Wrap Up
As the end of the year approaches we naturally look back to assess the year that was. I originally played around with the idea of doing a ‘Top 10’ to celebrate some of my favourite moments but as I explored that I thought it would be worth trying to be a bit more genuine. In all honesty 2022 was my best year so far and while it has been filled with so many highlights, it wouldn’t be fair to avoid the reality of the struggles, the difficult times and all of the valuable moments in-between. To address this I’m going to do my ‘Sweet, Sour, Banana’ for the year of 2022.
The concept of ‘Sweet, Sour, Banana’ came from our trip to Hawaii while filming for Attacking Life where the whole crew would gather (usually over dinner) and tell everyone about their day. The responses would include: The best part of the day (Sweet), the worst part of the day (Sour), and the funniest moment in the day (Banana). While this became a great way of bonding on the trip, it has become a regular touch point for the crew even since we’ve returned back home so I think it’s the perfect way to approach my own personal 2022 wrap up.
Sweet
This is the easy part of the list! As mentioned earlier, 2022 has been my biggest and best year yet and I can put this down to a number of things in my personal and professional life.
Personally, my triumphs this year were in love, leisure and learning. After proposing to my partner in July on Mont Royal, Canada I surprised her with the presence of my parents and sisters which seemed like the perfect opportunity to elope while both of our families were on the same continent. A trip, city, place and time I’ll never forget.
On the note of visiting another continent I was extremely lucky to get the opportunity to travel to a number of different places this year. Some old favourites in Fiji and Indonesia were great to return to while Hawaii and Canada were new for me and were places I really enjoyed for a number of different reasons.
One of the big personal highlights for me this year has been this Journal. I started it as a way to reflect on my own experiences while giving me an opportunity to write and work on new material and it’s quickly become one of my favourite things that has changed the way I approach my learning. Typically, learning is thought of as coming from external sources and that’s very much true but I think there’s so much value that can come from learning from our own experiences and the Journal allows me to do just that. I’ve got so much that I want to share with the world and sometimes finding the right time and place to do so can be difficult so I’m proud of creating my own platform where I can continue to be myself and if that adds value to someone else’s life in one way or another that can only be seen as a bonus in my eyes.
Professionally, this year has given me more than I could have imagined! This has been my first full year working on my speaking independently and I’ve been so grateful for everyone who’s welcomed me at their various events. I set out to try to complete a certain number of speaking engagements and much to my delight I have finished the year at almost double that original expectation so this hopefully means I’m doing something right.
I’ve also been able to give back to the community in a number of different ways, from working with Healthy Cities Illawarra, to supporting some fantastic Movember events and even speaking to the kids at my local board riders club. The ability to do work in the community is always important to me as I personally know the impact that a strong community can have when people need to stand together.
It’s difficult to speak on or quantify the overall progress of my work this year but there’s a feeling within me that I’ve been making the right moves and doing the right things which I know will only help me continue to grow into 2023 and beyond.
Sour
This is really the section where all of the reflection and learning comes from. I try my best to take what I can away from all experiences whether they’re good or bad and I think that highlights the importance of really reflecting on what you’d consider the bad times and either use this to learn how to approach them differently or be grateful for the experience as it stands.
Whilst I could certainly consider the Molokai2Oahu sweet because it was a goal achieved and I really enjoyed the experience, the paddle itself was awful in the moment. I put a lot of emphasis on preparing as much as possible in order to achieve goals and this challenge proved to me that even with that mindset, it’s still possible to underestimate the scale of what some of these challenges can be. Fatigue, sickness and sunburn all played their part in making this as difficult as it was and I’ve certainly learned a few lessons in how I’ll prepare for my next big physical adventure.
It may seem unfair to include the production process of Attacking Life in the sour category as it’s been something that has been an incredible experience to work on, it’s taken me places I’ve never been before and will be essentially a depiction of the message I want to put out into the world when it’s all said and done. The positives far outweigh the negatives but this project has felt to me like the biggest mountain that I’ve had to climb in the past few years. It’s difficult making a film with no credits to your name, it’s difficult funding it yourself, it’s difficult convincing people that you know what your doing. There have been so many hurdles to overcome that could have easily proven too much if it weren’t for the amazing people I’ve had working on the film with me. I certainly couldn’t do this all alone and it just so happens that the crew we’ve assembled are not only good at what they do, but the fact that the story spoke to them and they wanted to be involved is one of the factors that gives me confidence in this whole thing being a success when it’s finally released.
Lastly, the bane of my existence, injuries. For me, injuries seem to always come at the most inconvenient time. Not that there is ever a convenient time to be injured but whether it’s cutting my hand on the reef on the very last wave of the Indonesia trip and impacting my training for Hawaii or suffering a hamstring ‘contusion’ (still not entirely sure what that is) in Fiji the day before the best swell arrived. Injuries continue to frustrate me, but as I do get a chance to reflect on them they do make you appreciate the times when you’re injury free and they provide a weird perspective that things can always change in an instant and that’s a valuable perspective to hold in any situation.
Although setbacks are never enjoyable I do think they’re worth talking about in this piece because they probably teach you more than the successes of life do. Very rarely do we look at the positives in life and wonder what worked in order for that to succeed, or what we can do to make it happen again. So it’s important to reflect on the negatives because each one of the things listed above have given me an opportunity to learn about myself and the way I go about things in the realest way possible.
Banana
Now to what is always the best part of this whole exercise. I can’t think of anything in particular that would be worth mentioning that anyone reading this might find as funny as I did in a certain moment, although now I think about it watching Sam fly the drone into the side of a mountain in Hawaii would qualify if I could find the footage. Nonetheless, I wanted to highlight the people that make this exercise what it is because I think when I look back and think of my other funniest moments of my year, it’s probably all been when reflecting on the ‘Sweet, Sour, Banana’ of everyone’s day. This exercise didn’t stop in Hawaii, We (Sam in particular) brought it back and introduced it to others and my favourite thing is that every single person loves it! We would do it with the group we’re familiar with but also bring it up in random conversations we would be having with someone we’d only just met and it really is the best way of reflecting, bonding and learning more about everyone.
I think the real beauty of this whole exercise, whether you do it daily, weekly or yearly as I am now is that it offers you a chance to be mindful of your experiences and reflect on what you’ve done. It’s so easy to look past that because everything in this world is so instant, it comes and goes in a matter of minutes, often left behind with a scroll of a thumb.
I’ve truly had such an amazing year this year and can’t wait to dive head first into 2023. I’ll most likely do a separate post on my goals and ambitions for next year but the best way I can think of finishing this post is by expressing my gratitude for everyone who’s been a part of 2022 alongside me. I’d like to think I’m pretty ambitious and I know I can’t reach my own goals without the help of other people so for those who help me do what I do, I can’t thank you enough.
