My 2023 Annual Review

Time for my 2023 annu­al review.

In this post, I’ll do my best to answer these three ques­tions: 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:

What Went Well This Year?

Being a good dad. I have four basic prin­ciples for how I see the role of being a parent:

If you can ful­fil these four needs, nature will take its course, and the child will devel­op into the per­son the child is sup­posed to become. I try not to under­es­tim­ate these four needs, just as I try not to over­es­tim­ate my poten­tial role as a “sculptor” of my son’s per­son­al­ity. This approach has worked well in 2023.

Being a sup­port­ive hus­band. I try my hard­est to be the best sup­port I can be for my wife. The chal­lenge is avoid­ing the idea that being sup­port­ive should yield any spe­cif­ic returns. I want to avoid mak­ing the rela­tion­ship trans­ac­tion­al in nature. I sup­port “the team” altru­ist­ic­ally to the best of my cap­ab­il­ity — and then we share the exper­i­ences of win­ning and losing. 

Being an accep­ted lead­er. In 2023, I’ve been in a pos­i­tion where I’m lead­ing a small group of com­pet­ent indi­vidu­als. Each of them could eas­ily assume the mantle of lead­er­ship them­selves — and do a great job. I cher­ish this hum­bling exper­i­ence because it pre­vents me from enter­ing a head­space of induced self-import­ance. Leadership is about the team’s net out­put and being of ser­vice, noth­ing more. ²Silfwer, J. (2023, November 29). Existentialism for PR Advisers. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​e​x​i​s​t​e​n​t​i​a​l​i​sm/

Being a trus­ted advisor. I feel that I’ve matured as an advisor dur­ing 2023. As I became a con­sult­ant at a fairly young age, I’ve long felt that I must con­stantly dis­tin­guish myself. I still prove myself reg­u­larly, not because I yearn for respect and val­id­a­tion, but because trust takes time to cul­tiv­ate in any new rela­tion­ship. I’ve grown more com­fort­able with my pro­fes­sion­al value — a value that per­sists wheth­er it’s extrins­ic­ally con­firmed or not. 

Clean think­ing. As for per­son­al devel­op­ment, I’ve made some head­way worth not­ing. I’ve made a series of good decisions, taken sev­er­al steps I’m happy with, and found more effi­cient struc­tures and pro­cesses in my life. I cred­it this pro­gress with some­thing I call “clean think­ing” — the unsen­ti­ment­al applic­a­tion of Occham’s razor onto the chaos of human exist­ence. ³Silfwer, J. (2023, November 17). Mental Models: How To Think Better — Faster. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​m​e​n​t​a​l​-​m​o​d​e​ls/

Better English. I con­sciously strived to improve my English, and then, after ten years (2010 – 2020), I called it quits. Then, my pro­fi­ciency improved expo­nen­tially. Once again, my every­day curi­os­ity got the upper hand on my long-term goal-set­ting. Cést la vie. ⁴Silfwer, J. (2020, September 10). The Blog Project: 10 Years of Improving My English. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​i​m​p​r​o​v​e​-​m​y​-​e​n​g​l​i​sh/

What Didn’t Go So Well This Year?

Goal-set­ting was off — again. This is my 10^th annu­al review. As I strive to for­mu­late my main goals for the upcom­ing year, I’m amazed how I nev­er come close to achiev­ing any of them. My annu­al reviews show­case a decade’s worth of com­pletely missed tar­gets! It’s an achieve­ment in itself, almost. This time, I’ll try to think dif­fer­ently about set­ting goals for 2024. The 10^th time is the charm, right?

Creating some­thing note-worthy. Speaking of goal-set­ting, I didn’t man­age to pub­lish my online PR course this year, either. I’m also con­stantly re-writ­ing a book on pub­lic rela­tions called “Amplify.” Plus — I’m striv­ing to push Doctor Spin to become an appre­ci­ated resource for PR pro­fes­sion­als and stu­dents. Sure, I’ve put in decent efforts, but not enough to get any­thing across the fin­ish line.

Crossfit. In 2023, I learned that CrossFit didn’t work for me. It simply wasn’t the kind of phys­ic­al free­dom I was search­ing for. The search for “the ulti­mate” phys­ic­al regi­men will surely continue.

What Am I Working Toward?

No more annu­al reviews. Formulating what went well and what didn’t go so well for ten years straight has lit­er­ally taught me one thing — goal-set­ting is not my cup of tea. 

As an intrins­ic­ally curi­ous and motiv­ated per­son, I don’t appre­ci­ate “yes­ter­day’s me” telling “today’s me” what to do. It causes me to back­fire and rebel against myself.

My life is more pro­duct­ive and reward­ing when I allow myself space to roam free and explore. For a tem­pera­ment like mine, rig­or­ous goal-set­ting often has adverse effects. Hence, this will be my last annu­al review.

If you’ve enjoyed these annu­al reviews — thank you.