When I look back at the last year, it seems blurry. Mainly because it felt incredibly busy and because it went by fast. But let’s dive in, shall we?

2022 themes & lessons

I had a total of eight themes and goals for 2022. Out of those eight I accomplished five of them, did okay with two, and “failed” with one. While I don’t feel comfortable sharing or going into all of them, here are a few that I feel good about getting into a bit:

Time off to rest and rejuvenate

By far the most significant change I made this past year was the Seventh Week Sabbatical. I mentioned it in 2021’s recap and wrote two additional blog posts on it. Long story short, implementing planned time off like this was incredibly good for me. As I wrote in 2021, the idea of taking that much time off had me feeling uncomfortable. But after the first couple sabbatical weeks, I was in 100%. In total, I took 6 weeks off that were strictly sabbatical weeks. Plus I took off several days for traveling or major holidays. So I’d guess that I took off anywhere from 7-8 weeks off this year. The negative impact on my business was zero; I didn’t lose revenue or clients (quite the opposite actually). The positive impact on me was immeasurable. Because I was able to disconnect and recharge on a regular basis, I would feel better overall and that meant doing good work more consistently. I’ll write a more comprehensive blog post on the Seventh Week Sabbatical, but for now I’ll just say that it was a good change that I won’t be ditching any time soon.

Fitness all year long

I don’t think I’ve ever written down, at least not publicly, how being active in some way is important to me. I’ve been an athlete for as long as I can remember and it was always an outlet, even when I didn’t even know it. I realized a few years ago that being active is critical to my mental health. Not being able to engage in some sort of sport or physical activity for too long greatly affects me.

So I made a commitment to myself in 2022 that I would be active in one way or another all year long. I used to be able to just play football/soccer a couple times a week and that would be plenty. That’s just not the case any longer, especially with my body no longer being able to take playing football more than once a week on a good week. So being active meant going to the gym and lifting weights, getting on the treadmill, going for walks, and to a much, much lesser extent, just riding my skateboard here and there. Thankfully, this is something I was able to stick to and will continue for as long as I can.

Work from anywhere

Over the past 3-5 years, my partner and I have been traveling a lot more. It’s not always some big trip; sometimes it’s just a roadtrip to visit friends for the weekend and other times it’s a one or two-month stay somewhere. Regardless, I’ve had to learn to work from just about anywhere and this year was no exception. It took some time for me to get used to this, if I’m honest, but it’s been a good change. As much as I love having my own space to work in 80% of the time (totally randomly pulled number by the way), learning to become comfortable with the uncomfortable aspect of working in less than ideal environments has been good. In some ironic way, it boosts productivity because I have less “stuff” to distract me and I have little choice but to focus even more than usual.

Additional passive income

This is the one theme where I failed miserably. I had a very, very good year business-wise which meant I was kept busy with that more often than not. I’m certainly not going to complain, but it did mean something else had to give. And that’s why I didn’t write as much as I wanted to, or create as many videos as I wanted, and I certainly didn’t improve my passive income. I have a tendency to be really tough on myself, so I’m trying to be okay with all that. After all, who really cares? So instead of being bummed and disparaging myself or my efforts, I’m going to just roll this over to 2023. While I hope to write more and create more videos, creating additional revenue streams will be a larger focus than those.

Looking forward

So what does 2023 bring? Hell if I know. What do I hope it’ll bring? More of the same? Yes and no. I’d like to repeat a few wins I had and build off of them. And there are things I’d like less of for sure. In the end though, all I can really do is plan things as best as I can and take it one day at a time.