Happy New Year. I know what you’re thinking. But since this is the first time I’m writing to you officially, allow me to wish you a prosperous New Year.
Welcome to my first blog post of the year. Having taken a break for over a year, I am thrilled to resume expressing my emotions and ideas through my writing. A sad part is that when I switched to my new website, I lost my previous blog posts. The positive news is that I have some of the drafts, so be sure to see a mix of old and new posts in the coming months.
Before I go into the main reason for writing today, I wanted to do a quick check-in and ask how you’re doing. How was January for you? For me, it felt like I spent 50 years in one month, no kidding. This has been my busiest January in years, and for the first few days, I was trying to stay afloat. January has been filled with exams, work, and attending Visioning Events to clarify my goals for 2026, and I’m glad it’s finally over.
It also brings me to my next question: where is time running to? I mean, didn’t we just say happy New Year some days ago? How are we in February already? It feels like we’re just blinking, and by the time we open our eyes, a week has passed. And in the midst of this pace, I’m hoping that you find time for yourself to define how you want 2026 to look for you.
Which is why I’m writing this particular post. Upgrade, and the world will adjust. In the early days of the year, my Mac notified me that I needed to update my WhatsApp on my desktop, and that was the inspiration for this post. I get those kinds of notifications, and I don’t think much of them until this January. The first thing I noticed as I was done with the update was the new features; they were not so glaring, but I think my subconscious needed to pick them up. A little reshuffling of the headers, and the font became a little smaller. At first, I was irritated because I was already used to the way I previously used WhatsApp, and I was grumbling at the mental changes I had to make to adjust to the new features. But my behavior caught my attention and inspired me to write a blog post. What happened? After a few days, I observed that I had successfully adapted to the changes, and my brain had become accustomed to them.
I’m sure we’ve experienced similar phenomena with all the many apps that we use daily. But it got me thinking. Products, apps, and services are always launched in a preliminary version and constantly upgraded until discontinued. Sometimes it even takes them months to work on just one feature and release it.
If we understand these facts about products, why don’t we insist on such improvements for our lives? If we follow the lead of those who create products, we have the potential to achieve much more. Their incremental additions and sometimes subtractions should be our motivation.
An upgrade can be anything at all that increases your value; an upgrade can be spiritual, health-wise, mental, financial, etc. If we take life one upgrade at a time, we can do it and become so much more.
And this is my encouragement to you as you continue this year. Don’t let big dreams and desires overwhelm you, but rather, break it down one upgrade at a time and look at what you can become at the end of this year.
I hope the next time you see a new feature on your apps, it becomes a reminder that you can also incrementally upgrade your life, and you know what? The world will adjust!
Love,
Oluwaseun Newton