Cheers to the start of a new decade. Here’s how my 2020 went which I will be breaking down into a few sections.
- Achievements & Highlights
- Lessons learned
- Plans for the new year
Achievements & Highlights
My first anniversary with my girlfriend! We’ve been through a lot together over the past year especially with the hit of the pandemic.
I recall celebrating our first Valentine’s Day, her 21st birthday and my 23rd birthday together. One of our fondest memory was on her 21st where we went for our first yacht experience and had some fun kayaking. I dropped my snorkel into the sea and the whole thing costs us an additional $50 haha.
We celebrated our anniversary with a simple staycation where we exchanged gifts. I finally got what I needed for a long time, an electric shaver!
Forex Trading
I picked up the foundations of Forex trading.
Throughout 2020, I’ve been diligently studying and practicing the craft of Forex trading.
At the start of the year, I was looking for ways that I can get my money to work and multiply by itself. I caught up with one of my childhood friends and found out he was trading Forex and has been doing extremely well.
My friend managed to turn a $3,000 account into a $100,000 account within the span of a year and the last time I checked which was not too long ago, he’s currently managing a $500,000 account. I will be interviewing him and writing about his journey so stay tuned!
He recommended me a few resources starting with Babypips and how I can go about learning the foundations. He gave me a great structure to follow and it took me 3 months to complete the free courses in Babypips while I was having my internship.
I am still a long way ahead in mastering the markets but with all things, it takes consistency and patience.
Kairoshoot
I started Kairoshoot in the midst of the pandemic.
Kairoshoot is a new company which I started during the lockdown in Singapore where I help watch microbrands to shoot their product images and promotional videos.
Personally, I love watches and it has been that way since secondary school. I love the intricacies of watchmaking and the amount of detail that goes into crafting a well-made watch.
Starting Kairoshoot was a hunch when I was taking some photos of my watches.
I was active in the watch community especially in the Facebook groups and realised the number of new drawings and designs of watches being discussed in the groups.
That was when I knew that people had the time and are staying home to come out with their own watch brands due to the pandemic.
I quickly thought of a name and translated opportunity in Greek and it was “Kairos”, another meaning for “the critical or opportune moment”
The rest was history.
I’ll share the details and process of starting Kairoshoot in a day and how I found my first client within the same day in articles to come.
JayWithLife
Starting my first blog.
For my last highlight of the year and also at the end of the year 2020, I started the blog which you are reading right now! In fact, the first post was on the 20th of December.
I always wanted to start my own blog ever since I helped one of my boss to create one as I understood the potential in sharing your progress about life and work along the way. Someone somewhere will be able to find relevance through your own lessons as you share your thoughts and ideas.
For the most part, the posts you create and publish acts as your online assets and when you begin to monetise them, it becomes a way to generate compounding income for months and years to come.
After this blog reaches a wider audience and with a good amount of readers monthly, I will share the statistics and the steps on how to start your own blog.
Lessons Learned
Throughout 2020, I would say I was really hardworking. I looked to dive into many opportunities I came across and realised that not every one of them is ideal.
I tried to do too much and eventually I ended up with these things currently
- HappySkates
- Kairoshoot
- Forex
- Blog
Another thing to note, I am also currently serving my National Service and have to find the time with my girlfriend, family and friends too.
This took a toll on me at the start and I learned how to be grateful for the little things in life. I began engaging in mindfulness activities such as journaling and also limiting my workload in a day.
I also found out about the 80/20 rule aka the Pareto Principle this year whereby 80% of your outcomes or results come from 20% of your effort or input. The goal of this principle is to help you become more efficient and focus on the things that produce the most results with the least effort.
80/20 Rule
Upon reflecting on my 4 ventures with this rule this is how it looks like as of now:
- HappySkates (Least effort, Most result)
- Kairoshoot
- Blog
- Forex (Most effort, Least result)
I was contemplating to put either my blog or forex at the bottom but I placed forex at the bottom due to the fact that with the amount of effort I put in so far with my blog, the articles I’ve written serves as my assets and it’ll stay online forever.
This list will not be permanent as I just started the blog and it has yet to serve me dividends and the same thing applies to forex.
Who knows the next month, week or day results come flocking in from nowhere which is a concept I’ve picked up from the book Atomic Habits written by James Clear.
Here’s a simple summary on how we perceive results vs what actually happens
This is hands down the best book I’ve read in 2020 and I will be sharing more about it soon.
Plans for 2021
With the lessons learned from 2020, I understand myself better now and look forward to shifting my focus on the things that really matter in both work and relationships.
Some milestones I am aiming to hit are
- Hit 1,000 monthly visitors for the blog
- Earning my first $1,000 from Forex
In order to achieve these milestones, I plan to publish at least 3 articles weekly. This will get me to a minimum of 12 articles a month and 144 articles by the end of 2021.
144 articles may seem a lot to write but when things are magnified, it’ll only take me 3 articles a week.
It’s the power of consistency at play which is what I am going to adopt.
As for Forex, I am going to trade my system and leave my emotions aside which is the hardest thing to do for most traders in the world.
Thank you for taking the time to read! Hopefully, you’ll find some useful nuggets of information which can be relatable to you. And if you find this article useful, take a look at my previous articles on how you can use luck to your advantage and pandemic proof side-hustles you can pick up for 2021.
2020 may not be the best year but we all can learn a thing or two from it, have a great new year and see you next year!
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