Austin Scholar #96: From spreadsheets to soul-searching – how to review your 2023

& my 2023 review

Hey, y'all!

This week from Austin Scholar...

1. Austin’s Anecdote: My 2023 review

2. From spreadsheets to soul-searching – how to review your 2023

3. Scholar’s Sources: What I’ve been reading…

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all of y’all!! I hope your holidays were restful, joyful, and spent with loved ones.

I wanted to give you one last punchy newsletter before 2024, so this week we’re talking about end-of-year reviews. I hope you enjoy!!

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Austin’s Anecdote: My 2023 review

I truly cannot believe that 2023 is already over. What a year it’s been.

At the beginning of the year, you may remember I set some goals for myself:

• Reach 100,000 Twitter followers

• Get 5,000 paid Austin Scholar subscribers

• Get a 1520+ SAT score

• Apply to college

The first two were definitely not met. Unfortunately, my audience-building skills are not up to par just yet, and had a hand in my failing to achieve these goals.

But the second two? Absolutely crushed.

Not only did I get above a 1520 SAT score, but I got a perfect 1600 SAT score. 

And I didn’t just apply to college, I got into Stanford!!

I had failures this year, but I also had some pretty sweet successes. (And is this not itself the most insane growth? Two years ago, I would’ve been fixating on the losses and feeling terrible about myself. Now, I understand where I have room to improve, but I also recognize where I’ve done well.)

Let’s look at some other things I’ve done this year:

• Launched Learn and Earn

  • Hosted and put together a 2-day event for 500 Ukrainian refugee students

  • Created a long-term program to help Ukrainian kids get their education back on track

  • Raised over 1 million dollars for the Learn and Earn program

  • Created a documentary on the project

  • Currently  helping thousands of Ukrainian students

  • Working on a second in-person event in Poland

• Wrote for actual magazines??

  • Published an article in The American Spectator

  • Was Austin Women Magazine’s Woman to Watch

    • Ran an Austin Scholar booth at their event

• Landed all of my single jumps (apart from the Axel) in skating

  • Created a routine to Taylor Swift’s my tears ricochet

• Met incredible people

  • Sahil Bloom

  • Ali Abdaal

  • Tim Urban

  • Tim Ferriss

I am just so blessed and grateful for the year I’ve had. I’m incredibly proud of myself for all of the work I’ve put in, and thankful to all of you who have made this possible for me.

I can’t wait to continue to get better at writing, actually meet my audience-building goals, and become a stronger, kinder, and more loving person.

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From spreadsheets to soul-searching – how to review your 2023

I have two ways I review my year – one is more formulaic (where I actually sit down intending to analyze my year) and the other is more emotional (used late at night when I’m overthinking everything about my life).

I’ll break down both here:

Yearly Review (the formula version)

In this version, I create a spreadsheet of my values and measures of success and failure with each. Doesn’t have to be anything fancy.

Here’s an example of mine – I just filled out the first column so you can see how it works: