My 2018 Mid-Season Update
In my 2017 Reflections, I mentioned that last year was the best year I’ve had for professional growth. Well, I lied.
This has been the best year I’ve had for professional development & growth since I started working at Riot Games.
I made a full transition from a coordinator to full-time designing, and chose to further invest in my personal and professional growth by committing to achieving self-improvement goals.
Therefore, I would like to share some of the challenges and milestones I’ve accomplished so far in 2018.
#1 — Read a book each month
Audible is a wonderful tool. I’ve learned to incorporate listening to audio books while I am getting ready for work, while taking a relaxing bath, or even while working out at the gym. I’ve always had a wonky relationship with reading in general, but I’ve glad that now I have found a new way to re-engage. By reading more, I have been able to use this new knowledge as weaponry and armory for strategy and project execution, or just for fun!
#2 — Play new or different games each month
Thanks to Steam & Black Friday Sales, I’ve accumulated a huge backlog of video games across multiple consoles. Throughout the years, I kept avoiding trying out new games in favor of continuing familiar ones, missing out on some great pieces in video game history. But, no more! I want to catch up by keeping myself accountable to try at least one new game per month and learn from each experience, truly taking my time to enjoy each story and journey.
#3 — Pay all our wedding debt by the end of the year
Moving to LA right after college without having a proper savings for the transition really took a toll on my financial record a few years ago. Compound that with wedding expenses, and I found myself in a crappy debt situation. Fortunately, I took complete ownership of this and I am happy to say that we completed over half of our debt! It’s been really exciting to see this progress and very motivating. I can’t wait to finish so I can double down on student loans next.
#4 — Lose 25–30 lbs of fat by end of year
I’ve been procrastinating on this specific goal for a while. It wasn’t until June that I realized I hadn’t worked out and I wanted to change that. I started eating better and going to the gym 3–5x a week. My husband has become my gym buddy and together we are very motivated to work out and eat better. While I am not currently focusing on losing weight right this instance, I am more interested in creating a new lifestyle routine that will stick for years.
Total Weight Lost: 10 lbs
NEW GOAL: Watch 1–2 series each month
Similarly to gaming, I have also fallen behind on many anime shows. It felt worse when I would attend anime conventions like AX and not know what’s current or understand new trends. So, I decided to create this new goal to continue to re-discover this fun pastime. Because I kept prioritizing social gaming over anime and other past times, I have a pretty large collection of content to catch up on. What’s worked so far is for me to track currently watching anime on a monthly and see how many shows I have seen since, how many more I have left, and share this experience with others that like this, too.
Goals I haven’t started yet…
While I went full-steam ahead on some goals, I de-prioritized many others. This does not mean I won’t accomplish them, but simply that they aren’t as important to me right this instance.
Some of these include:
#5 — Write design-related articles on Medium
#6 — Find a new church
That’s pretty much my year so far. Thanks to awesome people out there that have been my support system and inspiration for growth. This is just the beginning of my leveling up process, whether it’s professionally or for funsies.
I’m looking forward to the rest of the year and continue to celebrate my mini accomplishments along the way.
Cheers!
