My 2016 Annual Review

The year of turning 37.

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

Time for my 2016 annu­al review.

I’ll do my best to answer three ques­tions in this post: 1This format is inspired by James Clear’s annu­al reviews.

What went well this year?
What did­n’t go so well this year?
What am I work­ing toward?

Here we go:

1. What Went Well This Year?

Cision PR Influencer Award. After being nom­in­ated for five years, I got the Cision Scandinavia’s PR Influencer Award. It’s always debat­able wheth­er the right per­son or not won, but the big thing about win­ning this award was the feel­ing of grat­it­ude for being recognized.

TEDx. I talked about stu­pid major­it­ies in Östersund, Sweden. In ret­ro­spect, I don’t feel I gave the best talk pos­sible. I acci­dent­ally switched my slideshow to an older ver­sion, so I had to impro­vise a lot. Right before going up, I was nervous (pub­lic speak­ing usu­ally does­n’t make me nervous), so I messed up my English. On top of this, I had a severe eye infec­tion and a high fever. There are many excuses right there, but that’s not the point; I’m still proud of being allowed to be part of the TEDx tra­di­tion — and I want to go at it again and better!

Better sem­inars. Before this year, I focused a bit more on giv­ing bet­ter sem­inars. I’ve always seen myself as a prac­ti­tion­er who some­times talks to people about what I do and how they can do it. This year, I wanted to take my pub­lic speak­ing more ser­i­ously and pre­pare more adequately for each talk. In 2016, I aver­aged more than one talk per month and did well (con­sist­ently above 4.3÷5).

Hard reset (part one). I got sick at the end of the year (a severe eye infec­tion). I could not put in any screen time for almost two months, but that was almost enough to crash my solo busi­ness. As a res­ult, I almost burnt myself out while try­ing to keep up des­pite not being well. So, I resigned from all my cli­ent pro­jects and focused on get­ting well. It was a dif­fi­cult step to take, but I’m happy that I did, and I have no regrets.

2. What Didn’t Go So Well This Year?

Hard reset (part two). Even if I’m happy about how I handled the “crash,” it could’ve been avoided alto­geth­er. I mis­man­aged my sleep, exer­cise routine, and diet through­out the year. And I had no backup plan for hand­ling busi­ness in case of get­ting sick for longer than a week.

Life as usu­al.” Looking back, I did­n’t do much this year to explore life. I just woke up daily to tackle whatever was in front of me. To man­age my time and energy in some way, I uncon­sciously avoided cre­at­ive ‘out­side-the-box’ endeav­ours, social events, trav­el­ling with the fam­ily, and hav­ing fun for the sake of hav­ing a good time. In this react­ive state, the year just flew by.

3. What Am I Working Toward?

Energy man­age­ment. If you don’t man­age your life, it will man­age you. In 2017, I will strive to explore vari­ous ways of put­ting myself back into the driver­’s seat of my own life. And this calls for a change of strategy!


Please sup­port my blog by shar­ing it with oth­er PR- and com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als. For ques­tions or PR sup­port, con­tact me via jerry@​spinfactory.​com.

ANNOTATIONS
ANNOTATIONS
1 This format is inspired by James Clear’s annu­al reviews.
Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at KIX Index and Spin Factory. Before that, he worked at Kaufmann, Whispr Group, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Cover Photo

The cover photo has nothing to do with public relations, of course. I share for no other reason that I happen to enjoy photography. Call it an “ornamental distraction”—and a subtle reminder to appreciate nature.

The cover photo has

.

Grab a free subscription before you go.

Get notified of new blog posts
& new PR courses


🔒 Please read my integrity- and cookie policy.

Latest Posts
Similar Posts
Most Popular