Mid-2023 Wrap-Up • Lucky Snail

I Also Want to Be in the Top 10% That “UnhappyDrinkWater” Talks About

From a conversation between my boss and Brother Shui, Brother Shui mentioned a very down-to-earth theory: if you can become the top 10% in your industry, you definitely won’t end up badly. I strongly agree with that. It’s true that I can’t keep being an NPC, just going with the flow every day. But how do you actually achieve being in the top 10%? From where I stand now, I think it’s very hard. Reasons:

My current education and skills are average, and I have no experience working in a big company.
Social pressure is huge, everyone is striving, and the internet industry is no longer as vibrant as it used to be.
I’m often driven by short bursts of passion, my emotions fluctuate easily, and it’s hard to stay focused.
There’s no denying there are many distractions now, like Douyin and other social media, which constantly steal my time.
I don’t have big ambitions or a strong career drive. I just hope to have a decent life and I’d be satisfied.

… In short, I’m someone who knows a lot but lacks action. However, the people around me are all excellent. The environment greatly influences most people, I believe. I have an incredibly outstanding boss, a colleague Xiao Y who is full of energy every day, and so many other excellent people I get to see. I hope to be able to look these amazing partners straight in the eye. I’ve read a lot of wisdom and heard many stories. I think I need to plan for myself — thoroughly and objectively confront myself — summarize the first half of the year, and plan for the second half and my future. I can’t just keep being pushed forward.

These were the goals I set at the beginning of the year. Actually, I didn’t achieve any of them. But over this half year, I have changed. I found a job I truly love — I’m really lucky. It also made me believe even more in the importance of action. I just need to work hard, and let time take care of the results.

In the first half of the year, there was a period when I was studying every day, writing new technical notes every day. Unfortunately, just like every other time, I couldn’t keep it up. It also made me even more convinced that action needs motivation, and life needs encouragement and inspiration.

Here’s my recent GitHub activity — similar on Yuque too. I’ve made some encouraging achievements and efforts. I successfully got my driver’s license and found my dream job. At the same time, I learned some new technologies and built a simple blog system by myself. Although there are still some features to polish and it’s not ready to go live, I’m satisfied with my progress. Also, I’ve been working on learning various technologies and summarizing my tech stack to understand my strengths and areas I need to explore further. I’ve also been thinking about work-life balance and am trying to find ways to work efficiently and enjoy life.

Looking back at the first half of 2023, although I didn’t fully achieve the goals I set at the start of the year, I’m not discouraged. There’s still the second half of 2023. I’ll keep pushing forward ⛽️ and try my best to turn all these flags into reality. I feel that whether I’m slacking off or being proactive, both are the best versions of me — both are ways to better reorganize myself and move forward. If you think I’m right, could you give me a like? It really means a lot to me.

Entering the second half of 2023, I will go all out in work and life, reduce laziness, and do more meaningful things. Here are my specific goals:

Deeply study the React source code, improve my technical level, enhance my problem-solving ability, and calmly handle bugs.
Write articles — “weekly” at least one pure technical study note, learn and record it. I hope to improve my writing, coding, and thinking skills by sharing easy-to-understand content.
“Weekly” exercise at least once — running, badminton, etc. Health and money, I want both 🐶.
Work hard, take work seriously, become a mature employee who doesn’t hold the team back. If I can generate more value, even better.
Live happily, be simple and generous. I hope to be poised and calm in dealing with any matter or person, and improve my emotional stability.
Hope to find a suitable partner.
Hope to start my own journey in content creation. Actually, I love sharing and open source, so documenting my growth won’t be a burden.
Build my own blog website, open source it, and write a detailed implementation process — create my own original project.
I have two role models: Ya Yu and Yu Pi. I hope to learn more from them and turn that into my own gains.

Here, I’d like to share Ya Yu’s paid WeChat articles. They are really good — one of my top 5 investments in myself in 2023. From how to build beliefs, cultivate self-esteem, stimulate action, how to act better, how to find goals, how to manage your energy better, to the recent how to manage yourself better — every article is pure gold. Let me show you my reading notes.

Finally, I’ve concluded from my own experience that if you want to do something and stick with it, you need to give meaning to your own actions — in other words, you have to paint a picture for yourself. Only when you and the goal attract each other can you generate motivation, then action, then results. As for what kind of results, I think they won’t be too bad. This is also the Law of Attraction I’ve been learning recently. Motivation should come from within yourself. If the motivation doesn’t come from me, the actions driven by it never last for me. I wonder if that’s the same for everyone.

The half-year summary activity is still ongoing. I hope to see more people reflect on themselves and share it, write it down. We can learn from each other and improve together.