I’ve been wanting to get into the habit of writing a yearly retrospective for a while now, but 2022 was a bit on the terrible side. Nothing major, but we took a few blows. It was stressful, and rather than working through all that again to write a blog post, I figured I’d write down some of the habits and goals I want to focus on for this year.

Relationships

This summer Amanda and I will be married for two years! I didn’t think time would move this fast, but it has. It’s been great and I’d like it to continue being great. So, I want to focus on being present in our relationship and to continue growing it.

In the broader definition of relationships, I’d like to be more social with my friends and family. I’m an introvert, and honestly a bit of a hermit, so it’s not uncommon for me to let relationships with friends and family fall to the wayside. I think it would be good for me to build those relationships up and be more intentional about them.

Health

These past few years I’ve let my physical health take a back seat to everything else. My biggest focus this year is going to be developing better habits surrounding my physical and mental health. A couple of years ago, in the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic, we bought a rower since Amanda and I have both enjoyed rowing in the past. I found a straight-forward training program that I’m going to do my best to follow. In regards to diet I’m going to try and keep junk food to a minimum and eat out less often. From the start of our relationship, Amanda and I have loved cooking together, so I think it would be great to do that more often and try new things.

Work

I think I’ve been on a steady path in regards to my skills as a developer. I’m just focusing on learning a little bit more each day and exposing myself to new things. At my last job I had the opportunity to work on a project that involved building a native iOS and Android app, and it rekindled the love I had for building apps. I had so much fun on the iOS side with SwiftUI, so I’m going to work on building up my skillset as an iOS developer.

Hobbies and fun stuff

I recently got the itch to play guitar again. I played a lot in my teens, but was very sporadic in my twenties. I just bought a new amp and some headphones (so I don’t annoy my neighbors), and have been having a blast playing again. In the past I was the kind of player that just learned songs using tabs, but this time around I’m going to take the time to learn keys, scales, and chord progressions around the fretboard so I can improvise, jam, and just be a better musician.

This past year I’ve been learning German, primarily with Duolingo. While some weeks I do a minimal one lesson per day, I’m trying to be better and keep it at 20 minutes to an hour each day. Duolingo has been decent in general, but it does lack in some areas, like grammar. So I’m going to try and be more intentional with supplementing my German language studies with other resources like DW’s Nicos Weg course as well as some books like Dino lernt Deutsch, and English Grammar for Students of German. I’m having fun with it, and I hope we can take a trip to Germany in the next couple of years.

Going forward

There’s a lot I’m excited about this year. I want to do a lot, but in a healthy way so I don’t give up in May. So, I’m just going to take things slow and enjoy the journey.