Looking back on 2021.
Since 2014 I’ve tried to figure out what this site should be.
For a long time, I wanted it to be the home of an advertising agency that traded under my name, wesjones.co.
But as much as I thought that’s what I wanted, I finally realized it’s not.
This site is mine.
And while the articles I write are meant for other people like you to learn from, this one is for me too.
Actually, there will be two articles every year going forward that will be for me. One, this one, will be a look back on the year and another that looks forward. I’m using it as a way of public reflection, review, and planning to help keep me accountable. I don’t expect you to read it, but it’s here if you’re interested.
While it will certainly be easier to focus on the positive moments of the past year, I will try to include the things that didn’t go so well. It’s only fair, and no one benefits from hearing how good they are, especially me.
Let’s start here.
The first time I wanted to write an article like this was in the lead-up to 2020.
I, along with many others, thought 2020 was going to be the year everything came together. Everything we’d been working toward in the previous decade would finally be realized, and the future would be secure. Well, we all know what happened.
2020 feels like a lost year, and while it wasn’t the year I wanted, I think it was the year I needed.
I needed it because it made me question what I was doing, why I was doing it, and whether or not I actually cared about those things or if I was doing them because I felt others expected me to.
2020 gave me permission to change what I didn’t like.
Instead of thinking I still had to do it all, it allowed me to say I don’t want to do this anymore. This doesn’t align with my values. And, I’m not going to put energy into things that aren’t helping me get where I want to go.
And that’s why I’m writing this on this site now. Because I can. Because this is what I care about. Because this is what I want to be doing and what I think will help me focus my life in the direction I want to be going.
Until recently, I would have told you I was wasting time jumping from one thing to another. Now I think every experience I’ve had has been me collecting the elements necessary to build the foundation I’ll work from for the rest of my life. I’m genuinely excited in a way I haven’t been in a long time.
Format.
Earlier this year, I began grouping things into these five categories: Health, Relationships, Work, Wealth, and Experiences. So this article will use those as the framework. Of course, some things don’t necessarily fit, but I’ve found these cover it for the most part. And, when something could work in multiple categories, I simply include it in the most relevant one.
Then, following the categories, I have a Stop, Start, Continue section. This will be different from the next article about my 2022 goals, as it’s still more of a reflection on this year. For me, it’s a good way to question whether or not the things I’m doing are helping or distracting me.
Either way, it’ll be a nice bridge between the two articles.
Life.
Mostly everything. Rather than combine things across categories, I’m going to look at them individually.
Health.
This might be because I’m getting older, but I stopped running long distances and pushing my body to the point I could get injured.
I realized if, and when I got hurt, I couldn’t work out and maintain the gains I’d achieved. I was in this never-ending cycle of building up my tolerance and endurance, only to get hurt and have to start all over again. In the end, I wasn’t making any progress at all.
Now, I’m focused on being an everyday athlete. Someone who can show up every day and perform.
This doesn’t mean I put in half the effort. Instead, I’m learning how to push myself right to the limit and still be able to recover and come back stronger tomorrow.
What changed was realizing I’m not trying to impress anyone with outsized effort in the short term. Rather I’m looking to impress myself over the long term. I want to be fit and flexible forever. What I don’t want is to become someone who’s unable to do the things they want to because they didn’t take care of themselves when they could.
To help with that, I prioritized building out my team of doctors, so I have people to go to if I have questions. And, it helps to know what my baselines are, so we have a history to work from if we ever need to.
I also started experimenting with adding vitamins and supplements into my daily routine. After a month of research, I settled on Athletic Greens – Get 5 Travel Packs and a year supply of Vitamin D when you use that link. It’s definitely expensive but it seems to have the most benefits for what you’re getting as it’s a multivitamin, probiotic, prebiotic, and has adaptogens in it. That along with the simplicity of only having to take one thing each day makes it so easy.
And, for a while, I was pairing AG with a collagen supplement but haven’t kept up with that one as much for a couple of reasons. I stopped mostly because it tasted like horse hoof and I wasn’t sure it was doing anything after talking to a doctor about it.
One thing I don’t talk about unless someone asks is I stopped drinking in 2020 and passed the year mark this summer. It’s been an interesting experience but, honestly, way easier than I would have thought. Not being able to go out as much earlier this year definitely helped. But even as I’ve been able to go out more recently, it hasn’t been much of an issue with anyone I hang out with.
Finally, doing these things resulted in dropping 15 pounds this year. That wasn’t my goal, and I probably didn’t need it to happen, but it’s a nice way of validating the things I’m doing have positive outcomes. And, I simply feel better knowing I’m not carrying around any extra weight, even if it wasn’t something that was bothering me.
Relationships.
This one is somewhat tough as I can only write based on my perspective, but I have to try anyway.
Girlfriend.
We’ve been living together for over a year now, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It’s so fun having my best friend there to do things with all of the time. And I love how we’ve both been bringing our lives together as we build out our home. Having shared goals and the same taste for design is so important too.
That said, one thing that’s been a challenge for me is making sure I have time that’s entirely focused on her. I’ve always been someone who gets immersed in whatever I’m interested in at the moment and can let whatever else be secondary. Amazingly, she recognizes that and gives me the time I need to follow these interests. Still, I know making more time for her is something I can be better at.
Family.
I don’t know. Family is always complicated. It seems everyone is great one-on-one, but then there’s always something when we’re all together. I don’t know if that will ever change, but I can keep working on how I approach and react to it.
Friends.
It’s tough when all but one of my good friends are each a plane ride away. It shouldn’t be hard to keep in touch, but it is. Everyone has their own things going on, and unless there’s a reason to sync up, we can go months between catching up. This, too, may just be what it is, but I can probably be better at being present with the friends I have and put myself in situations where I could make new friends nearby, so it doesn’t always feel so long in between.
Overall I think improving my relationships comes down to time spent nurturing and caring for them. I don’t think that means spending all of my time on them, rather it means spending quality time on them so the experiences and memories are long and lasting.
Work.
The biggest thing I learned in 2020 was that I didn’t want to keep pursuing Project Management as my career. The more I looked at the people above me, like my boss, I realized I did not want to have their job.
So, it took about a year, but thankfully I was able to transition from being a Project Manager to a Content Strategist while staying at the same company. I wrote about how to do it in my article, How to change careers without starting over. It’s been so great, as I’m actually excited about work again.
Then, for personal work, I stopped taking on freelance projects and instead worked on my own projects.
My idea was to experiment with different ideas by doing limited challenges. I figured I could do anything for a set number of days, and then at the end, I’d decide whether I wanted to keep doing it or not. Or if there was something else or another way I’d like to try it.
I did a 100 Days of Meditation project, which changed the way I think about meditating. I wrote about the 100 Logos in 100 Days design challenge in my article, So you want an iconic logo like Apple or Nike? I did an energy audit and time tracking experiment to understand why I felt like I was so busy but wasn’t getting anything done. And, I completed the Ship 30 for 30 writing challenge on Twitter, which led to me publishing four articles on this site that I’m proud of and excited to keep adding to.
I kind of mentioned this earlier, but doing all of this felt a bit directionless as I worked on all of these disparate things. Looking back now, though, I think I was confirming whether or not I liked these things before deciding what I’d focus on going forward.
That said, the experiments were a great way to try things out without fully committing to something for the long term. 100 days was probably too much, but 30 seemed just right. And I realize you can always stack 30-day experiments on top of one another to build up momentum.
Finally, my girlfriend and I launched Liip, our all-natural lip balm brand. This is something we’d been working on since January 1, 2020, but never had the right opportunity to launch it. Then this fall, everything lined up, and we went live on September 1, 2021. We both would have been happy with 20 orders in the first week. Incredibly though, we had over 100 orders in the first week and sold out of our initial inventory of 250 sticks three weeks later.
Now, things have slowed down a bit after the launch, which has been good as we’re looking for ways to keep marketing and growing the brand beyond the people we know personally.
I think something great for us too is that neither relies on Liip for our income. All of the money goes back into the business. It’s something we’re doing for fun and as a way to learn how to launch and manage brands so we can keep doing it in the future with more things.
Wealth.
As I said in the Work section, I purposefully stopped taking on freelancing work to focus on projects of my own. I got so much out of doing my projects, but I did miss the extra income I used to make from freelancing on top of my day job.
I’m ok with it because I believe putting in time on these projects now will have a bigger payoff in the future than the extra money I could have made in the short term. This is because freelance work only pays when you’re doing it. While other projects like Liip don’t require trading time for money and will eventually be able to operate without my direct involvement.
I also brought all of my bank and investment accounts under one view this year.
I used to intentionally keep them separate so I’d never know how much I had. Obviously, this could have been bad if I didn’t know how to manage my accounts, but I always knew I had more than I thought because of how I automated money away from my main account.
It was an easy way to save without having to think about or see the money. I just “never had it.”
Now, though, it was time to get a full picture as I’m looking further ahead at larger moves I’ll want to make in the mid-future after buying my first property last year.
One thing I struggled with when consolidating all of my accounts, though, was understanding what my actual monthly expenses were. Based on what I was doing in the past, I figured I could keep being extremely aggressive with my saving and investing rate. But I didn’t realize I’d have to factor in all of the new expenses of owning a condo and living with someone. I’d never had to think or plan for it and was surprised when I thought I’d have enough money each month but always had to transfer some from one of my other accounts to make up the difference.
This isn’t an ad, but I’m so happy I found Truebill last month. It helped me get a complete picture of my monthly expenses broken down by category and made it easy to understand where I’m spending my money. It’s my favorite app, hands down, and I recommend it to everyone.
Experiences.
I didn’t do much in terms of fun or experiences this year. Mainly because we couldn’t. But not having the option was nice as it allowed me to focus on everything else.
That said, I did travel again. Once to Chicago to meet some of my girlfriend’s friends and Colorado with some of my friends.
Then, this is one of those things where I wasn’t sure exactly where to put it, but I think reading books should go here as education ultimately is an experience.
I used to love having an identity as someone who read a lot of books. But, this year, I stopped that. I decided I’d reread some books as I’d always read one and then never pick it up again. And, what’s the point of reading if I don’t take anything away from it.
My thinking is, reading fewer books multiple times means there’s a better chance at learning and applying what’s in them. This makes it incredibly important to only read good books, and I need to get better about not wasting time on books that aren’t good or aren’t teaching me what I want to learn right then.
Anyway, this is what I read this year:
How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis.
Great book. Conversational and practical and one I expect I’ll reread many times.
Damn Right: Behind the Scenes with Berkshire Hathaway Billionaire Charlie Munger by Janet Lowe.
Fine, but long and nothing to really take away from it. I should have put this one down.
Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach
I got this after transitioning into Content Strategy. Pragmatic and foundational, I’m about halfway through and expect to reference this all of the time.
The ONE Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.
I read this years ago but wanted to go back to it for the philosophy and framework of only working on what matters. Such a good book.
Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks.
I got this after seeing it referenced on Twitter a handful of times. This is another one I’m about halfway through and will finish at some point. The thing about books with exercises is you have to do them if you want to learn anything.
Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Reread the first half of this one as a refresher on how small changes can lead to outsized returns. There’s a reason this is the definitive book on habits. I might get this one as an ebook, too — I’ll say why in a minute.
Safe Haven: Investing for Financial Storms by Mark Spitznagel.
I really wanted to like this one, but it was terrible. I should have stopped after 20 pages but instead wasted so much time thinking it would get better.
Doing Content Right by Steph Smith.
I just started this one and will definitely be finishing it before the end of the year. I got this one when it launched last year but hadn’t made the time to go through it yet, even though I knew it would be great.
I used to be against ebooks because they weren’t “real books,” but I’m reading Doing Content Right on my phone, and I think it’s changing the way I’ll read books going forward. I read everything else online now, and it would be nice to have my highlights tracked digitally and accessible anywhere. Plus, the fact I can read wherever instead of 30 minutes before bed will mean I can get through so much more.
Overall I don’t feel anything truly remarkable was achieved this year. But when I look closer, I can see how I put many things in motion for each category this year that I’ll continue to build on. I also think I’m now not as easily enticed by new opportunities and will instead stay focused on what I’m already doing. It’s counterintuitive, but by committing to doing less, I think I’ll actually be able to achieve more going forward.
Stop, start, continue.
As I’ll be writing a follow-up to this article on my plans for 2022, I thought the best way to approach this would be to keep it short. I’ll write one thing for each category under Stop, Start, Continue. This way, I can give a bit of direction without being too prescriptive, as this should still be focused on what’s happened this year.
Stop.
What am I doing now that I no longer want to do?
Health - I want to stop eating so many processed foods
Relationships - I want to stop reacting negatively to situations I don’t control
Work - I want to stop thinking I have to do everything myself
Wealth - I want to stop feeling like I don’t deserve what I have
Experiences - I want to stop saying yes to things I don’t want to do
Start.
What am I not doing that I want to start doing?
Health - I want to start learning the science of fitness and flexibility
Relationships - I want to start being more thoughtful about the time I put toward my relationships
Work - I want to start creating a financially successful business
Wealth - I want to start diversifying my income streams, so I’m not reliant on one thing
Experiences - I want to start taking meaningful trips
Continue.
What am I doing now that I want to keep doing?
Health - I want to continue working out every day
Relationships - I want to continue strengthening my relationship with my girlfriend
Work - I want to continue writing and publishing content
Wealth - I want to continue aggressively investing and managing my finances
Experiences - I want to continue learning and educating myself
Alright, that’s it.
A part of me is nervous about publishing this, as it’s a bit of a peek into my personal life and how I think. But that’s the point. Making it public is a way to keep me honest.
I’ll follow up with my 2022 Goals soon.
If you’ve read all of this, let me know on Twitter, @wesjonesco, I’d love to know what you thought and what kept you reading till the very end.
