2022
happiness,  Lifestyle

There We Go 2022!

January 2, 2022 /

Happy New Year! I thought I would come back to this secret cave of content to wish all of you a Happy New Year and share some thoughts about the upcoming 2022.

Every 30th of December I like to sit down with a cup of hot chocolate and make a review of my entire year. I go through all of the Resolutions I wrote down with a bittersweet feeling. I convince myself that I could have done better and try to come up with the reason why I didn’t.

I think about my motivations and purposes, the reasons why I wrote them down on paper so that I can understand what motivated me back then and hopefully make sense of what went wrong.

I can’t recommend this exercise enough. It gives you a clear perspective of the year and your personality when it comes to progressing. Some bullet points you can follow to make it more effective include:

 

Go Deeper

For example, instead of throwing ice-cold deprecating comments at yourself, try to understand the reason behind your lack of action. Instead of “I didn’t have time”, you could dive deeper and realize that you have been spending too much time on Social Media, which of course is stealing a bunch of hours from your week and distorting your perception of time.

 

Avoid Negative Self-Talk

Instead of “I was lazy”, be empathetic with your past self. Maybe what you consider laziness is just a feeling of fear and anxiety about trying something new, something your brain still doesn’t know how to manage.

The more you understand yourself, the better you can do in the future.

 

Focus on What Works For You

Look at the goals you achieved and give yourself permission to enjoy that feeling of pride. Think about the reasons why you achieve them and the steps you could take in order to be able to succeed again.

For example: “I did more exercise because I joined a class I enjoyed a lot” or “I eat healthier because found some delicious recipes online”.

There is no doubt that we can always push a bit harder. I don’t think there is a lot of people looking back at their year and thinking “wow, I couldn’t have done better”.

 

 

But that’s the fun of life, to understand that whatever it happens, we can always improve.

I like to think that, as long as we try, there is progress in every year that goes by. Progress manifests itself in different forms and shapes: physically, emotionally, mentally or career-wise. Every year is like a road, with its curves, potholes, random squirrels getting on the way, but also colourful, quiet parts of the journey with beautiful trees decorating the journey.

And the one essential ingredient for the sweet recipe of progress is Self-awareness. Every year I realise more and more how being Self-aware and taking responsibility for your own actions is the irreplaceable ability to improve your life.

And yet, even with this piece of information, it is still difficult to have a perfect year. Either we had a particularly difficult/lazy/negative period or a great pandemic comes and makes everything more difficult.

And now, in January, we look at our Resolutions for 2022 and ask ourselves: “Am I really going to achieve all of them?”, “Am I smart/capable/hard-working/brave enough”?

 

Something that helps me focus on new resolutions is to stop making a long list of intentions. I used to think that the more I wrote (you should ALWAYS write them down), the easier it would be to achieve a few of them. Knowing myself better, I know that the more I write, the more likely I am to abandon some of them (usually the most important ones).

 

I write a maximum of 6 resolutions that can go from Healthy Habits and Hobbies to Career Goals. This allows me to organise which days I will be focusing on them and at what time of the day.

 

 

If you want to join a Book Club, create your own Podcast and go to the Gym +4 times a week, you may want to schedule in your calendar which days and times suit your life. That way the goals don’t overlap with each other or with your work.

 

Another tip that helped me was to make them realistic. A few years ago, I decided to ban myself from eating chocolate from Monday to Friday. I would only be allowed to enjoy it on the weekends. The result was obvious: I would spend the entire week obsessed over it, restricting myself from having a square of creamy milky chocolate just to binge during the weekend. It wasn’t suitable to go like that for an entire year.

I decided that restrictions with food didn’t work for me. Not for my physical health, and definitely not for my mental health either. As long as there isn’t any ongoing health issue/addiction involved, I feel better If I treat myself whenever I want, in moderation.

The same rule applies to everything. If you have never exercised before, you may want to start with 3 days a week instead of pushing yourself to go to the gym every day. You risk burning yourself and giving up after a few days.

And remember, we are absolutely allowed to fail like the humans we are, but it’s essential to always go back.

If you are reading this, I believe in you. We are on the same boat of relentless search for a better self.

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