2023 in 23 Personal Headlines
7 Highlights, 3 Habits, 4 Failures, and 9 Goals
I fell victim to my social media brain when reflecting on the year that was.
When initially drafting this article, it didn’t seem like there was much to remember from 2023. It didn’t feel like I had done as much. But what I soon realized was that this year for me was more like a documentary than a 30-second YouTube short. In past years, the reflections were filled with a bunch of quick memories, a 1-day hackathon I won, a 30-second ad I spoke in, or a stroke of luck that went my way.
As I pondered the year further, I realized that it was centered around more “needle-moving” achievements. Goals I worked towards for months on end, going from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows… and everything in between. And in the end, like how it feels when we watch a longer educational video compared to binging TikToks for hours, it’s these bigger, often scarier accomplishments we remember and learn from even more.
So with that fresh perspective, let’s put a 🎀 on the last 12 months…
Key highlights
1. Finishing my first year of university
It felt like a really big jump for me, especially as a high school graduate during COVID, to go from online school my last 3 years of high school to living in a completely new city for university. As I noticed the wide range of opportunities that being a university student opened up, from social events to sports clubs and innovation hubs, it filled me with such excitement for each new day on campus. Especially as an engineering student, all the resources that UWaterloo provides for building projects are incredible!
2. Full-circle journey with CHEO during co-op
For my first university co-op, I knew I wanted to personally give back to the organization that saved my life during my leukemia treatment from 2019–2022. That opportunity was given when I was able to spend my summer working at the CHEO Research Institute’s molecular biology lab. It was a very rewarding experience to spend my time there and be able to help further CHEO’s mission… this time, as an employee instead of a patient.
3. Beginning my roaring 20s
I turned 20 this past July, and I shared some intentions I had for the next decade in my July newsletter. Basically, for any direction that I want to go in life, having my pillars focused on health and exploration is key. Health as in both my mental and physical well-being, because creating a strong foundation here allows me to be limitless in my other pursuits. Exploration is geared toward diving into new interests and hobbies that I want to try out, despite how others might think of them. Finding a balance between these factors will allow me to craft the kind of life I aspire to have.
4. Getting my full driver’s license
I used to be terrified of driving a car. Hearing stories about crashes on the news, and knowing how it’s something where you could be seriously injured driving once (sometimes, at no fault of your own) always left me a bit unsettled behind the wheel. But, until autonomous vehicles can completely take over, I’ve had to get things figured out for myself.
5. Making it to my university’s table tennis A-team 🏓
This was initially a pretty far-fetched goal for me, as someone who has never once gotten formal training in the sport to be among the top 8 players at tryouts for my entire university of about ~40k students. But all those years with a table in my basement, playing on campus, and the many other sports I played growing up helped me claim that final spot on the A-team! It was such a great feeling getting that final point, seeing as it was a direct goal I had written down exactly one year ago as something I wanted to achieve in 2023. I remember the hesitation I had when I first wrote that goal down, thinking it wasn’t realistic. But I still did, because if I had already given up hope on myself back then, I would have had no chance in the tryout when games were close and I needed that hope most.
6. Organizing the TEDxUW event
After a 5 year break, TEDx was back on our campus, and I jumped at the opportunity to help make it a success. TED talks to me are like the modern version of how our longtime ancestors would share stories around the campfire about life, lessons they learned through failures, and advice for future prosperity. It’s a way to share the humanity within each of us with the world, and it was an absolute pleasure to be a part of this team.
7. Speaking at the TEDxColumbiaLakeYouth event
Not only did I help organize a TEDx event, but I was even able to give a TEDx talk at a separate one too. Through a high school friend who knew I wanted to give this type of talk about my journey through cancer treatment, I was offered the chance to do so at this event. It took months to fully reflect on my experience, prepare my talk, and practice for the big day, all while trying to control my racing heartbeat through everything. But that day finally came, and just as quickly, it went. While I only have pictures from the event for now, I’m excited to share the full-length talk as soon as it comes out!
Habits
“The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.” — Mike Murdock
The more we can automate the essential tasks in our lives, the more room we give ourselves to level up as people. This past year, these have been the 3 main habits that I’m most proud of having built:
Consistent, intentional exercise routine
My relationship with exercise had never been something I thought about much. I loved playing sports growing up, so it felt to me like that was enough exercise at the time. But as I grew up and the focus on school increased, my exercise time kinda drifted away. Not to mention, I didn’t go to a gym much until university started. But, what prioritizing my exercise routine taught me is just how quickly our minds can form habits. The gym felt intimidating to me growing up, but once those initial barriers and fears are overcome, you realize that no obstacle is as difficult as our minds make them out to be.
Gratitude journalling
When my mental health was kind of in the gutter this past spring as I stressed about exams, it felt like very little was going my way. What I would have given to just not have to study for some of those exams. But as soon as they ended, I was able to go back to that state of gratitude in which I usually carry myself in life. From there, I decided to open up a notebook and start a gratitude journal. The prompt was simple: every day, I’d write 3 things I was grateful for in my life. Whether it was the food I have access to, the time spent with family and friends, or a laptop where I can write articles like these, I made it a habit for myself to start the day with this routine. Taking time out of my day to specifically focus on this has allowed me to zoom out in times of stress or anxiety and realize just how much I’ve been blessed with in life, and that small mistakes or challenges are essentially nothing in comparison.
Cooking for myself
I was kind of pushed into this habit as I moved into an apartment for my second year of university. But still, compared to how much I know some people eat out or order food, I’m very glad to have built a routine for making my own. I definitely wouldn’t consider myself a chef (YET…), but being able to make meals that are both nutritious and delicious has been nice. It saves a sh*t ton on cost compared to eating out, and helps give me energy instead of draining it, which often fast food can do. Nothing too complex, some eggs, rice, chicken, curries, and veggies are enough for me. When it comes to food, it doesn’t take a lot to make me happy.
Failures
If anything, especially at this young age where opportunities are boundless, seeing where I went wrong is the only way to readjust my roadmap. Kind of like Jack Sparrow’s compass that leads me to what I want most. 🧭 Here are the 4 biggest mistakes I made in 2023 that I’ll focus 2024 on learning from:
Settling into an unaligned routine
I pride myself on being someone who is in tune with the natural rhythm of my body. Whether that’s planning out my day based on when I work best, feel best after exercise, how I eat, or the things I do in a day.
But often enough, how we feel is rarely aligned with what will help us grow and achieve our goals. We often must do the habits we don’t feel like doing to get to where we want to be, and our brains have to be ignored through most of this process.
Often this year, I fell into the trap of trusting the one thing that can’t be replaced in my body. Our brains are designed to take the path of least resistance to survive, but in the modern day where every element for survival is right here at our fingertips, it doesn’t feel like there’s too much we “have to do” each day. Suddenly that bed looks a lot more comfortable, or that chocolate bar a lot more appealing.
But you and I aren’t like that deep down. We have dreams, ambitions, and impacts to make. This is where systems must be trusted over our minds. Doing something not because I feel like it or even because I want to, but because it’s just what I do is the path forward for me (and for you).
Saying “Yes” over “No”
In high school, I was usually the secluded one who wasn’t too involved in school social life and all that, often saying “No” to many events. But as soon as my eyes opened to the wide display of events and opportunities for all types of people at university, I began saying “Yes” to almost anything that even slightly piqued my interest. Sports like table tennis, badminton, and cricket? Check. Entrepreneurship and hackathon events? Check. Student design teams and side projects? Check and check.
Now, I’m not one to hate on curiosity and ambition, but I realized over time that I had spread myself too thin doing all these extracurriculars along with school (those integrals ain’t gonna solve themselves). While it’s a good idea to explore around and gauge how these different clubs work, focusing intently on a few key ones I’m keen on dividing into should be the main goal for the rest of the term (basically the TKS process if you know me from that program). What I instead did was have a surface-level involvement in a bunch of different clubs, which felt like I was very involved at some points and not at all at others.
And big thing is that over time, if I’m not getting the same joy and fulfillment from certain clubs, learning to be ok with cleaning them off my plate is important. I hear enough of the “do it so it looks good on your resume” talk at university, even if the work you’re doing isn’t something you enjoy very much. I’d rather optimize for the experiences, connections, and work that I enjoy doing just for the fun of it rather than 5 lines on my resume. It feels like that path would be more effective long term by enjoying the journey instead of just planning for a later destination.
Lack of social courage
There’s a massive jump between the legitimacy of events at high school compared to university. With the much bigger school size and funding available, I’ve been fortunate to attend events like TEDxUW, biotech conferences, career workshops, and so much more. Even at my co-op right now, I’m working in a business accelerator building where dozens of startups work daily.
With all these opportunities came chances to meet really interesting and successful people. Whether it’s world-renowned content creators, multi-million dollar startup founders, or engineers at the top of their fields, just being affiliated with the University of Waterloo has allowed by to rub shoulders with people who are much further down a path I’m currently on.
But, I haven’t taken as much of an advantage of these experiences as I should have so far. It doesn’t matter that I’m not the most extroverted person in big crowds, everyone has those nerves. But what should make me more worried is the lost opportunity of NOT connecting with high-level people I meet. I can only imagine what it would be like to look back on how much I could have grown if only I had taken that initial leap of faith. We all are humans too, even the ones you respect. So talk to them like one. Compliment their nice shirt or the talk they gave and let it grow from there.
“Everyone puts their pants on the same way… one leg at a time.”
Treating grades as the main focus
Despite being in different clubs and events, to me, it never felt like any of them were the “main quest” of the year, especially in the last few months. When it came down to it, my time doing outside activities vanished if there was any significant school deadline approaching. Now I understand the logic of that and it makes sense to anyone reading most likely, but over-optimizing for grades stopped me from growing in other areas of life.
Even if it was something worth like 5% of my grade, almost all my time outside of school was dedicated to that assignment or test. Sometimes it got to the point where I sacrificed exercise and sleep for that minor task, but that is NOT the type of person I want to be.
While it’s important in the micro to learn about topics like calculus, statistics, electromechanical devices, and materials science, I need to be better at zooming out and looking at the macro to see which of these topics I’m learning just for a quiz vs lifelong knowledge. And despite how much my mind finds it hard to accept that my grades can be low, at the bare minimum, it shouldn’t deter me from the basic routines I have each day.
Goals for 2024
Looking beyond the past year into the one ahead, I’m learning to also plan out my life in a way that I can assess my progress in months or years instead of days. If I get so hard on myself for skipping the gym or eating a piece of candy one single day, then the ball of negative thoughts will start rolling and create backward momentum. We all have those off days. But it’s like assessing a stock, where even though there are ups and downs each day, if it’s something that generally grows consistently year-over-year, then it’s probably a good investment. With that, here are 9 of my goals this year:
1. Building major hardware projects to build technical skills (bi-monthly)
- WHY: I’ve learned enough of the hardware skills from my classes and online that I now want to apply that knowledge to building personal and group projects so I can grow my abilities.
2. YouTube content creation (monthly videos)
- WHY: Some might align with showing the projects I build because as much as I enjoy building, being able to share ideas and thoughts engagingly through platforms like YouTube is something I really like.
3. Publishing my cancer story book
- WHY: When I was first diagnosed, within a few weeks I said that I wanted to write a book about my journey going through cancer treatment as a teen. Since then, I’ve created a blog page to share my experience, gave a TEDx talk about the topic, and was an ambassador for CHEO and Make-A-Wish. What’s left for me to wrap a bow on things is the book I promised myself I’d write. While my treatment may be over, the memories certainly have not faded. I have the initial draft written out, and the goal is to have it published on August 20, 2024, the 5-year anniversary of my diagnosis.
4. Medium content creation (1 article/month)
- WHY: Spending some time in the morning to get my ideas out there through articles like these is a very freeing feeling as a writer. This is a commitment I’m making to myself to be more consistent with uploading content to this page.
5. Competing in higher-level table tennis tournaments
- WHY: I’ve been playing racquet sports since I first learned to run around, and table tennis takes the cake as the one I enjoy most. After making it to the A-team at my university, I want to take my training to the next level and play in tournaments more often. I love the competitive juices that flow through me while playing sports, and I’m excited to see where this journey takes me.
6. Pitch for funding of a personal project/startup idea at Velocity events
- WHY: If a problem exists, the best way to solve it is to do it yourself. I want to be an innovator in this world, using my arsenal of knowledge and skills to solve important societal problems. Events like these would be a massive help for me on this journey.
7. Explore other parts of Canada and the world (in my co-op & with family)
- WHY: I always cherished the moments when my family would go on trips together, be it by car, train, or plane. I haven’t really felt as many of those emotions since the pandemic started, but I want this year to be the time that I return to being the explorer I love to be.
8. Organize at least 1 major event through a university club
- WHY: Being involved with TEDxUW was a very rewarding experience to see all our hard work come to fruition. Having that logistical mindset where I’m leading the organization of events is embedded into how I operate, and I want to continue doing so through other university clubs.
9. Reach out to someone new every single day
- WHY: Human connections move the world forward, not just individually, but collectively. Building relationships with people of diverse demographics allows us to have more holistic outlooks on the world and our place within it, and I’m committed to seeing that happen.
Hopefully, this served as a nice update for those who are interested, and maybe it can help with your reflections and the intentions you want to set going forward. It certainly has for me.
Upwards and onwards friends! ✌️
If you enjoyed this article, it’d be great if you gave it some claps.👏 And if you haven’t done so yet, you can connect with me on LinkedIn, Twitter @milindkumar0913, or follow me right here on Medium. If you’d like to be included in my journey, I recommend subscribing to my monthly newsletter!
