My three Cents off 2020 — COVID, Content, and Character

Year-end review — A constant battle to get things done!

6 min readDec 29, 2020

It’s only in hindsight that you can tell how your decisions and action plans have turned out.

I am a big-time consumer of self-help content — books, podcasts, blogs, newsletters, I have been intoxicated with nearly all sorts of resources.

I enjoy making new year resolutions but I never deeply examine the gross outcome of this habit of mine. So, here I am looking over my failures, achievements, and struggles of 2020.

Where am I in my career?

Before I start reviewing the year, it’s important to set the context and for you to have an idea of where my thoughts are coming from.

I left my first and only job in August 2018.

I have been self-employed for the past two and a half years now. I write data science and engineering courses, conduct workshops, and mentor students for the most part.

My job makes me happy. I make enough to get going but there is a lot of room for improvement. Besides work, I am a fitness enthusiast who is exploring the world of mindfulness through meditation, reading, and breathing techniques.

At the end of 2019, I knew I was at a saturation point. I had to scale and execute ideas to contribute to the societies and communities I am a part of.

What I had in mind at the start of 2020

I believe there is a stage in your life when you educate yourself just enough to understand that what you know is just a tiny fraction of what you intend to master. It’s at this point that I realized that I’d never reach there and that it’s a lifelong voyage that gives meaning to life.

With that thought, I decided to dedicate 2020 to learning. There were three categories of personal growth that I focused on: