Identifying Your Annual Top 5 for 2020

I am not a dweller in the past. Futuristic is generally in my top 5 strengths. However, in order to properly move forward — pushing ourselves to new heights, trying new experiments, and attempting to make the world a better place, we must first study the past.

This weekend, I did just that for my own personal 2020. It actually wasn’t the parade of horrors that I thought it might be (let’s face it — 2020 wasn’t exactly many people’s best year, and I’m included in that group). However, I was surprised by how much I actually accomplished during the dumpster fire year that was 2020!

If you take a little time out soon to explore just how far you have come this year, congratulations! Think back to the wizardry you used to pull off this year. And if all you did was just make it this far — that in and of itself is worth celebrating! 🎉

Here are my top 5 favorite experiments from the year, in random order.

1. The Video Children’s Book Readings — during the first lockdown, everyone was just trying to find a way to be useful and helpful. To me, that meant getting out all the children’s books off the shelf and reading on YouTube. Not only was this a fun project, but I do think that if even one parent got a 7–10 minute break by playing the video for their child for even just one of the books, it was worth it. They’re still up, and you can find links to all the videos here. This actually led me to producing a quick video each week over at LinkedIn and Youtube on what’s going on in my worlds of pharmacy, law, and healthcare. You can view them over at LinkedIn.

2. The Jane Austen/Save Sanditon Podcast Miniseries — The Edutainer, my podcast, generally focuses on healthcare, pharmacy, and career development. But, when I diverted and created a miniseries of all the Sandi-fans, I call them (lovers of the PBS Masterpiece series Sanditon early in 2020 in honor of women’s history month), it still happens to be to this day the most popular miniseries on my podcast. Hint to self: maybe turn the dial down on education and turn it up on entertainment in 2021? Hmmm….anyway, all the episodes can be found here.

3. The Art of Finding a New or Better Job During a Pandemic — Since yours truly went through this process in 2020, and the pandemic really changed the game on job hunting and career development, I decided to create not only a podcast miniseries around the steps I used to find a phenomenal next career pivot — but I also held a live course on it, which was awesome. (A Zoom that was actually useful!) A summary of the miniseries and episodes are here.

4. Pharmatology — I love learning. I also love making a game out of learning. Thus, I had the chance to merge two of my ❤️s into one with this parody of bracketology this year! In it, I sent out surveys, collected the top continuing education programs for pharmacy and medicine, and let my tribe of pharmacists and healthcare professionals vote on their favorites. Creating continuing pharmacy and medical education in line with the guidelines — properly — is truly an art form, and in this project, I had the chance above all to honor the hard-working CPE and CME professionals out there, who often work behind the scenes, not getting the credit they deserve. Win-win-win! I’m repeating this one for 2021 too — if you’d like to sponsor or partner on this one, please let me know. Nominations start soon!

5. Tribe Gathering— I love growing tribes. There are so many rabbit holes and career niches to explore that anytime I can get a group together, I’m down as long as they all have at least one thing in common! From starting new LinkedIn Groups, to building the current groups, to Facebook interests, and even gathering the goddesses of my world on a monthly Zoom call just to check in and make sure everyone was okay this year — figuring out how to connect in a year of social distancing was a challenge I took on and started. I’m not quite done yet, either!

What did these 5 projects have in common? Well, they all have a flavor of new or inaugural in them. They were all things I had not really done before (except tribe building), and they all provided me autonomy, purpose, and mastery building (something I’m studying in employers right now for pharmacy).

We’re almost done with this year of insanity. Before we leave it — celebrate what you’ve accomplished.

We’re going to make it after all! 🙌 Mary Tyler Moore would be proud. 😉

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Erin L. Albert is an author, pharmacist, attorney, and podcaster.