Reviewing my word for 2024 – Doggedness

At the start of 2024, I set a one-word intention for the year.

Doggedness.

Why I chose this word:

Initially “survive” came up strongly, but it felt like it could do with a better framing. “Survive” felt kinda pessimistic, even if I feel that to survive and be able to keep indie hacking in the new year will still be considered a huge win. “Survive” didn’t add anything aspirational to things. There’s no betterment or growth. I could scrape by another year in survival without any personal growth or learning. Most importantly, it didn’t point in the direction of any moral value or personality quality that can be worked on.

So “doggedness” it is. It means great determination to do something, even if it is very difficult. That’s 100% how I feel right now. That’s how I felt about 2023. In fact, that’s how it’s been the past 4 years, since the pandemic, since fatherhood.

But I’m determined to keep going. Somehow. Some way. Any which way. I refuse to be beaten. To stubbornly survive, that’s the aim. Just focus on the little things I can influence. Ignore everything else I can’t, or distracts me.

Small, sheer doggedness.

Re-reading that post I made one year was a moving moment. Because not only did I survive out of sheer will and doggedness, I managed to turn a corner. Not humblebragging, but here’s the shit I had to deal with this year:

• See my main income stream—my consulting gigs—dry up.
• Went all out in finding fulltime employment, didn’t work out.
• Turn to doing training, which I hate and takes a lot out of me.
• Training paid peanuts, multiple times lower than my usual rate.
• Desperation… at one point got to my last few thousand in my bank account.
• Exhausted doing 4-5 jobs at once.

But despite all that, I managed to:

• Find two stable, semi-permanent freelance gigs that pays the bills.
• Pivoted successfully to being a frontend web dev.
• Went on three family trips - Melaka, JB, Bali.
• Got past survival stage.
• Stayed consistent in committing code.
• Launched a few products, even though they didn’t do well - Lists Kit, ProfilePicture.app, UVIndex.
• Stayed in the game of indie hacking.
• Stayed present at home, to wife, kid and parents.

I think I did well.

Fking hell, let me rephrase that: I CRUSHED it.

If this isn’t a year of doggedness I don’t know what is.

I’ve got past survival now. Time to think about thriving…

Next: Thinking up my word for 2025!