It is the end of another tough calendar year. Everywhere I go I hear people say how glad they are that the year is over and hoping that 2022 would be better. Well, I heard the same at the end of 2020 and 2019 and all the years before that.
Is there perhaps a better way of looking at the past year?
When we reflect on a year, there are three important components:
- Highlights
When you reflect on the past year, you might find that the highlights that come to mind are the tough experiences: death of family members and friends, trouble at work, perhaps a divorce, etc. It is easy to come up with the negative highlights as those have caused some damage to your mind and/or body.
However, I would like to challenge you to also remember the positive highlights. In fact, make a list of those and celebrate them. So often you take the positive highlights for granted and complain about the negative highlights. When you give the positive highlights as much air time as the negative highlights, you might find that the year was not as tough as you thought.
You can choose what you focus on and when we choose to focus on the positive, it will lift your spirit and perhaps attract even more positive things into your life.
- Gratitude
By now you know that I put great emphasis on gratitude.
One of the misconceptions about gratitude is that we need to do a comparison with others. For example: You might not have received an increase this year and in order to feel better about it, you think about all those who have lost their jobs. The problem with such approach is that you could very quickly put yourself on a serious guilt-trip. Guilt, like fear and anger, is one of the foundational negative emotions and could cause permanent harm to your emotional well-being.
An appropriate level of gratitude means that you merely focus on the things you are grateful for and avoid comparison with others.
Also bear in mind that your view of others’ situations is done from your perspective; as much as you might think that you are putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and can feel his/her pain and sorrow, reality is that you can only see their situation from your perspective.
- What I would like to change going forward
As you reflect on the past year, pick the two or three things that you would like to change. Yes, only two or three. The moment you have a long list of things you might get demotivated before you even get started. Ask yourself what you will do differently and why. You need to have a good reason for doing things differently, it will keep you motivated. Be clear in your mind on how you will change things, do it in detail. For example: it is not good enough to say you will have a healthier lifestyle in 2022. Be specific – you would like to drink 2 litres of water a day and do 30 minutes of exercise four times a week. The more specific you are, the better your chances of success.
As the curtain is about to close on 2021, I trust you will find the time to identify and celebrate the highlights of 2021, be grateful for those highlights and tackle 2022 with renewed focus and energy.
Stay safe, healthy and happy!
Reflective thinking turns experience into insight. John C. Maxwell.