My 2023 Year in Review

To put it simply, it was a good one. A year of growth, adventures, and big changes. Looking back, it’s hard to think I lived all of this in just 12 months. There were a few tough times for sure, but overall I will remember 2023 as a year full of life and movement.

As always, I like to start with the highlight reel:

• 🇹🇭 In January, I started the year in Thailand with my mom, where I spent an incredible month, eating, swimming, practicing Muay Thai and… the Thai language — which I had started learning in 2022!
• 🇲🇽 In February, I spent some quality time with the Circle team at our annual company offsite in Playa del Carmen, before rediscovering Bacalar, the 7-blue lagoon (still one of my favorite places on earth) and Mexico City
• 🏁 In March, I ran my first ever race, a speedy 10k as part of the Lisbon half marathon. This meant I crossed the 25 de Abril Bridge, usually closed to pedestrians, enjoying beautiful views of Lisbon
• 🇬🇧 In April, I reconnected with lots of good friends and colleagues in London, the city where I spent most of my 20s
• 🇵🇹 In May, I went on a spontaneous trip to Madeira island with a new friend I had met a few weeks before in Lisbon (hey Emily!)
• 🕺 In June, I had my all-time best festival experience seeing Fred Again live, front row, at Primavera Sound in Porto
• 🇫🇷 In July, I spent quality time with my family back in France
• 🇮🇹 In August, I went on a road trip through Tuscany before heading for a second offsite with the Circle GTM team — definitely one of the highlights of my year!
• 🎉 In September, I got a promotion at work, which rewarded 2 years of hard work and opened a path for my team to stand up at new function at Circle
• 🇧🇷 In October and November, I spent two whole months in Brazil with my best friend, practicing my Portuguese, making new friends and discovering the unmatched energy and warmth of Bahia
• 🇦🇲 In December, my family and I said goodbye to my grandmother, a woman who is to me the ultimate symbol of strength, sacrifice and resilience.

The year I cultivated serendipity and said “yes, and…”

Serendipity is one of my favorite words in English. It’s that faculty one has of experiencing valuable or pleasant things they haven’t been looking for. It’s striking a conversation with a stranger only to realize you have tons in common. It’s randomly deciding to walk down an alley and discovering a fantastic restaurant. In 2023, I was reminded that there’s an art to cultivating serendipity. It consists of approaching the unknown with curiosity, open-mindedness and a pinch of courage.

There was a lot of that in 2023 (and many conversations with strangers-turned-friends for the day), as I solo-travelled for the first time in a while early in the year, navigated a lot of change in my personal life, and spent a good chunk of time in Brazil at the end of the year. This last trip prompted a flashback to the days I was practicing improv’ in my teens, when I learned the “yes, and…” rule. The idea is that whatever you have in mind when you step on stage (i.e: I’m going to be X, or mime Y), you have to accept and build upon whatever others are doing. For example, if you start miming you’re having food and another actor enters the stage and starts massaging your hair, you can both silently agree that you’re now at a hairdresser specialized in serving brunches. And next thing you know, you’re conversing about their lifelong dream of becoming a chef, which led them to create this original concept. By accepting each other’s premises, you’ve created the conditions for an interesting story.

My year, and in particular the two months I spent in Brazil, felt like a massive game of improv. I didn’t have any rigid notion of what the outcome should be. I welcomed new characters (and opportunities) into my day-to-day and let myself be surprised by the story we created together. As someone who thrives on novelty, this all felt invigorating. Paradoxically, having to adapt to new environments helps me become the most focused and productive version of myself. It’s like the novelty and chaos around me soothes me inside. Weird, I know!

When I posted about the “yes, and…” story on Instagram, it resonated with my friend Tracy who wrote this caption:

I couldn’t have put it any better!

The year I became a runner

To continue on the thread of novelty, 2023 is the year I switched up my fitness focus from lifting to running. While I wasn’t starting from scratch, let’s just say I never really ran consistently. Just looking at the year 2022, my habit tracker tells me I went on a total of 5 runs! I’m pretty proud that I 20x this number in 2023, ending the year with a total of 100 runs!

I 20x the number of runs I did in 2023! App: superhabit

So how did I go from basically avoiding running to completing 100 runs (5–10 km each) over the course of the year? I think it came down to 3 things:

• I reset my cardio through Muay Thai. Cardio is tough to build up and easy to lose, even more so than strength. My not-so-secret weapon in the process of regaining a decent level of cardio is Muay Thai. I don’t think there’s a most effective way to work out both your heart and muscles and improve your cardio without even realizing. When I headed to Thailand in January, I started running on the hotel treadmill in preparation for my first training session, as I knew how brutal it could be. But then, it’s the daily Muay Thai sessions that prepared my heart for running. Win-win!
• I gave myself a challenging goal: running a sub 25min 5k! When I started running consistently, my PB was around 27 minutes. I signed up for a race to motivate myself. I had two months to shave off over two minutes. Did I succeed? Not exactly (my best time was 25:32 seconds). Was I proud of having developed a new habit? Definitely. With running like with most things, the consistent effort paid off: things got a little easier every week. So I kept doing it to see how far I could go.
• I tracked everything. Strava became my best friend and I religiously logged all my runs on my habit tracker. Towards the end of the year, it felt amazing to realize I was close to completing 100 runs. Hadn’t I tracked them, I would probably not have gone on the last 10 runs of the year to reach that nice round number. Weirdly enough, it’s completing semi-geometrical shapes through my runs that gave me the most satisfaction. 🤣 Here’s an example, in the fortified town of Lucca in Tuscany!

The year I felt my feelings

2023 wasn’t all fun. There were rough times, like a breakup and the death of my grandma. One thing I’m proud of is how I handled these difficult times. Not so long ago, I would have tried to numb myself. Avoiding bad thoughts and feelings at all cost. 2023 me was someone who knew that nothing lasts, and that the sadness and mental fog of one day often lets you savor the joy and clarity that comes next.

2023 me felt grounded, stable, resilient.

It’s like my hyper anxious self is no longer a main character in my life. She hasn’t totally left the show but the writers demoted her to side character. She now only makes a few occasional appearances. I’m not mad about that!

2024 promises to be exciting, both personally and professionally. As I write these words, I’m packing not one but two suitcases to head back to… Brazil. I completely fell in love with Salvador, Bahia and I’m getting ready to spend my first summer there (European winter). How long will I stay? My rental contract says 4 months, but everyone around me bets it will be longer. I’m not too sure at this stage. I’ve always wanted to speak Brazilian Portuguese 100% fluently and as 2023 draws to a close, I realize I’m now well on my way. Plus, being there means being in a timezone that is more convenient for work — I’m just a few hours ahead of my team and this makes everything easier. Speaking of work, I’ve never felt more excited for the year ahead—Circle has incredible plans for 2024, between expanding to Brazil, launching a new product, and going into the education and certifications space — the latter is what my team will be focused on. There’s so much to look forward to and so many things I can’t possibly predict!

Here’s to a 2024 filled with growth, good health, and new challenges! Happy new year, friends!

💛 Favorites from 2023

• Favorite song (and soundtrack to my year): anything by Fred Again
• Favorite book: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
• Favorite podcast: Sanctum Unmasked