Reflecting on 2018

As I write my final column for 2018 I begin to reflect on the past year.
 
What a ride it’s been.
 
2018 is the first full year that I have lived in Minnesota and I have really settled in as a Minnesotan.
 
While I still will always be a city boy from Rhode Island at heart I now accept my role as a small town Minnesota guy as well.
 
Over the past year I feel like I have really grown as a reporter.
 
This time last year I had only been a professional journalist for about six months and was still making a lot of mistakes.
 
While I certainly am not perfect now I feel much more confident in my storytelling ability
 
Another change in my life in 2018 of course is the fact that I have a new job.
 
I was blessed a couple of months ago to come begin telling the important stories of the community and I can honestly say it was one of the best decisions I made in 2018.
 
When it comes to New Years I always feel like it’s important to reflect on the past but not to dwell on it because at the end of the day the only things that we can change is how we do things going forward.
 
Each week I get the chance to go over the previous week's paper with my publisher Rick and we go over things that could have been better and things that were good about the paper.
 
This gives me a chance to go forward the next week to hopefully help produce a better paper than the week before and instead of dwelling on mistakes I may have made or things I could have done differently I use it as a learning tool.
 
That’s how I believe New Year's should be a time to reflect about things and use mistakes as learning tools to get better the next year.
 
I hope 2019 is a great year for everyone in the community and I hope that your reading experience of the DCI is better than ever before.