2021: A Reflective Year

Eva Nurwita

Founder

This year has turned out to be a scary and amazing one. I had managed to keep English Course With Eva alive the whole year with 3 staffs and 3 teaching assistants. Additionally, I managed to defend my field paper, so I don't have to leave this year with anxiety (haha). In 2021, the academy has worked with almost 100 in-class students, 200+ webinar participants, and partnered with many other parties. I love how we grow together, even though the end of 2021 feels like a rushed horse race. I can feel it in my blood that my teaching and life management went chaotic in some of the last months. Especially, when the Delta hit the country and I experienced some of the biggest loss in life.

Albeit achievement through numbers seems to be more appealing for the external eyes, this year has been so nurturing internally. The first part of the year, I faced for the first time a life of entrepreneuring; a life I have never imagined to lead. As a trained economics researcher, predictability is my best friend. I learned to build life with assumption of ceteris paribus--where everything else assumed to be constant. I am taught to detailed the next level before I step into the next level (and stop there). As an entrepreneur, this is an attitude I should avoid in my daily life; I have to constantly maneuvering in uncertainty, and work under so much changes and close possibility of failures. The second part of the year, I am dealing with losses. I lost best friends (that meant more of brothers and sisters) due to Covid and illnesses; the most gruesome months I have ever experienced in life. Also, I had to change a big part of my routine because another close friend moved away to another country. I found myself to be quite wobbly in mid-year, yet tasks are ever growing. Which makes the end of year to be filled with big tasks; defending my field paper and move on to the next step for my dissertation writing journey. I can summarize the last part of the year in a word -- Hustle, like a tripped up-full with trepidation type of hustling.

However, I decided to leave 2021 with some important lessons learned I would take a note on:

1. Make a priority goal and work with the best people to achieve it: I remember a rare morning where my father (not) randomly sent me an article about geese V formation. He asked me to ponder on what it means, and my thought directly went here: I cannot move without a specific set of target and alone. Geese V formation implies that the whole flock will reach a greater flying range by taking advantage of the other uplifting flap of wings. In this context, moving with people that share the same direction (not only a set of common to-do list) will get to their destination more quickly and easily. Now that I have stronger stance of shared visions, on the purpose and the foundation of With Eva, I decided to stick to a mission and inform all the team members of this direction. I have explored some options in 2021 and this is the time to decide which one to exploit and which land to explore for the next year. Which burden to sheds and repackage those necessities in my luggage. Respectively, as the whole tenets of moving to the same direction requires higher communication flow, the most efficient way to do this is by working with the best people: I am now shifting my first focus from curating targets to curating my team.

2. Nurture the growth mindset: Years of learning through a wrong perspective silently formed me to be a person with a fixed mindset. I used to scrutinized on a couple of aspects: what I haven't achieved, what went wrong, and who got what. In a glance, nothing seems to be wrong with these aspects when the purpose is to reflect -- not to ruminate. The year of 2021 has taught me that the most important is what comes after, what set of actions we would like to do next: to set a more rational goals, to note and ponder on valuable lessons behind failures, how to maximize one's own resources and stop making comparison with others. The belief should not be emphasized on 'This will lead to success; I cannot afford failures' but rather on 'Even though this will end in failures, I will learn something so that it will work next time'. See here is the thing, the confidence born from having a growth mindset will more or less reflected in our product. As an analogy, I can differentiate which student/mentee that can handle growth from their personal statement/essay (so does the universities). There is this strong conviction that is transferred from the internal confidence to their writing. Meaning, my confidence is reflected in this institution I'm growing. Unsurprisingly, I also learned that behind this confidence, a person needs to have a strong root of gratitude --to wanting to look forward as life has already given so much and next step is another bonus from ever continuing blessings. Therefore, it is from this sincere gratefulness I can parent success.

3. We need willpower NOT (SOLELY) passion to work: Passion is a start, purpose is important, but nothing will work without a constant foster of passion and purpose. This is where exercise comes into view, this is where our follow-through attitude takes a paramount role. I was reminded through a conversation I had with my brother after his encounter with some national athletes. We talked about what makes a great athlete, it is the mentality of keeping the same amount of exercise hours and training even after winning many championships. In other words, the arrogance --the feeling of satisfaction of winning-reaching something is a great recipe for catastrophe. This is where the test of endurance of having to do the necessary actions, over and over again being exerted. This is where perseverance takes charge and is much more superior than talent.

It dawn on me that 2021 was an extreme and radical shift, and yet an enlightening one. And with this lessons, I am ready to begin 2022 with excitement and hope. I stepped into 2022 with an intention to be firmer and more sincere in my ground, with lighter luggage and higher endurance. I hope we are all starting the year with much optimism, not for the better year, but the stronger internal self no matter what chaos awaited us throughout this year.