Did I Dominate 2018? Secret Tricks to Self-Development in 2019

Being obsessed with self-development and growth, I’ve always set multiple goals that I had to achieve no matter what. However, I’ve never bothered to review my progress and document my successful goal completion, so I think 2019 is the right moment to start doing it.

The year 2018 was a tough one for me. There were many ups and downs that I would like to recall on. In this 2018 progress review, I will focus on the positive side only because that is what matters.

“Focus on the good and strive for it no matter what. You’ll no longer be interested in the bad.”, were some of the words I told myself.

While setting goals is a part of self-development, reviewing them is the foundation of it. Progress revision is one of the self-awareness tricks that you can use to understand how well things go for you. Some entrepreneurs like Stefan James, Thomas Frank, and other young successful people review their progress weekly, monthly, and yearly.

Tracking your progress throughout the year would have probably given you a hell lot of insights. However, it’s very time-consuming and boring. Well, or at least, I just have no willpower to do that regularly. Anyway, this is my 2018 retrospective.

Work

• Worked in customer fraud control department and learned a lot about domain names (domain life cycle, transferring, deletion, etc.), hostings, companies, social engineering, fraudulent behavior, tricks, etc.
  
  
• Started my journey as a content writer in an SEO agency without knowing what SEO even means. In 6 months, I’ve learned a huge portion of SEO strategies, definitions, stories, and people. I learned how websites rank on Google, and what affects website visibility. I figured out what APIs are and how they work. How to scrape website data and many other things.
  
  
• I’m currently working in a software and game development company. My journey has just begun but I already know a lot about gamification, AR/VR development, technologies, platforms, and tools.

Skills

• Built my own website, drew a logo, and pretty much everything that you see now. I used plugins though, but I didn’t know it’s even possible to make something like that without any skills. It took me 2-3 months to figure out how it all works. It was all test and try approach. Today, I keep on improving my website.
  
  
• Learned that blogging is a thing. It’s a very effective strategy not only for passionate writers to express themselves publicly but also a long-term strategy for establishing brand identity and landing clients. If you know how to write, you’ll have a job unless AI will learn how to write better 😛

• Wrote several instrumental songs on my acoustic guitar. Also, I’ve learned a few other songs such as Three Days Grace – Drown, Ashes Remain – Right Here, and Breaking Benjamin – The Diary of Jane.

Relationships

• Met the most amazing and craziest girl in the world. We are now living together and enjoying it.
  
  
• Improved relationships with my uncle and aunt. It helped me realize the relationships with other people is one the most valuable assets that we social by nature human beings have. So, in 2019 I will focus on improving the relationships with my girlfriend, friends, and family as well as my attitude towards other people.
  
  
• I’m currently focusing on improving relationships with my mother which is a hell of a struggle, but that’s partly why I created this website. I want to figure out how to approach my mom in the least emotionally devastating way, and take her out of the emotional and physical poverty. They say you can’t change a person if they don’t want to. I’ll try.

Emotions and feelings

• As I started writing about depression, I no longer see it as my direct problem. Instead, I use my past depression experience, emotional and behavioral disorders as materials. These things have become a tool, a roadmap to emotional intelligence and stability.
  
  
• Choosing between the victim and the warrior, I chose the latter. For example, you can say: “I can’t learn that song. It’s too complicated, I’ll never master it.” or you can say: “I wonder if I can have enough patience to learn this song, it requires a lot of practice and time, but I’ll try my best to learn it.” The first scenario is a victim. The second is a warrior. If you don’t choose to be the warrior the life will choose for you. It always chooses what you don’t want. Become the decision-maker.
  
  
• In 2019, I’ll keep working on my emotional intelligence and write more articles about it. My goal is to find the balance between my heart and my head. I want to be passionate enough to make an “impossible”, “unthought” decision, but be open-minded, tactical, and smart enough to calculate the risks and opportunities several steps ahead.

Self-development

• All these things listed above helped me make a significant improvement towards who I am today. I will be different tomorrow, but today all these things work for me. I keep learning from the greatest such as Chris Do, Keir McLaren, Fabian Geyrhalter, Jonathan Stark, Adam Grant, Neil Patel, Charlie Houpert and many others.
  
  
• I realized that one of the best ways to learn emotional intelligence, make significant improvements in your mindset and personality, and learn a whole lot of new skills is to start a business. The bigger your goal is the more advanced you will become in the process. What does it mean? Throw all the self-development books that you have out of the window.
  
  Want to stop being hopeless, helpless, patient? Want to cultivate a decision-maker, achiever, and a superhero in you? Start building a website. Know how to build a website? Monetize it. You know how to monetize it? Hire people and grow your business. This is self-development, and not your “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” I read it. It’s shit. However, Robert Kiyosaki became who he is today because he has taken a challenge to write that book. He has also played a great show that had such an enormous public resonance. He raised the bar.
  
  Every time you raise the bar you become someone whom you’ve never ever dreamed to be. It requires significant effort, mind and behavior changes. It’s a constant mental battle, but it’s an integral part of self-development.

• The funny thing is that by the time I’ve finished the article, I started to despise some of my phrases at the beginning of the article. “Tracking your progress is very time-consuming and boring. Well, or at least, I just have no willpower to do that regularly.” A few hours later, I’m the living proof that these words are not true anymore.

This is how the combination of self-awareness and self-development works. You need to be aware of what you’re doing, and then 5 minutes later be able to say that all that you did makes no sense. This is my life. I come up with an incredible idea today which I absolutely reject tomorrow because tomorrow I have another incredible idea.  

The lesson here is that you need to take everything that works for you today. Tomorrow, you’ll find another source of inspiration, and that’s absolutely fine. The cool thing is that the source of inspiration that you’re looking for may be you. Document your success once in a while just like I did here. You’ll learn from yourself and about yourself because you learn when you share, and not when you consume.

That is self-development.

If you enjoyed reading it, please, give it a like, and then come back tomorrow and dislike it! But always remember to set goals and try your best to achieve them. Stay awesome!