How have you failed in 2023?
For years, I’ve been judging the success of a year based on how much I was able to accomplish.
“Did I do enough in 2023?”
That’s the question I’ve been asking myself for the past 5 days since the old year ended and the new one began.
Actually, that’s a lie. It’s the question I’ve been asking myself since early October when I did my last quarterly review, long before I was stuffing 12 grapes in my mouth at midnight on New Years.
I couldn’t shake this feeling that this year just hadn’t been as successful as it could have been.
In retrospect, there’s a single word in that last sentence that was driving my general “bleh” feeling about the year.
And I’ll be honest, I likely wouldn’t have noticed it if not for a conversation with Pretzel (my wife) and the fact I’m reading the book 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman right now (hat tip to Rajiv for the reco).
The word: successful.
I wasn’t saying “This year I wasn’t as energetic | engaged | happy as I could have been.” For the past three months, I’ve been fixated on whether or not I was “successful” enough.
For years, I’ve been judging the success of a year based on how much I was able to accomplish. Who am I kidding, I’m an engineer, I’ve probably been doing that since I was born. Even as an infant, I likely calculated my burps per feeding session (BPFs for the stats folks).
Intellectually, I know that one example of a fixed mindset is comparing yourself to others whereas a growth mindset is comparing yourself to your potential… but that doesn’t mean I don’t do it.
For the entire past year (and more likely, the past 3+ years), whenever I looked at the social media feeds of my fellow speaker / comedian peers, I felt three emotions:
Happiness for their success and accomplishments.
Envy of their thriving business and cool engagements.
Guilt for feeling the second feeling at all.
I’m not vulnerable enough to tell you which one of the three emotions was the strongest (hint: it wasn’t the first one).
These are people who I came up with, mentored, coached, have been coached by, have shared stages with, look up to, swap notes with, share laughs, and admire… and yet seeing their success made me feel worse about myself.
As a result…
I retreated socially. I stopped posting on social media and outsourced it as much as I could. (I will say Omar’s team has done a great job and I’m really happy with the value-added content we are creating together. And at my core, I am not a “social media person”)
I stopped reaching out to speaker friends to check in and let some of my really strong connections fade away.
I even stopped writing puns (this is when I should have known something was wrong).
“Happiness is the difference between the perception of events in your life and hopes and expectations of how life should be.” Mo Gawdat
It wasn’t until this past week, when I sat down to review 2023, that I realized how bad this anxiety of mediocrity had become. Normally I’m excited to review the year because it also helps me start thinking about plans for the next year. But this year I kept putting it off because I was worried about what I would (or more realistically, wouldn’t) find.
I only finally started properly reviewing the year because Pretzel and I agreed we’d share our favorite accomplishments in our family meeting this week. (Yes, she and I have a weekly family meeting that involves multiple Google Docs and no fewer than 3 Google Spreadsheets. What do you expect? I’m an engineer married to a German.)
And guess what I found?
I did way more than I remembered. In 2023:
I returned to the FBI for the third time for an event, did a second event with NASA that involved a 3-part virtual series, and was once again working with the UN.
I got a chance to do events at some great universities, including Harvard, NYU, OSU, Texas A&M, and University of California Irvine.
I spoke to ~70 people at an event in Suriname, which is very likely the highest percentage of the population of a country that I’ve spoken to at once. (Suriname’s population is 612,000 meaning 70 people is .01% of the country. For comparison, I’d have to speak to an audience of 37,745 people in the US.)
I spoke at an event that was hosted by one of my IB classmates from Princeton High School back in the day (she knew me way before I had any skill in humor).
We also published the Skill of Humor Playbook and, just last week (so it barely counts): announced the launch of the Humor Persona Essentials Series (now available).
That’s not to mention the meaningful personal things that happened:
My daughter and I traveled with Pretzel on some of her UN missions, including to Suriname, Turkey, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and New York.
I flew solo with my daughter (at just over 2 years old) for the very first time and it all went smoothly (even though the pilot only had one pair of souvenir wings which he gave to my daughter and not me…).
My family commemorated the 10-year anniversary of my dad passing away.
So, despite all of these accomplishments, why was I so down on myself for what I did or didn’t do in the year? Why wasn’t I grateful? Why might some of you also feel this way?
Because I know for a fact that some of my speaker friends’ accomplishments are more impressive than mine. And because the things above are the types of things you’d see on social media (if I was good about posting them). What you’re unlikely to see are the failures, forgotten projects, and general f-ups made along the way.
Not included in the above bullet lists?
That I did 10 less keynotes this year than last year (my emotions ignore the fact that I intentionally did less keynotes so I didn’t have to be away from home as much this year, all I see is that I did fewer).
That I accomplished only 1 of the 10 goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. (That’s probably why our last happy hour was all about why New Year’s Resolutions fail.)
That I missed not one but two events scheduled for the HTW community because of poor scheduling and lack of foresight on my part.
That I cried more times out of stress, frustration, anxiety, and doubt this year than probably all of my previous 38 years combined.
*That last bullet point is why one of my goals is to find a therapist this year. Do they have ones that specialize in working with engineers?
And as I’m sitting here re-reading the last few paragraphs, I also can’t help but feel some shame over the lack of gratitude I’m showing (just not enough to not write about it).
I grew up in a household full of love, I am married to the absolute love of my life, my daughter is growing and thriving right in front of my eyes, I travel to multiple countries every year, and have the flexibility to work, or not work, remotely. And yet, I choose to focus on the have-nots, instead of the haves. These darn human emotions are mischievous things.
My point is that we will always feel like we could do more. I’m reminded of this quote from 4000 Weeks:
“The day will never arrive when you finally have everything under control—when the flood of emails has been contained; when your to-do lists have stopped getting longer; when you’re meeting all your obligations at work and in your home life; when nobody’s angry with you for missing a deadline or dropping the ball; and when the fully optimized person you’ve become can turn, at long last, to the things life is really supposed to be about. Let’s start by admitting defeat: none of this is ever going to happen.”
And that is only ever exacerbated* by the curated (and unrealistic) perceptions we get from social media.
*Note: I only allowed myself to use this word if I spelled it correctly on the first try. I really wanted to put a second ‘c’ in there but guessed right.
But very (very (very very)) slowly I’m learning that success isn’t defined by being the most productive person in the office or delivering the most keynotes or even writing the most puns, it’s defined by your personal goals AND your personal life.
What good is it being successful if everything else is in shambles around you?
Whether you had the best year ever or the worst (or likely something in between), the truth is as Rafiki said, “it’s in the past.” So why not reflect on the year, emphasize the positives, and then gear for a better 2024?
So if you happened to feel a bit down about your 2023 like me, my guess is that there were probably a few more good moments you may have forgotten about. To lift my spirits (and possibly yours), hit reply back and share with me your favorite accomplishment or proudest moment of 2023. I read every response.
And next week, let’s look to the future. I’ll be sharing a bit more of what we’re looking to do in 2024 and I’d love your input / feedback, so stay tuned.
To a happy'er 2024
Drew
PS. Another enjoyable quote from 4000 weeks, “The real measure of any time management technique is whether or not it helps you neglect the right things.”
What about you?
How have you failed in 2023?