This was 2019
At the start of 2019 I titled the year as: "The year of structure". I felt in 2018 that I was always feeling busy and that I couldn't really get more done, which was just due to inefficiency and losing lots of time because of it. I wanted to be able to create more and scale and have more focus when working. Looking back, I think I have been able to do so. I have been increasing the amounts of content I create by a lot on all platforms and as you may know later in 2019 I started to do the same for Raise Your Edge, but more about that later.
Let's start at the start of 2019. January was a swingy month, it started off super bad and the downswing was real. Maybe due to lack of focus coming out of the holidays and being so eager to do well. But luckily in the 3rd week I got my biggest win to date, 1st in the $22 Mini Thursday Thrill (Biggest score is 2nd in the Big $11 for $4495). Since that score things went well, stream was doing good and we were finally on track on what I was hoping 2019 to be.
February, looking back at my blogs you can really see how many mood swings there have been. It's almost every week up and down, but at the end the trend is still going up. Just have to continue pushing through, improving ourselves and grow through the struggles. That's what we have been doing for the past 3 years and in February it got rewarded by partypoker signing me for Team Online. I think to this day, I but also others may not realize what that actually means. It is a big compliment for the work I have been putting in and it was super nice to finally get some recognition for it after the debacle of the "Next Top Twitch Poker Streamer" in 2018 from Pokerstars and Runitup, where I didn't manage to make it into the top 5 even.
March, once again I really have to look back into my blogs to remember what happened.. time has been flying for real! I was super drained, which was actually the case in 2018 as well at that time. That's something I have to continue to look out for, to not run past by myself. Have to be super self-aware of when having to take breaks. And not just breaks, quality breaks. Playing Fortnite for example, is not a quality break. Your brain is still super active and you don't find much peace. So quality break would be more, going outside for a walk, reading, meditating.. these type of things I really have to do more to make sure I can keep going at the pace I am going.
April, recovery month. Coming out of March I took some time off streaming to get my fire back. I learned from the previous year that, you should not be playing poker when that fire is not there. You will be auto-piloting a lot, playing out of desperation instead of inspiration. So I am happy I took a step back there and found the fun back in things again. In April I also tried to reduce multi-tasking and being more present, something I should still work on. Being present will also create way more peace in the mind and leave other at that time unimportant things out.
May, we continued the line up after gaining some momentum in April. Went on holiday to Egypt for a week, which was a lot of fun but I found it tough to relax and not be working. But I came back focused and with more clarity about what Team DiggingWinning, the community, was.
So in June I was writing the fundamentals of the DiggingWinning's Mission Statement, but was also still searching. I started to make a mindset shift from "I have to" to "I want to", which made me being a bit less hard on myself and find more joy in the things I did. Because I wanted to do the things I did, opposed to I had to do the things I did. But the reason I was still searching was because we had to play party only. And at this time.. the schedule was still pretty poor and I was playing basically up to $33. So there were just not enough interesting tournaments, sessions were over very quickly due to lack of tournaments. Luckily this changed later in 2019.
July, I finished the Mission Statement with the feedback of the community. I was at that time reading 7 habits of highly effective people, which is a book I can highly recommend. It broadened my horizon and I started to try to be more empathetic and open myself up. Focus more on things I can control and accept the things I couldn't more and try to understand other people's perspectives more. This is something that can still be hard at times of course, as it is still rough for me but I think for everyone, when they don't feel respected. The thing is, it is all in your head. Same with the doubts I had late December.. it has all just to do with self-esteem, which will for sure be something I will have to continue to work on in 2020.
August was the month of Powerfest. I really prepared for that series, well.. at least tried to. I wanted to play as much as I can and did some more studying that usual, I don't actually study that much. I have been learning more by playing and discussing hands with others. Anyway, Powerfest was basically a disaster till the second last day, because that was the day I became a Powerfest champion! I was super close to just being done with poker for at least a while, as I put quite some pressure on Powerfest and had quite some expectations, basically all the ingredients to fail. During Powerfest I also switched to playing in the night and that just wears on me so much more. Just not having the time to clear my mind anymore and do something to still feel good about myself and what I do, is just detrimental for my happiness.
September, summer time! No summer holiday for me this year, decided to continue working. We came off the high of winning a Powerfest and I also won a $109 bounty for $1.9k, just as in 2018 after January, I started struggling mentally. Those moments, you think you have to be super happy and pumped about it all. But when in reality it then disappoints, you start doubting whether everything what you do is worth it. And that is still something that is around there. That's why those monetary-type goals are just not good, because they do not actually give you any fulfillment. It is short-term happiness and that fades and leaves you empty. Right now I am actually reading 12 Rules For Life by Jordan B. Peterson and he also says, also in his videos on Youtube, that you have to find meaning in your life. So I may have to shift focus from chasing happiness, to chasing meaning. When you find meaning, you will most likely find happiness. But when you find happiness, you may still be feeling empty, which is no good.
October was a super busy month. Middle of September I got appointed to Social Media Manager for Raise Your Edge, so I started creating not only lots of content for myself but also for them. Which is something I was only able to do, due to the more structure I had created. I still had 24 hours in my day, still slept 9 of them, but I was more effective and efficient when I was awake, allowing me to get more done. This was a super big step and opportunity for me of course. Over the past years, lot of my ideas have been confirmed by others executing on it and it was nice that also now I got some recognition for that. In 2020, I hope to be the one executing on it myself, also because I have more knowledge and resources now that I can.
November was the month of Lex Live 2, it was so much fun again to do something with teamDW. Really want to continue to do at least 1 trip with the community each year. 2017 we had a trip to Hamburg, 2018 to Curacao, 2019 to London, who knows where we are going in 2020. As the workload started to add up after being away for a few days, it became clear to me that I had to work even more structured to be more efficient and continue to be able to find what I was looking for. So I started creating an infrastructure for all my content, which is now working fairly well. As I have been saving a lot, I also was able to start hiring someone: acewithface. Super excited I can give him this opportunity and looking forward to see how this evolves in 2020!
December, the start was messy mentally. Results were good and that may have been the issue, the question of what I was doing it for came up. Sometimes it is really easy to feel isolated, not realizing what you have and get in your own head. Thanks to you guys and also the experience I have gained over the years of how to handle those moodswings, I got out as time went by. I decided to give back this month and pay all gifted subs forward, which was a huge success and we broke the 200 sub mark on Twitch and reached 225 subs at some point. The stream was doing great, hitting insane numbers, have to be said that that has been the case every December. So I hope that this time I can keep it up the coming months, instead of falling back again like the previous years when it comes to the stream.
And now here we are! Let's look at the goals I have set myself and how they have been going:
Pilar goals:
– Spend more time with friends and family, I have been more present when I did spend time with them. But to be honest, still haven't really been able to build a social life.
– Create more structure, definitely succeeded at this otherwise wouldn't have been able to do all this. But this will always be a work in progress.
– Positivity -> keep that mindset right (gain confidence main one!) Mood swings are normal, I have been getting better at getting out of the downers quicker so would say we have been doing good.
– Study more poker and put in more volume, guess this is a negative just due to shifting of goals and focusing more on building things around poker. But volume has been decent, studying by helping others..
– Consistent flow of content, absolutely smashed this goal, don't think I have to explain.
– Continue to inspire and motivate people, didn't always feel this way personally, but believing your guy's words.. we have been doing so!
– Continue to grow the community, even though many of the core moved on, new ones joined and the community grew. I hope in 2020 that the core stays and we can continue to build!
Then I also set some more precise goals:
– Go out for more drinks and dinners, definitely have been doing more than in 2018, but hope to increase this more in 2020
– 5k games played, I don't think I have hit this. Haven't been able to track anymore due to the partypoker change, but think has been around 3k games. Mainly due to shifting focus to other areas.
– Maintain 8bb/100 winrate, no tracker so no idea!
– 20 Streamer League Nights, still really like the idea of it, but it was too much planning for me in 2019 and relying on others that I didn't.
– 1 Study Session each month, haven't been able to do 1 each month but we have done like 7 in total so not too bad!
– 5 pieces of content on socials each week, think it has been like 10 instead! Excluding stories etc even.
– 1 Blog update each week, hate to admit it but failed! At times felt like didn't have much to mention and still want to bring lots of value in them, so don't mind I went for quality over quantity and still document everything.
– 30 hours streamed each week, been 23 hours instead. Same reason why I didn't reach the volume goal.
– 5 min meditation each day, done! Been using a lot the sleep course or winddowns.
– Raise Your Edge course completely subtitled, due to shifting of positions it got taken off my shoulders and it is being done currently.
Then the goals that are out of my control but I found fun to throw in and see how we did:
* work with a poker site, was hoping at the start this was going to be partypoker as I loved what they were doing and I am happy that this actually became reality!
* 200 Twitch Subscribers, yes we reached it due to gifted subs, but unfortunately the actual sub count is more towards 80.
* 15k followers Twitch, currently sitting at 14k, so slightly missed it.
* 2k Subscribers Youtube, bit disappointed about this one to be honest. Currently sitting at 1200, think fairly underrated for the quality of content but I am biased of course! Hope to change this in 2020.
* 3k followers on Instagram, finally a goal I absolutely smashed! 6440 followers at the time of writing, the platform I am the most bullish about. Super happy with what I have build there.
* 1K followers on Twitter, 1550 at the time of writing so did well there too!
What do those goals mean? Not much to be honest, goals change as time goes by and it is important you continue to reflect and adjust. I think all in all 2019 has been a great year, it was not my goal at the start to go into the direction of a Social Media Marketing Agency, but it is a super big step and I think also in the right direction. Thanks everyone for reading this recap of 2019 and the coming week I will write about my goals for 2020!