And here we are again… at the start of a new year, looking back on 2022 retrospectively while looking forward to 2023 with renewed focus. 2022 was eventful, both professionally and personally. The year started with the Omnicron variant raging across North America, but things eventually opened up around March. We felt life slowly but surely go back to close to what it was in 2019.

Looking Back

While I didn't publish a retrospective last year, I did have goals. My goals were to spend time with my family and build a brand for myself, spend more quality time with my immediate family, increase my technical confidence and improve my overall health. While I didn't make a meaningful impact on the targets, I did touch on most of what I wanted to do.

On the personal front, I finally made it to Malaysia and Singapore. While it wasn't the trip I had always wanted to do, it was still a trip that was deeply meaningful. My original plan was to take a 3-month sabbatical to match my wife's 1-year sabbatical and be able to travel to Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. However, I ended up switching roles twice during the pandemic, and despite being relatively new, I had the opportunity to spend four weeks in Malaysia and Singapore. The trip was primarily made possible because of the generosity of our friends, Karen and Rom, who housed us in Singapore for three weeks! The trip was significant for me for several reasons. I got to help connect my son to the places and things of the stories that I've shared with him, reconnect with my wife during a hectic year and reconnect with my childhood friends and family, many of whom I've not seen in over 18 years. And, boy, did I also ever reconnect with the food :D I remember coming back home to Canada, and my father described me as round :D

I also enjoyed building out the first version of my Technology Enterprise Management Systems (TEMS), which I used quite a bit. The features I could build scaffolds for were the ability to manage a growing team structure and lightweight recruiting, and I recently introduced simple budgeting as part of the first build. All the features are highly rudimentary, and the UI could be better. But it was a tool I used extensively last year. I'll likely improve for my continual usage.

The place where I saw where going back to normal had the most impact was my bike riding. Here are the comparative stats:

The actual impact was that I rode a lot less, and there was an impact on my racing numbers. The switch to the Northrock bicycle for indoor racing was potentially part of that impact.

Things at Vivid Seats felt very condensed last year. Given that we are ambitious, going away for an extended time made the year feel even more condensed than the previous year. We did a lot last year, including:

• Growing the teams by almost 50%
• Support fully fledged internship program where our interns had a meaningful experience
• Maturing how we thought and operated as a technology leadership team
• Defining a more common way to talk about planning
• Re-platformed our native user experience

Looking Ahead

This year I decided to simplify and reorganize my goals. My goals this year focus more on work-life complement.

Deepen my relationships with people I care about

Key Result 1: Meet up in person with important people once a week

Key Result 2: Spend 15 hours a week of quality time with my family

Key Result 3: Keep in touch with 5 people I care about every week

As work gets busy, my personal and professional relationships took their toll last year. This year, I focus on the people that matter by being more intentional with the time I spend with them.

Be confident of being able to communicate publicly

Key Result 1: Write 2 blog posts a month

Key Result 2: Read / Listen to 1 book a month

Key Result 3: Create 1 TikTok a month starting in September

Key Result 4: Speak publicly to an audience of more than 10 people every month

This goal is one area I have always avoided. Avoiding public speaking became easier during the pandemic, but this is the area I'm most interested in for personal and professional growth. The goal is to look at communication beyond just public speaking in the traditional sense but also explore other channels, both traditional (like blogging) and trendier (like TikTok)

Holistically improve my health

Key Result 1: Ride 10 times a month with an average of 25 km distance per ride and average power output of 180 kw/h

Key Result 2: Work out 10 times a month for the year

Key Result 3: Reduce my belly size to 30 inches

Riding over the last couple of years has been more of a habit than a focus on health. From my data, my overall performance declined noticeably in 2022. The goal is to increase this performance but also look at additional metrics

Launch Version 1 of a Personal Relationship Management system

Key Result 1: Launch a basic contact book that allows a user to store names, dates, emails, addresses, relationships, notes and activities built in Rails 7 by March 31

Key Result 2: Integrate with Google Contacts and Matrix by September 30

Key Result 3: Build a mobile client with a cross-platform framework by December 31

What's Next?!?!

With this blog entry, I've just checked off my first blog of the month and am on my way. My goals will adjust throughout the year but I feel good about my goals at the start of the year.

What were your goals last year? How did you perform to them? If you're interested, here's the template I used to build out my personal goals