When Enough Doesn't Feel Enough: Reflecting on a Year of Mixed Success

After the new year ends, I like to go back and see what I was able to accomplish at work, projects, personal development, and finances.

Looking back at last year, I feel a little conflicted.

I have great accomplishments at work and in my personal projects. I have been able to make progress in different areas of my personal development, but I still have this weird feeling.

If we look more into what I did, I was able to lead different projects that were key to my organization at work. For my personal projects, I was able to launch a Podcast, relaunch my website and blog, start to create content again, and work on a couple of SaaS initiatives. And finally, for my personal development, I was able to read six books, get in better shape, and travel a lot.

As you can see, it’s a decent list. It can be better, of course, but it can be a lot worse, too.

So why do I feel so unfulfilled?

When you look for information about underachievement, the things that come up are the famous Impostor Syndrome or Self-doubt.

I know those feelings. I had them at the beginning of my career, like a lot of people do.

But this is not it. This is different.

I started to evaluate every category alone, and something interesting happened. I didn’t have this feeling for my work and finances. But why?

I started to go deeper into both categories.

At work, I completed most of the goals set for the year. These goals were reviewed quarterly with my manager following OKRs, and I was in constant communication with the leaders of my organization (Tech Leads, Architects, Principal Engineers) to make sure my priorities were aligned with my organization.

Even though all the goals were not completed, I was satisfied with what I did.

In my finances, it was completely different. I didn’t accomplish my only goal: to find a second source of income.

But in this case, I didn’t feel unfulfilled or conflicted about not accomplishing this.

How could I be? If none of the things I did last year didn’t create any money. So it’s expected. Entrepreneurship is a long game that will take many attempts. There isn’t anything you can do but keep trying. It’s part of the process.

As long as I am trying, I feel fulfilled because I know that I am going to get there eventually.

So, in this particular case, I do not feel worried about the outcome; my concern is only my input. If I do enough repetitions, I will eventually get there. Right?

Now the question is: Is there a correlation between this and the other categories?

Let’s take a closer look at the input of 2 areas of my personal projects.

I relaunched my personal site and blog. I am really happy with the design and structure of both. But if we take a closer look at the blog, I wrote eight posts in 5 months; 3 were incomplete, and one didn’t like it. So, in the end, I only posted 4.

Four posts in 5 months.

On the other side, I started working on two web apps. One in July and the other one in November. They started as experiments, but I think they still have the potential to become something more.

If you take a look at my Github profile, you can see the contributions I made last year.

If we avoid October and November because I was on sabbatical. Let’s say I needed that time to find myself traveling through Europe. Cool, that’s fine. Let’s call it personal enlightenment and add it to personal development.

But my concern is with the rest of the days. I have entire weeks that I didn’t push any code.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you: unfulfillment and underachievement.

You have probably heard that if you want to be successful, you need to do what successful people do, and this is definitely not it.

In other words, my habits didn’t match my ambitions.

You may say, well, it is more than 2022 and 2021. I know that. But why should I need to settle for that?

I know my potential. I know I can do more.

But when your habits don’t match your ambitions, I call BS. You either want it or not. And if you don't, that's all right, just don't lie to yourself.

Luckily, a new year starts once again. A new beginning. A new opportunity to try again. So, for this year, my only goal is to focus on building that habit. Showing up every day. Even in those days when I don’t feel like it. Especially those days.

If I do that, I know everything else will fall into place.

If not, I will learn from it, pivot, and try again. It is part of the process. But I will feel content with the effort that I put in.

And for me, that’s fulfillment.