and practice how to build a team and manage it; and I feel incredibly lucky for having the opportunity of doing so. Of course I have worked hard throughout the year, and I didn’t count the hours spent in the office, the effort put on the side in reading and trying to understand the business and my client better, understanding how to manage people and how to build a team, how to give feedback and how to motivate, but I also think I have been incredibly lucky in starting in my team and having the support and trust from both one of my colleagues and my manager. In the end I also took a leap of faith in myself and believed that I am able to achieve all of this. It’s definitely been a journey and it is nowhere close to the end but I am so excited for 2018 and what will it bring professionally and I cannot wait to keep growing and getting better.
On the personal level I am extremely proud of my relationship, which I see as one of the greatest accomplishments or rather gift of my life – truly loving, supporting and honest. I am also thankful and happy for being able to partially support my sister through her studies and I am proud of leading both my professional and personal lives with honesty and not forcing people or friendships into my life just for the sake of doing so.
I truly feel incredibly lucky for all the opportunities I have had in 2017 but of course there were also some things that I wish I would have done more of. What I did not manage to do in 2017 is travel more, or at least have a dream holiday in more exotic location, make up my mind about continuing education and starting a Master’s degree, spend more time with my mom, fully come to peace with myself, get fitness back into my life in a more sustained way… and the list could continue but I will stop it here for this year.
Cheers to a wonderful and challenging 2017 and to an even more exciting and fulfilling 2018!
