2023: A Review Of The Year I Explored.

Welcoming 2024

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This year I finally understood the saying ‘when one door closes another one opens’. 

I am quite a planner and pride myself on moving into the new year before the world arrives in the new year. I said it for the first time in 2019 and I’ve been saying it every year since then.

Just like every year since 2019, I reflect and intentionally set clear goals for the new year. I was very hopeful and expectant about 2023 and carried all that energy into the year. I planned to grow everything I already had in my hand. 

An event happened on the 5th of January (my sister's birthday) that changed everything for me — I was running a startup with my friends and we lost our major client. I was faced with the shock of having to dream a new dream yet I dragged it for so long trying to save what I already had in my hands. 

You Can Dream A New Dream

You know that thing where you’re in a particular field and then build your identity, development, and success around it, yeah, I had to let it go! 

I was working in management, planning to develop business management skills and shake the world of entrepreneurship but it seemed like this girl had to start whipping up a resume and joining the job-hunting queue. 

Standing lost on my balcony one night, the thought came ‘You can dream a new dream’. The fact that I didn’t fall off from the shock that comes with expecting change is a miracle. 

I knew it was time to let go of every plan I had. I knew I had to let go and allow myself to perform an insane stunt of entertaining new ideas.

While taking the bus back home in March, I finally accepted the challenge. One step after the other, I took off my shoe and walked into the ocean of possibilities. I had two options:

1. Stand in the job-hunting queue and wait

2. Create magic 

I decided to do a mix: I was actively learning, creating resources, and executing any idea I had. 

Let’s look at the new things I tried 

• Being a lover of learning, I started taking courses to improve my management skills.

• Accepted a random and bold challenge of exploring data science and joined an AI hackathon community. That was the most spontaneous decision I think I’ve ever made considering I had no interest in data prior. I had asked myself, what’s a difficult and crazy thing to learn?

• Started a data science course and was actively learning Python. 

• Got active on Twitter again and started building a brand around learning and exploring skills. Even started a ‘study space’ on Twitter. 

• I started a substack newsletter — Age of Learning 🦄 where I documented my journey and shared my learning progress. 

• Created my first free resource called the learning planner and went ahead to create more resources to help people like me explore skills and professional development with hundreds of downloads. 

• I started creating more content on LinkedIn and Medium and just enjoyed learning and sharing.

• I started a LinkedIn challenge to help people who wanted to grow on LinkedIn like me and we did it!

I allowed myself to grow and try new things. I allowed new dreams. I was mostly learning and creating resources throughout April and May. 

In June and July, I decided job-hunting wasn’t for me and focused on creating resources and helping others learn a new skill or grow an online presence. 

In August I got one internship offer and over four job leads. I chose the ones I wanted and was actively working till the year’s end.

I was able to get those jobs because I allowed a new dream to begin when one door closed and genuinely wanted to bring others along with me.

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I faced other challenges outside of my career like: dealing with a challenging school final project supervisor, my friends moving to another city, I was constant moving from house to house, and I was more aware of my bad traits (it was like I could see the not-so-pretty side of me that needed to change). I paused learning towards Q4 to handle the workload.

I also did cool stuff like journaling more, exercising more, and being more intentional with remembering events.

After long hours of work in August, September, and October almost got me depressed, in November and December I intentionally decided and planned to step out more (I work remotely).

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These were the highlights of my 2023

• Spending time with my family, loved one, and friends (though almost all my friends moved to a new city).

• I did attempt to drive when I was home and my junior siblings made me feel like I was only attempting to take their lives. 

• Finally graduating as one of the best-graduating students after confronting a professor.

• Traveling to another city for Reboot Camp and a fun time with my friends (who moved). It was exactly what I needed — to laugh, eat and love.

• Growing my brand community and reach.

• I coached and guided some individuals to start their careers in the technology ecosystem. 

• I helped several professionals navigate LinkedIn and grow their reach and even hosted classes and events to teach others. 

• I tried new things like going on the longest canopy walk in Africa at The Lekki Conservation Centre, Jumping from a height, trying out new kinds of pasta, and even making new pasta recipes. 

• I received beautiful and thoughtful gifts from my loved ones.

• I was making lots of mistakes and was grateful I could be rebuked and corrected. 

• Because I enjoy abundance (which I am grateful for) I was able to gift the people I love and that made my heart glow.

2023 was the year I allowed myself to have faith and take bold steps and I saw the results. I enjoyed ease even when I had to constantly show up and do the work excellently. 

I watched more movies and series in 2023 than I usually do (I only watched movies when I ate). I did this to relax and run away from pressure when it became a lot. Watching Series somehow made me feel like I was part of another story and world outside my fast-paced work culture, and I always felt sad when it finally ended. I liked that I could pause everything to continue from where I stopped which is weird cause I never liked the fact that Series took more time to finish and left you waiting to see what happens next. 

I did everything with music but failed to eat more fruits and vegetables like I planned to. I was also inconsistent with my workouts every time I had to move to another house.

I continued hosting physical meetups where I read the Bible with friends. I was supposed to read through the Bible but stopped in the Book of Psalms when I started struggling in June.

I like that I enjoyed good food and even swim a little better now (before I could only float effectively).

Future Projections…

For 2024, my main goal is to experience intimacy with God, change some patterns, learn from people, and 10x everything I have in my hand.

It might take a new turn but the theme I’ll be holding on to is: 

Living more peacefully, making audacious moves, and being consistent with learning and growing.

It’s the year of peace, growth, and abundance.

It’s the year I let my light shine and my soul finds meaning. 

Thank you so much for being a part of my story in 2023.

Being able to write to you helped me recall events week after week.

Here’s to more stories, wins, and growth in 2024.

See you soon… In 2024 🙌🏽