[6 most] Important Things learned in 2020

 2020 it’s been a pleasure, but now it’s time to say goodbye

I’ll be splitting these lessons that I’ve learned into physical and mental health, love and relationships, career and productivity, and finally, life in general.

Now, all the things I’ll be mentioning are things that have been true for me and for my life. My truths may not be your truths because we’re all different, but I personally find value in hearing about other people’s life lessons and I think it’s interesting regardless of whether or not I resonate with it personally, so, let’s get into it.

1.

       Taking care of yourself is one of the most selfless things you can do. I define self-care as intentionally taking steps (big and small) to improve your physical and mental health. Essentially, just taking care of yourself like you’re someone you care about. See, if I feel good—physically, mentally, not only is that great for me, but I also become a better friend, daughter, partner, just person overall. It’s a win-win for everyone. And then the opposite of that is true as well. If I don’t feel good about myself, what’ll go out on those around me. Now, as I was looking into this, I found a couple studies on the correlation between being happy with ourselves and how that corresponds to how we treat those around us, I thought it was really interesting, and I think you should look into it. As an example, some of you may know by now that I’ve started walking a lot and I’ve been enjoying it a lot, and after those walks, I sometimes hop on the phone with family and what not, and they can always tell if I’ve been walking because I just sound happier on the phone and as a result the conversation becomes more pleasant. 

2. 

      Another thing I learned is how great I am at negative self-talk, which goes against the self-love I was just talking about. But hey, I’m still figuring this all out myself. I made an entire video a few months ago talking about this specifically, I’ll link it up here somewhere. Now, one of the more recent lessons is that, the problem with negative self-talk, isn’t just that I’m putting myself down in that moment, but that eventually, once you talk down on yourself enough times, you start to believe the things that you’re saying and thinking about yourself so much that you start to identify yourself with those things. If you keep telling yourself that, I don’t know, let’s take an example, like, “I’m really not handy” or “I’m so lazy”, I’m reinforcing those ideas about myself which will then affect my confidence and emotions around that specific topic. And then, as a consequence, I’m also limiting my own growth and any opportunity to learn. So, let’s take the “I’m really not handy” example, let’s say that that’s something I tend to tell myself (spoiler, it is). If then I’m faced with a problem that requires me to be “handy”, it’s most likely that I’ll give up before even trying to fix the problem, because I identify so strongly with not being handy. Now, I can’t say this is something new that I’ve learned, but I’ve been reminded of how important it is to pay attention to your thoughts, because it’s our thoughts that create our reality. I don’t know how many “problems” I’ve encountered in this apartment, and each time, my first thought has been “I won’t be able to fix it”. But once I’ve taken a step back and acknowledged the negative self-talk, I’ve given it a try (or multiple tries) and so far, there isn’t anything I haven’t managed to fix. Now let’s move on to love and relationships. 

3. 

       Love will not get you anywhere if you’re not compatible. Okay, let’s now talk about career and productivity. 

4. 

       Structuring, organizing and planning my life has made it significantly easier and more enjoyable. As a kid, I was a pretty big tech-nerd. I was coding before I even knew that that’s what it was doing, so 8-year-old me would’ve loved how digitalized we are today with all the software and apps and things like that. Adult me isn’t nearly as big of a nerd; I’ve mostly viewed most apps and things like that as “clutter”, (admittedly without really giving it a chance) until this year when I’ve grown to really enjoy exploring ways of using them, and it’s honestly changed various aspects of my life for the better. I now use apps for pretty much everything: scheduling my days, grocery lists, personal finance, taking notes from books and articles, work, journaling—essentially my entire life. I do plan on making a dedicated video on this as it truly has had a significant impact on my life and I’ve never felt so put-together. I guess the lesson here isn’t just to use apps and software, but also to not reject things without giving them a chance, which is something I always enjoy being reminded of. 

5. 

        Networking. So, I’m not someone who walks into a room and just “owns” it (or is that something I’ve just told myself enough times to where I now believe it? Referring back to point #2 on this list) but I think I’ve become pretty decent at reaching out to people who I want to reach out to. Now, I don’t particularly like the word “networking”. I think it’s because, to me, it feels like something that is very “robotic”. It’s sort of for the same reason I don’t like the word “job interview”, I just feel like it takes the human aspect out of it. Anyway, that’s beside the point. My point is that you never know what could come out of a situation if you set your fear of rejection or your ego or whatever it might be aside and just reach out to people. There are thousands [ if not millions ] of stories of people who took a chance and reached out to someone and it changed their life somehow. Now, it doesn’t always happen, of course. Perhaps the only outcome will be an interesting conversation with an interesting person, when really, you might’ve wanted more, but even something like that can be really inspiring. Or even if you don’t get a reply, which definitely will happen, at the very least, you’re practicing stepping out of your comfort zone or even just your e-mail writing skills which is actually really valuable. I do want to say that, you shouldn’t reach out to people thinking anyone owns you a reply. Sometimes what you have to say simply isn’t interesting to that person or they can’t find the time or whatever it might be. It’s something you and me just need to accept. I’d say the lesson here, or rather the realization, is that I really enjoy connecting with people and I have receipts on how unexpectedly well it can go if you just take the initiative so it’s something I definitely want to do more of. Now let’s move on to “life”. 

6. 

       I’ve learned that I haven’t allowed myself to have any pure hobbies. Some of the things that used to be just hobbies to me were writing, taking photos and editing, but now, most of the times that I do any of those things, I do it for this channel or some other platform, which I really enjoy, but it also means they’re no longer just hobbies, because it’s not things that I’m doing purely for fun. Now, the reason I don’t have any “pure” hobbies isn’t because I don’t have any interests, like, there are so many things I’d love to try and spend more time on, but I’ve had the mindset of “it’s not important enough”, because, to be quite honest, I’ve kind of felt like doing things “just having fun” is almost something that is wasteful in today’s “productivity culture”, like we relate fun to slacking. Which, to be clear, isn’t something I actually believe. Now, obviously, this hasn’t been the year where the conditions to “have fun” have been optimized for most people, given that we’ve been restricted in a lot of ways. But perhaps that’s the reason I’ve been reminded of the value of doing things just for fun. So, for next year (depending on how things will look of course) I have a list of things that I’m going to try out just for fun and we’ll see if anything sticks.