2023 is wrapping up in two days and it felt like the longest and shortest year at the same time which I have no idea how that's even possible. I want to make sure I’m able to reflect on the goals that I accomplished and review the current goals I had set up in the previous year. It helps me feel accountable and responsible for my actions and what I do with my time.

My 2023 highlights and goals accomplished this year

I became engaged with my partner of 10+ years💍
I started a new position at theScore as a Software Developer in my 5th year of programming 🎯
I read 17 books this year, exceeding the 5 books I set as a goal 🥳
I went to the gym and did a total of 78 workouts starting in May and gained 10lbs 💪
I travelled to Japan and walked a total of 100km during my visit✈️
I created a personal Discord Bot to help me find deals to save me💰on expected purchases🤖

My last year's goals were

Levelling up my skills with TypeScript - ongoing at work 🍃
Experience with GraphQL - accomplished and still ongoing ✅
React Query - I completed the React Query course and managed to stash away data from my very own homemade Goodreads API on my homepage. It was a bit of a DIY project since Goodreads isn't open source anymore and I wanted to preview and show my currently reading books 💯

You can tell the 2023 goals I set were pretty lacklustre, however, I did anticipate a new job change going in despite many layoffs happening which I was not going to be posting on my blog while still employed. That of course dictated how the rest of my 2023 was going to shape up and I’m very glad that it went better than I had expected.

Reflection

I felt confident coming into 2023 with 3 years of programming experience at Coveo. I had polished and ironed out my skills as a programmer, grasping the fundamentals of debugging and developing features with React. As time passed, I gained valuable experience. When I sensed that my personal growth was slowing down, I followed my instincts, applied for new opportunities, and was fortunate enough to secure a new position at theScore.

I am quickly approaching 1 year here at theScore as a web platform developer for theScore’s web betting application. I've had the opportunity to delve into unfamiliar aspects of web development, including tools like Storybook and CircleCI, managing tech stack upgrades to enhance web performance and keep us current with the latest practices, implementing error monitoring through Bugsnag, and handling the web deployment of a substantial web application.

That being said, it presented a wonderful opportunity to learn and gain valuable experience. I’m excited to be working on the next projects coming up in 2024 for us and hope to learn from the other talented devs here.

2024 Goals

Preparing healthier meals, and learning how my body reacts to a caloric deficit so that I can slim down and still fit my suit 😂
Read at least 7 books, two of which will help improve my developer skills 📚
Write a technical post about how I created my Goodreads API despite it no longer being available ✍️
Priming my skills so that I can achieve the title as a Senior Developer 🎯