As with any other year, I fell into the trap of making a New Year's resolution on the first day of 2021. At that time, I imitated what I saw in my social bubbles. It felt worth pursuing a handful of achievements with numbers in them, right? I was wrong. James Clear's Atomic Habits book is probably "guilty" for changing my mindset about these yearly resolutions.

Here's the list I posted on my Twitter account on the 1st of January, 2021:

I only achieved two out of the six goals I set for this year, looking back at these. I tripled my Twitter followers and ran a half-marathon. I did not make my first sale on Gumroad, read 12 books, wrote only 12 blog posts (personal + business), and barely got off the ground from the $0 MRR for my business. The problem with this is that these are just some plain numbers. It doesn't say anything about why I want to achieve these goals. They're not goals set to tell how I will grow but impress and compare with others. It's silly because I always say that the only competition we must have is with ourselves. Quality should always precede quantity. Even if I would've read only one book this year, it's how much I've learned and grown from it that's important.

Not achieving some of these goals can put guilt and unnecessary pressure on me. My mind tends to wander and think that I wish I would've set more time aside to read more books, write more articles, and get closer to achieving financial independence, but the truth is, despite all this, I couldn't be more grateful for how this year turned out.

In February, I joined Sahil's first cohort of the Minimalist Entrepreneur course. I also earned my first passive income from Econub—a project I initiated to build a curated recycling map for my hometown.

March 2021 was a turning point in my career. On the 15th of March, I made my first investment at Gumroad. I can say I'm officially an investor now. One week later, I ended my sabbatical to join the same company as a part-time programmer.

Fast-forward six months later, I bought 13 .ro domains more as an investment and an excellent opportunity to build another income stream for my business over the next decade.

By November 2021, I reached a huge milestone for Econub. I have biked over 500 kilometers around my city in under eight months and mapped 500 recycling points. This led to a handful of mentions in the local newspapers, one national radio interview, and one live TV appearance.

Two days ago, to end the year on a high note, I signed a volunteering contract with my local city hall to help digitalize their processes and build smart city solutions.

Next year, to make my goals easily achievable, I'll make them more atomic. Here's my list for next year:

Frequency is more important than the amount of time. Picking small intervals increases the chances of you doing the action. Tying an activity with a time and place is key to making an action last in the long run. We're creatures of habit, after all. We'll see how this turns out.

I hope you all had a great 2021, and here's to another year full of small achievements!