My 2017 : The Story of Achievements & Failures!
I remember how my year started. The first week was a trip to Karachi with colleagues. Traveling and discovering new places is something I enjoy. Learning is one more thing I don't want to stop. In fact, I sacrificed three days of my trip to attend a workshop on communication skills. Pictures are included in the post.
PS: Regardless of the results, I thank @anomadsoul for arranging the #My2017 contest. This post is inpired by this contest. It is an incredible chance to review our year and share with the community. If you participate (link resteemed on my blog), do share your links with me in the comments below. I will read, upvote and, may be, resteem it.
My 2017 : Achievements
Let me highlight three of the achiements which I am extremely satisfied with.
1. Supported Education of Two Kids
Millions of kids in Pakistan are still out of school. Hundreds of them are around us, living lives of uncertainity and risk. In April 2016, I started an initiative called Educate One Child to encourage people to educate at least one child who is out of school or has dropped out due to economical reasons.
Logo of Educate One Child initiave created by me.
More than a dozen children have received financial support needed to continue/start their education. I have sponsored two children, both girls, during the whole year. There were three other kids, all girls again, who I supported partially but they were mainly being funded under the umbrella of Educate One Child by two of my close friends.
This, by far, is the most satisfying of my 2017 achievements. Continuing support to these two children, as well as adding more deserving cases to the list, will remain my priority in 2018 as well.
2. Completing Goal of Reading 10 Books
Reading at least ten books in was one of the highly prioritized goals of my new year back in January. Reading is part of the learning process. It not only enhances my perspective, but also helps in making me better as a person.
My 2017 Goals - I will refer to them again and again in the post.
I have read nine already and have fifteen days, if life remains, to complete reading the tenth. I am planning to read either Alchemist or Think & Grow Rich. Here's the list of the books I read so far.
- Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell
- The Mastery Manual - Robin Sharma
- Linchpin - Seth Godin
- الرحیق المختوم (The Seald Nectar)
- The Richest Man in Babylon - George S. Clason (August)
- Zero to One - Peter Thiel (19 September)
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (30 November)
- یا خدا - قدرت اللہ م شہاب (Dear God)
- Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom (15 December)
Next year too, I will have a reading goal at a high priority and increase the number to 12 to make it one book per month. As long as I live, I wish to expand my reading experience.
3. Reaching 1000 Steem and 60 Reputation on Steemit
I was not on Steemit when the goals were written originally. I was a blogger and had blogging goals of reaching 2000 daily visitors and have 1000 subscribers. When I joined Steemit in June 2017, my personal blog became of secondary importance to my Steemit blog. So, I set Steemit goals instead.
Within a week of joining Steemit, I created a Steemit tutorial on my personal blog and kept updating it for accuracy. It's the last post of my blog since then.
So, I set a target to have at least 1000 Steem (Steem+Steem Power) in my account by end of this year. I achieved the target in November. Then I set the target of achieving 1000 SP alone. I achieved it yesterday.
Exactly 1000 SP owned by me. Now increased of course.
One major target is to achieve reputation score of 60 with my blogging and community efforts. I have never relied on voting bots; except for a period of test and trial. Right now, I am at 59.208 and I do hope to get past 60 before 2017 ends.
Steemnow.com is an amazing tool. Thanks to @penguinpablo fro creating it!
Of course I know that I do not control when my reputation increasese to 60 or when my SP increases to a certain number. But I do know that I control the effort needed to make sure these targets make progress. That is why I encourage everyone to value their work and never stop working.
Steemit is the best thing that happened to me in 2017. I just cannot thank this community enough.
Next year is going to be the defining year for Steemit (I will soon write a post explaining why) and I am sure that it will be a big big year for me as well. I will keep chasing small targets and achieving them on Steemit.
I talked about the travel trip with colleagues in the beginning. These are some memories from it.
That's it for the achievements. Now is the time to talk about rough and tough stuff.
My 2017 : Failures
Their are some failures which in reality are lessons. Some are harmles but there are some failures which devastate and crush. My 2017 was full of all kinds. I will record two of the most significant ones here.
1. Not Getting Married
When I was a teenager, I wanted to be married by 25 years of age. That was an ideal for me. When I joined the job, it turned out that I had to marry at the age of 26. Both these ages are gone. I am already heading towards 28.
To talk about the failure, I was about to tie the knot. If you read the word Nikah on my goals list, it means contract of marriage. And I was about to do that...ummm...last month. Well, it didn't happen because...may be...it wasn't meant to be.
It qualifies to be the number one failure and by far the most devastating because of the year(s) long relationship behind it. Anyway, there's no option except to move on, and right now to the next failure.
Not Losing Weight
Instead, I gained some. It seems harmless but t disturbs me. I am a fantastic footballer (soccer for Americans) from the past. I am a 100 meter race champion. I am, rather was, an athlete and sportsman of genuine repute.
I wish to play... I just don't want it enough.
Now?
I am just getting fat. Week by week. Inch by inch. The whole year has passed and I have done nothing; except a good month in June when I fasted, swam, played football and got back in good shape. It all got wasted due to my laziness. Epic failure!
I have 15 days left and writing this motivates me to get going on this goal for one last time. I am 74+ kg right now and need to get to 69 Kg to become good again. Wish me luck!
How was Your 2017?
I feel good to have shared with you the ups and downs of my 2017. Would you share yours with the community as well? If you do, leave your link in the comments below. I want to read and reward your contributions.
If you think this post deserves to be seen by more people, please resteem and upvote.
Yours,
Ilyas Tarar
What a motivating story of your life as usual. So I always enjoy to read your post such like your wonderful achievements and golden life events. I am extremely inspired and touched by the inspiring writing which you’ve posted.
I would personally thank you for your wonderful inspiring thoughts to share with steemit community.
One thing I want to suggest you that believe in yourself and all that you are and know that there is something inside you that is greater than obstacles(failures) that you faced in your past because every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve one’s condition. These obstacles are testing your emotional mettle and you are totally good at this test and this is your great achievement in my point of view.
so bro @ilyastarar keep on trying because you are getting all in future which you are hoping to achieve further. Best wishes...
Thank you so much for such a wonderful comment. It was such a great comment to read. Thanks for encouraging words.
Very nice brother...
Good luck with your Home and that thing about supporting the kids education, Its superb, I am really moved... We need more men like you!
Any don't worry about Nikah, The right gal will come, trust me!
Just remain humble and every thing will workout. Trust In GOD.
Thanks a lot brother for reading through and for your kind wishes. Home is actually not a too significant worry at the moment. Nikah...ummm...that's a tough one. I don't open up about it but honesty is the best policy when sharing something.
Alhamdulillah for everything. Thank you again.
Just recite for nikah
![](https://steemitimages.com/640x0/https://steemitimages.com/DQmaJnq9JmyGWQ4wKavhDKRq5DCL8kUdNZ7JFVtT97sCuQM/image.png)
It worked for me.
Very nice contribution bro.
Interesting to hear about you personal achievements and failures of 2017.
Do you already have written down your goals for 2018.
I've done this recently for the first time for 2018.
I am excited which I points I can give a tick at the end of 2018.
If I can help you with your goals, feel free to ask.
For example if you need tips losing weight.
Keep it up! :)
Thank you so much! I haven't written my 2018 goals yet because I'm still working on 2017 ones. I will use half of January 2018 to review my previous in thorough details and draw lessons. Some of the goals will repeat in 2018; like reading more books, supporting 02 kids education and more progress on Steemit etc.
This time, I will use the permanence of Steem blockchain to write my goals for next year.
Ahaa. Brilliant post.. failures are always hard to face.. i have always feared them.. yet we often forget that our strength lies in those failures..
Just to cheer you up a bit, let me tell you my perspective on this..
If you had gotten married, then by now neither your reputation would be 59.2 nor you would have 1000 Steems in your wallet.. you would have missed out on great content and rewards as well.. Also, you could have also missed your goal of reading 10 books ..
So 2 achievements were literally born out of your 1 failure.. can't emphasize on it too much that all you need to do is keep going.. good things will come along the way..
Thanks a lot! Somethings have an emotional side to them and you know how they impact. You know the situation. I agree though. There's always something positive behind the scenes.
Masha Allah you did lot of stuff in year 2017. Four out of eight task is not bad at all. your best task is to educate 2 kids. may ALLAH SWT gave you more courage to continue noble work. All the best for your happy marriage life and construction of home in next year. with lot of best wishes from my side. Your post deserve to be upvoted and resteemed. so upvoted and resteemed from my side. keep sharing @ilyastarar
Thank you very much. The goals image was updated (ticked / crossed) some months ago. It doesn't reflect the current state, so not a 4/8 scoring actually. :)
JazakAllah for your wishes and your support. Should've chosen a better name I guess. Keep interacting and be active. Hope to keep seeing you progress.
This absolutely deserves a resteem.. (P.S dont upvote this comment). This is just for info..
Thanks a lot! A little bit doesn't hurt.
haha:) @jbn that's so modest and @ilyastarar so generous of you.
You two are like my big brothers on steemit though I might be bit older than both of yah.lol...
keepit up boys..love you
@xabi you are a brother and @jbn is my big brother for more than a decade now. He joined Steemit on my insistence and he guides me and gives me ideas. We two get to talk about Steemit a lot and we love those mini sessions.
I am in tears man.. <_>
Lol
Heya @ilyastarar,
I dint think not getting married is a failure. With what you've conpleted this year you are much more a winner in my book. I know you're looking forward to next year :D
Thank you so much! What I have achieved so far is so satisfying. That one thing has its emotional value which is not easily ignorable. It takes time. I'm looking forward to the next year. My best wishes for you too. I'll visit you. I think I followed you already but I'll recheck that.
This post deserves a reesteem!
Thanks a lot for the shoutout.
@airhawk-project
@originalworks
@steem-untalented
@ocd
@qurator
The @OriginalWorks bot has determined this post by @ilyastarar to be original material and upvoted(1.5%) it!
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Nice..try check mine tomorrow
Thanks. Please give me link here when you post.
https://steemit.com/my2017/@thomasgift/my-2017-achivements-and-failures-thanks-anomadsoul-for-the-great-contest