I’m just beginning to write this article from my little hotel room in California desperately as the month of February already comes to an end. I flew in on Monday for work and it has been a really hectic week for me here. I almost did not put out an article this month, but I’m trying to follow the tips in this article, so I knew I had to publish something. I would like to say I can’t wait to get back tomorrow and have a restful weekend, but that’s not something I see happening. 

This is one of the reasons I was really inspired to write this article this month. 

I’ve had a very interesting, stressful 2026 so far. It has been exciting and different. I’m stretching myself in ways I haven’t done in many years. I’m going from thinking to doing, growing, expanding. While going through this journey, I’ve been thinking a lot about growing. What does it mean to grow? What does growing feel like? 

Growing is the process of increasing in size, value, or importance. Sounds amazing, right? 

It is. 

However, sometimes growth is painful. Very painful. Like an infant teething or learning to walk. There’ll certainly be discomfort and possibly bruises from falls, but if you just hold on, what emerges after is unimaginable!

2026 has been different for me. While work has been intense, as usual, I decided to step out of my comfort zone making videos and creating content around wedding planning, sharing my knowledge from my personal experience in a structured way and helping prospective brides and grooms have an easier planning process. I’ve also been dragging some other personal projects along slowly. Doing all these in 2026 have stretched immensely and I’ve had to learn a lot about the growing process.

I’ll share of these lessons with you:

  1. You can have it all, just not all at once: As I mentioned earlier, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and begun doing things that are totally new to me. What this means is that some other things I previously used to do have suffered. I like to think of myself (my time, my energy, my brain, my capacity) as 100%. I could split this 100% in different ways, however, I am a finite resource. Capped at 100%.

    Sometimes, you might feel like you can’t have it all in life. I don’t think that is correct. You can. Probably just not at the same time or at the same intensity.

    For example, I allocated my capacity as 50% work, 20% health and fitness, 10% relationships, 10% personal projects, 5% charity and 5% rest. If I decide to start a new business or hobby, or even increase capacity in something, like going to the gym 7 days a week from 3 days, that means I have to reduce capacity from somewhere else to allocate more to fitness. There are different seasons in our life. In some seasons, you have to deprioritize or completely eliminate some options (as far as is healthy for you). If you’re in one of such seasons, don’t lose hope and think things will always stay the same. You are not failing. You might have had to shift some things around for your current season, but keep assessing, and definitely modify once you can. 
  2. You will suck when you start something new: This is something I had to face head-on. I’ve never been one to create content fully, make videos, marketing with videos on social media, and all that. It has been a huge learning curve and it’s probably not the best output according to some people’s standards, but I’m wholeheartedly embracing this season of sucking at content creation. I know I won’t be a beginner forever and the good thing about starting from the bottom is that it can go up from there. That being said, I’m constantly investing in myself to get better. I don’t want to suck at it forever, so I am using the resources I can to get better as time goes on. 
  3. Done is better than perfect: This is easier said than done, I know. However, one thing I’ve really tried to implement is to just execute. This ties back to my theme for the year, which is simply “doing”. Before overthinking, trying to make everything perfect, and ruminating on the tiny details, I try to focus on just getting things done. That’s it!

    That is my personal KPI for 2026. How many things am I able to do? How frequent am I able to get things out there? It is in doing, even imperfectly, that you are able to get realtime feedback, iterate, and improve faster. There are certain things that you would never learn from thinking, planning; you just have to put it out first then figure it out. 
  4. Try not to ever lose momentum: This is something I’m really struggling with but I’m learning how important it is. For me, with how hectic work can be and other life responsibilities, sometimes I just want to ghost for a long period. However, a body in motion stays in motion. Try your best to not stop. You might reduce the effort you put in if you’re going through a stressful period, for e.g reading a book chapter, instead of a full book, in a week. But try as much as possible to never come down to a zero. Keep the momentum up as much as you can, no matter how little. 
  5. Set mini goals: Growth is hard, and can sometimes be a marathon, so it is helpful to set mini goals to keep you motivated along the journey. This is something I like to do a lot. I set mini goals and reward myself when I achieve them. It does not have to be grand, just something meaningful to me at that time. I break my one big goal into mini goals from start to finish, with the hope that achieving these mini goals will cumulatively lead to the main goal being actualized. 
  6. Track your weeks and days. 1 clear goal per day: I started this practice this year. At the start of each week, I review the previous week, reflect on what worked, what didn’t work, what I have to change, etc. Then, I set my focus point for the next week. I try to make it not too crazy or overwhelming.

    I outline just 3 things that I must achieve in the new week. Then, I break these 3 things into daily tasks and set 1-2 things I must accomplish at the end of each day. Borrowing principles from the tech industry, I treat it like a weekly sprint retro and daily standup. This helps me not feel too overwhelmed or get distracted. I stay aligned to my goal and I have recorded a higher success rate so far.

Growth is a painful process but the results are extremely rewarding and beautiful. I hope this article is encouraging to someone that might be going through a growing process and feeling really strained. 

As usual, if you have any suggestions, comments, questions, or article ideas, please drop a comment below or send an email to: contactaniekan at gmail dot com.   

Thank you for reading.

Aniekan

P.S: Checkout the full Wedding Planning Toolkit mentioned.