Year in Review 2023 – Learning and Connecting

Originally posted at https://agnesmolnar.com/year-in-review-2023-learning-and-connecting/

Usually, I take the first days of January off, and use this time to look back and reflect, but also to look ahead and plan. I really like these slow days.

While 2022 was the year of starting a new life in a new country , 2023 was the year of settling, learning, and connecting…

Learning

By now, we really call the Netherlands “home”. We made new friends, the kids like their new schools, we have new habits, new daily and weekly routines…

We keep learning the language as well… We speak Hungarian at home, and I don’t think this would ever change. On top of that, all the three of my children speak fluent English (better than me, literally). But in 2023, we all have made progress with Dutch as well, each of us on our own levels. – My 8 years old son is fluent by now, since he’s in a Dutch school… My highschoolers and I try to keep up with him, but it seems to be impossible… ?? We can navigate our everyday lives in Dutch by now, though.

Our kitchen is somewhat similar… We cook and bake Hungarian dishes, as well as all kinds of international (we love Asian food!), and by now we also learned how to make our own oliebollen and stroopwafels! ?? If there is a fusion kitchen, ours is one indeed!

Work

2023 was a busy year in work as well. New clients, new projects, new challenges. Travel is still not at the B.C. level (Before Covid), but it’s getting back. I was in Manila, Singapore, Seattle, Stockholm, Brussels, Amsterdam… (plus I had to cancel a trip to Washington DC due to flu).

In-person conferences are also back, which means I had chance to see again some friends and colleagues who I hadn’t seen for years. I also made countless of new connections which is one of the things I missed the most during those no-travel times.

Last but not least, I met and started to work with an amazing leadership coach, Glenn Terrell . Glenn did not only helped me to identify my goals, work for them, fight for them – but also, when I realized that those “goals” are not good fits for me, he was there like a safety net… I had to learn that everything is an experiment… Sometimes there is no success or failure, only lessons learned. And definitely, to me, trying and experimenting was the way forward in 2023… Painful at times, indeed. But growth means changes, and changes can be hurtful and fun and exciting and scary – all at the same time…

Looking Ahead

I also started my new, personal site in 2023. My plan is to write more here, be more active, and share more content that don’t only share details about my own life, but also lessons I learn on this journey. I hope sharing my thoughts and experiences might be useful or inspirational for some.

We all have some “mess” in our lives… Being in a new life situation, or staying in the old one, if I can help only one person with getting some clarity, and making some order in this beautiful and annoying chaos, then it’s worth it.

As a consultant, I keep trying to make information and knowledge findability easier. This means large-scale strategy projects for global organizations, but also coaching and mentoring search managers .

My word for 2024 will be personal growth – what’s yours?