Reflecting on 2024: Personal Growth and Professional Milestones
This year has been quite the journey, both personally and professionally. While not everything went as planned, I’m proud of how much I’ve accomplished and the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Personal Growth
On a personal level, 2024 was a year of small but meaningful wins. I rediscovered my love for reading, managing to complete 4 books—quite the achievement considering I started from zero. I also got back into a steady workout routine, hitting the gym at least three times a week.
Since moving to Vancouver in mid-2023, my wife and I have finally settled in and started to build our life here. There’s something deeply satisfying about feeling at home in a new place, though I’m fully prepared for 2025 to throw its own challenges my way.
I’ve also started tackling some long-postponed personal projects—though I’m still learning how to balance my enthusiasm with the need to rest and properly schedule my time. Running my ongoing Dungeons & Dragons campaign has been a major source of relaxation and joy. As a Dungeon Master for a couple of years now (and a player for six), it’s been a rewarding way to escape the routine and connect with friends.
Lastly, I dipped my toes into various certifications. While I haven’t completed them yet, the knowledge I’ve gained so far has already proven valuable.
Professional Highlights
Professionally, 2024 has been a transformative year. Despite a rocky start, I feel I’ve achieved a lot.At work, I maintained four projects and contributed to six more. Out of those, three were released, with two more slated for early 2025. Only one project fell short of its release goals, guess I’ll take that as a reminder that not everything always goes according to plan.
On the personal project front, I’m particularly proud of releasing WebTricks, an open-source project that began as a personal compendium of functions and has grown into a resource for others. I also launched my personal website, which includes this blog and my portfolio—a long-overdue step that I’m thrilled to have finally taken considering that my website was down for a little over a year.
One of the biggest changes for me this year was embracing tools like AI to enhance my productivity as a developer. For the longest time, I hesitated to use them, worried about skill atrophy and whether relying on AI tools would make me less capable over time, or lazy if you prefer to see it that way. But thanks to a push from a coworker (you know who you are, if you’re reading this), I’ve come to see tools like Copilot as just that—tools to enhance, not replace, our abilities. Of course, I still enjoy solving problems on my own when time allows, but 2024 was the year I stopped fearing these technologies and started leveraging them to work smarter.
As 2024 comes to a close, I can’t help but feel a sense of gratitude for the lessons learned and the progress made. It wasn’t a perfect year; some goals remain unfinished, and a few projects didn’t pan out as expected. Still, every challenge brought new insights and opportunities for growth. With that in mind, I’m looking ahead to 2025 with a clearer sense of direction and renewed determination. This year has set the stage, and now it’s time to build on that foundation and turn aspirations into reality.
‍
Missing achievements
In 2024 I decided to start multiple different certifications, for UI/UX design, Back-end development, and Cloud development, among others, and… well I’m sad to admit I finished none of them. So for starters, I’ll set some time to get them done (Along with the GA4 course I’ve been procrastinating on starting for the past couple of months).
Project updates
Just a week ago I released WebTricks an open-source project for no-code platforms and the web, but releasing the project was just the first step. Following up, during the first couple of months of 2025 I’ll be finishing up the documentation, building some cloneable projects on Webflow as well as some additional CodePen examples for reference on how to implement them in your projects.
Back at the beginning of 2022, I wanted to try and make a Chrome extension, nothing fancy just a 2-day project of a weather viewer application. I managed to finish the project by my self-imposed deadline and published it in the Chrome Web Store but every time I go back to it... well it is noticeable that I gave myself too little time to finish this project. So I’m planning on completely updating the way it works and the way it looks. This is not particularly a hard project but I kind of enjoy being able to have something I made and use.
‍
New Projects & goals!
Following up, I will be working on a new project I’ve already been planning on for a while, I will share more about it at some point in the first 2 quarters of the year 🤞.
I’m also planning to keep a more steady flow of blog posts on my blog page. They say sharing what you know is one of the best ways to learn, so why not give it a shot? Whether it’s tutorials, project updates, or just things I’ve figured out along the way, I want to use my blog to share and grow. Hopefully, it’ll help me learn more and maybe even help someone else along the way. Let’s see how it goes!
Another of my key goals for 2025 is to achieve a “Green Wall” on GitHub, a streak of daily contributions, updates, comments, and reviews that reflects consistent engagement with projects throughout the year. While this includes my personal and work-related projects, I’m especially eager to return to contributing to the open-source community. I used to be actively involved in open source, and I believe reconnecting with it will not only help me grow as a developer but also allow me to give back to a space that has had such a positive impact on my journey. While I might allow myself some flexibility to rest on weekends (because rest is essential for sustaining long-term productivity), I’m determined to build this habit of consistent improvement, collaboration, and meaningful contributions. It’s not just about the green squares; it’s about making a difference, both in my own development and within the community.
Finally, I’m interested in joining Webflow’s Partner program not because I really need to but because I feel it’ll be a great way to push forward on some projects I’ve been working on in the platform. so I’ll get some extra projects out and, let’s see if we get it rolling.
‍
