2022 review: The wins and failures
My year of starting life.
If you lived in Nigeria for 250-365 days, you should be aware of the book “U Go C. Shege” I saw it, made my pace with twists, lived through it and I will be sharing my coaster ride with you.
Let us begin with my “Ls” otherwise known as “losses or failures” (of which I wouldn’t regard the events below as losses because “we move, only movement” in every situation) to my wins for the year.
Relationships and Friendships:
The streets were cold and most especially the streets in Lagos is an empty barrel. Everyone wanted to play smart, half and half, were insincere or dishonest. With my friendships, I realized I could have taken “me and mines” pictures with my closest humans and gone on more dates with them.
More so, I would like to admit that I won in friendships, they did care, looked out for me, and loved me in my high and low moments. I felt the most endorphins with them in 2022.
For next year, I hope to go out on more dates and create memories with my friends. As for relationships, knowing what I want would help me filter a lot of noise and optimize my time with people or the person I would be talking to.
Career:
This was the most fast-paced rollercoaster in my life. I started a full-time role as a Product Manager at a crypto payment processing company and I experienced inconsistency in my emotions this could be from the fact that as a startup the momentum is always a galloping stride. I did a lot of stress eating, crying from stress, falling ill after we came out from the Beta phase, and shipping the commerce products. The peak of low for me in regards to working as a product manager at Lazerpay was the “Layoff”.
Shortly after the layoff, the next two weeks of my life were hard to adjust to reality and manage expectations from certain people. In addition to this, “Growteq” did not cover as much reach in terms of members, donations (it ran by bootstrapping), and learning partners. Though, my wins compensated for those low, stress-racking days. I led the commerce initiative at Lazerpay, worked with awesome teammates to launch several products successfully, 2x’d my salary, and started an NGO “Growteq” with Daniel Abayomi to help teenagers kickstart a career in tech via no-code.
Growteq social reach did pretty great in terms of numbers, for our Alpha launch we had 4 talented mentors, 2 learning partners, and 3 committed volunteers. Next year, Growteq is looking forward to expanding our reach within the early university and secondary teens as well as starting the internship enrollment, increasing our partnerships and officially seeking out donations and grants.
Lifestyle
I did want to travel this year, whether Japa or holidays, well more of a holiday trip. Then, I kept procrastinating on my fitness lifestyle for 9 months. I got addicted to anything and everything relating to South Korean TV production (still haven’t found a solution) because I do realize if I can cut down my screen time with it, I can do a whole lot more with my time.
Though, I was kinder and extended grace to myself. I apologized to myself when I was so hard on myself, shopped more outfits as opposed to 2021, started a skincare routine and the best part was my fitness lifestyle.
Lastly, I got three tattoo inscriptions: “Live life without regret, infinity sign & without pain it’s impossible to feel joy in Hangul”. I can say I’m getting one more in 2023 and a nose piercing.
Others
This section is about the moving parts in my life ranging from how I got denied a Canadian visa and Tech nation endorsement to how I experienced the popularly known “one chance” in Lagos.
On the other hand, I was invited to a Klas series to create awareness for creators to mentor and teach aspiring product managers guided 3 women to get jobs in tech, and two physical and 4 virtual speaking events. I recently started glamorizing accessories and pretty gym wears. I look forward to more of this.
What would be entirely new?
Next year, I want to invest time into the following
Hair care: I have never really cared so much about my natural hair as I believed I didn’t have the mental bandwidth for that. I plan to follow hair care experts and see where to begin from.
Travel: Anyway na way for this. All I do know is I must leave Nigeria and by his grace that would happen.
W La Belle: Stay on tabs regards this 🤫
Literacy: Improving my conversational level in Korean and writing Hangul.
Building: Contribute to building products that are valuable to individuals and businesses
And that’s a wrap…
2023 is waiting for you Jennifer, do the most ✨