It is the last day of the year and I imagine there will be a lot of posts today celebrating goals achieved this year. I believe in recognizing and celebrating the hard work, diligence and commitment that success demands of you when your goals are met, and I am happy for everyone celebrating their wins today.
However, If for any reason you are looking through your vision board or aspirations for the year and you still have items unchecked, this post is for you.
Last year, one of my goals was to deepen my knowledge of Products from a tech leadership perspective. I had been assigned a task to work with the Product Team for the Monetization Strategy for one of our products (shout out to my partners – Ismail and Ayodeji). I had just completed the PSM 1 certification with Scrum.org after working on the introduction of a Software Development Framework to standardize software development within the organization with another amazing team so I was really excited about the program with Treford. A few weeks before the program started, I received information that a close family member will be requiring a major surgery. The news hit hard because we had been hopeful for a non-invasive treatment before receiving the feedback. I thought we still had some time but we later received information that the surgery will hold the second week of the Treford training. I attended the first week, somewhat distracted and not really in the best frame of mind but I had been waiting for this training for a while and I did not want to miss it. By week 2, I was an emotional wreck. The surgery was successful but the close shave, post-surgery care and the things I saw and experienced during the period were nerve racking. I had to write a friend on the Treford team requesting to pull out of the program.
Thankfully, the family member recovered and things gradually got back to normal but several calls and emails to the Treford team revealed that the first cohort was closed and new cohorts were on hold. I continued self-learning and making contributions to our Products where I could until October 2022 when someone casually mentioned to me that the next cohort was starting. I had to re-register and pay again (the fees had increased but thankfully I got a 50% discount).
One year after missing the goal, I am happy to have not only completed the program but also completed other items on my self-development aspirations for 2022 like the Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) training. I am also glad that despite the challenges, I did not lose sight of other opportunities to learn and pick up skills necessary for my Tech Leadership aspirations 😊
No matter what you did not achieve in 2022, 2023 is a great year to try again. If it is important to you, don’t give up and don’t let life keep you down!