7 Things I Have Learned In The Past Year
In 2018 I've written a blog post illustrating all the good things the previous year (2017) had taught me. Yeah, I know, it's been a while, here we are in the first day of 2021 and meanwhile a whole pandemic thing hit us.
But, looking back and reading again that blog post, oh well, it kinda felt that I was talking about 2020 as being the "past year" and not 2017. All the things and memories were so vivid... so I thought would be useful to share these on my blog too as they have never been published here.
I am leaving you below the content of that blog post and adding comments on how all those things applied to 2020. Enjoy!
"The past year was a truly year of exploration and lots of questions and doubts found their answers. There is no secret that the biggest achievement for me in the past months was activating my state of mindfulness. I’ve heard and read a lot about it, but wasn’t been able to define it and less able to understand it. I have spent hours and days trying to understand how to carefully observe my thoughts and feelings.
All these being said, here is a list of 7 things I have learned in the last year.
Complain less
Complaining is becoming one of the most common things I’m hearing all day long. Life is not perfect and we all know it. Why do we want to keep an infinite loop of reminding ourselves about how imperfect life is?
We like to complain about the weather, the traffic, our neighbours, our bosses, our jobs, the politicians that are ruining our country, about the big taxes, about how busy we are.
Complaining all day long does not help things change, is totally unattractive and gives us the victim look. Instead complaining, I would suggest you to take action and repair what you see is broken or if this is not possible, move away. Close that Facebook feed full of political stuff if you’re not a political fan and focus more on something that brings you satisfaction."
2020 was the year of complaining about all the COVID-19 pandemic thing, right?
Stop taking things personally
Oh, it would be so good if all drama around us would suddenly stop!
We have to understand that many people are not conscious about their unconscious thoughts and sometimes their observations or comments might affect us. Never make other people’s opinions of you more important than your own opinion of yourself.
2020 - with all the COVID-19 stories, many people can get easily offended by anything is said or written
Stop overthinking
We all face problems. Bigger or smaller. But sometimes even the smallest problem become big when we tend to spend too much time thinking of it. I have observed people tend to overthink a certain situation when they are not very comfortable with taking a decision, choosing to go on the right or on the left, when they have few information or when they’re worrying about the future.
Can you be 100% sure that the decision you’re taking is the correct one? Stop looking for perfection, believe in adjustments and be open to assume the responsibility of a wrong decision. Sometimes, even a wrong decision took at a certain moment can lead you to new and exciting situations.
“Because we feel vulnerable about the future, we keep trying to solve problems in our head.” — David Carbonell.
2020 - worrying about the future is normal, but digging into a rabbit hole while trying to find out what is going to happen will not help
Do not feel bad when you are rejected
For me, for many years, rejection and then overthinking worked hand in hand. “What did I do wrong? Why wasn’t I good enough for that job? Why doesn’t he call me back?”. I guess most of you recognise this pattern.
And after all these years, I think I found the recipe. Whenever it happens to be rejected, my thought is that I wasn’t the right person at the right moment. Period.
Never stop dreaming
I think everyone of us has more than one dream and when we focus on a certain dream, we feel we have a purpose. Dreams provide a why, a way to understand better the journey to our destination and keeping an eye on the dreams list can help us choosing our next move.
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."- Eleanor Roosevelt
Which is your dream list?
Have faith
I usually tend to believe that most of the things are meant to happen only when we are 100% ready for them to happen.
2020 - faith is the only thing that help us moving forward, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, giving us hope that the whole pandemic thing is going to end soon.
Set proper expectations
Setting expectations, high or low is very important and setting them properly might help you instead of hurt you. Unmet expectations lead to all kind of negative feelings and we can easily feel unmotivated (“If M. doesn’t call me, why should I call her?”).
We’re full of expectations:
- expectations we set to ourselves;
- expectations we set to our partner, parents, family or friends;
- expectations we set to our bosses;
The most important is to set realistic expectations and to communicate them properly.
Conclusion
After 2020 had ended, looking at the list above, the most important one for me seems to be "have faith". As without faith is almost impossible to move forward.
Have a blessed 2021!