Another year for the books. It’s been quite the ride. Some ups and downs, but overall a crucial year in my story. The year started off good. I was doing well mentally. I made some YouTube videos. The first thing that changed the course of my path was the Ukraine war. I’m not going to go into details, but it sort of woke me up and accelerated substantially my maturing.

That’s when I made my decision to move to Amsterdam to restart my studies and actually go through with them this time. It was the adult thing to do instead of continuing fucking around in France not doing shit and just living off of the French government and my parents.

That said, the Annual Review will answer three main questions:

1. What went well this year?
2. What didn’t go so well this year?
3. What did I learn?

Before we begin, it is worth noting that every Annual Review is a personal process. This is simply an overview of what my year looked like, not advice for how you should live your life. (That said, you are always welcome to use this general format for your own Annual Review.)

James Clear

1. What went well this year?

Exercising. I began the year trying to get into running every morning at 5 am and I was actually doing it for a while. Then I went skiing which was nice. And eventually I got a gym membership and started to go there 2-3 times a week. In May though I actually started to do nothing but game and go to the gym which was amazing, because I really fell in love with working out.

University. I started off the year actually studying, but when Russia invaded Ukraine I realised I was just kidding myself. What I was doing was a way of procrastinating and not actually achieving anything in that part of my life. That’s why I decided to move to the Netherlands and taking my degree more seriously. I also slightly changed my degree from “Informatique” (french for informatics aka Computer Science) to AI (Artificial Intelligence). This was a nice change because I’ve been really interested in psychology and the human mind and how it combines with the digital world. So far it’s going great and I am really proud of myself for making this decision.

Social life. Coming to the Netherlands was a huge change for me – mainly because here I speak English on a daily basis compared to French in France (duh) and I actually feel so much more free and good as myself when I speak English. I believe a lot of people feel the same. What it means is that on the first day of classes I made more friends/acquaintances than all 3 years in France and I felt the influence of this improvement on my mental health.

2. What didn’t go so well this year?

YouTube. The truth is that 2022 actually started off well for my YouTube channel. I think I posted like 4-5 videos in the first two months of 2022, but then it quickly fell off and after a terrible one I posted in May, the first one was in November and that was it for 2022. I definitely want to improve on that and work on my procrastination and (what i think is) fear of failure in 2023.

Physical health. While the first half of the year was quite good for the athlete inside of me, the second not so much. I focused a lot on new aspects of my life in the second half, so I forgot to care about my physical health. I ate like shit, I barely moved and didn’t sleep. By the end of the year I was lucky the massage lady I went to (because I started to experience back pains at age 22) detected that I had some intestinal problems.

Weight. Big surprise, following the physical health problems, I am also currently at the heaviest I’ve always been. Let’s just say I’ve started to feel a little constrained in XL clothing and a get winded going DOWN the stairs. Definitely have to work on that in 2023.

3. What did I learn?

Big changes. I was brought up with the idea that quitting is not allowed. To know that something is good or bad for you, you have to first finish it. In hindsight it’s not always the best outlook on life. Instead of suffering in a place where time stands still and I can’t seem to evolve, maybe it’s time to make some changes. Sometimes in life it’s important to make a huge change like moving to a whole new country or region or shaving your head to reset your inner mechanisms. It may be scary, but in some way that just means you should do it.

Prioritizing. I have a lot of stuff going through my head at all times and a lot of stuff I want to do in life, so I tend to let my ambitions take over my mind and overcome my body to the point where I become overwhelmed. That makes it so I never actually become better, but just heal until I feel good enough to do something and then I do everything and just become depressed again. That’s part of why I shaved my hair in September – there were too many things going on, so I just had to get rid of something that required my attention.

That’s it for 2022 I believe. Happy New Year and may we all find whatever we need in this new year.