Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had a great holiday or at least one that was better than mine. I can’t believe it’s 2015. Usually I love holidays as it gives me time to relax, regroup, and faced the new year with renewed energy. I didn’t have such luck this holiday season. Work was super stressful and I didn’t have as much time with the family as I would have liked.
I do however love new years. Every new year gives us a fresh start. No matter what happened last year in life or in our careers, we can forgive and forget and start 2015 anew.
- Forgive yourself for your mistakes. We are all human. Mistakes are part of that experiences and are designed for us to learn. Don’t punish yourself. As long as you learned something from it, it was an experience worth having.
- Forgive others who may have wronged you. They are human too. Insecurity is one of the biggest reason people will intentionally or inadvertently hurt others so they can feel better about themselves. If you were treated badly by another, tell them in a calm way that it’s not okay to treat you this way. As long as you stated your objections, you can move on.
- Remember the good. I originally wrote “Forget the bad” and then I remembered that won’t work! The more we try to suppress something, the more we focus our attention on it. So to start 2015 anew, it’s better to have selective memory and focus on what was great about 2014 for you. As for me,
- I had an awesome year with my family; I took Isabel to Disneyland, took a nice vacation with hubby, and did a cleanse that helped me trim down to my college weight and opened my eyes to new possibilities.
- I also launched Soft Skills Gym helping even more people and formed a whole team of Executive authors who are contributing their stories in additional to mine to help you.
- and many many more…
So what’s my new year aspirations for 2015? It’s not about goals – I have long ditched that traditional new year resolution concept. It’s also not about experiences like I have focused on in the last 2 years. My new year aspirations for 2015 is to enjoy life (regardless of what’s happening in my life)
This may sound funny to you but I actually don’t know how to enjoy life or work that well. I have been trained all my life by parents, school, society, and work, to achieve and I am really good at it. I know how to put in the hard work and then get the results.
- I only allowed myself to enjoy when I have achieved something
- I only allowed myself to enjoy after I have worked hard at something
With all my pedigree education and experiences, I am not that happy because my achievements just never seem like enough. I am always thinking I should do more before I can enjoy. If you think, “that’s fxxxed up”. Well, it is and I am here to change it and starting now to build my “mental muscles” for enjoyment. Life is too short to just achieve and always look for external validation. We only have now so I give myself permission to enjoy life and I am going to invest time to “practice enjoyment.”
Yes, I believe enjoyment takes practice. If we want to lose weight, we need to work out and eat better. That doesn’t happen over night. Well, same is true for those of us who don’t know how to enjoy and be happy. Here is how I will practice.
#1 Mindfulness: All we really have is now. The past and the future are illusions. But if we look closely, we are often spending all the time either thinking about what already happened or worrying about what may happen next. This is the source of our stress and lack of enjoyment. Let go of the past and the future.
- Practice just being 100% in whatever it is I am doing at the moment. For me, I am 100% into writing this post and thinking of nothing else. I am enjoying it immensely 🙂
- Catch myself when I am replaying past events and replace it with another thought. I don’t know if you know this but our mind can only hold one thought at a time. We can use that to our advantage if we practice. All kinds of crazy thoughts may pop into our heads. That’s normal, but when we notice it, we can choose to replace it with a different topic – a fun one, a positive one, an inspiring one.
- Catch myself when I am worried about future events and take action Many of us worry about things that will never ever happen. Yet we will spend countless mental hours still worrying. What I realize is we can use logical reason to stop the worrying. What I will do is
- write down my worries
- then write down what needs to happen for me to stop worrying
- note which of these things that needs to happen is in my control
- make a plan to do the things in my control
- let go of the things that are not and let the chip fall where they may
All these things I wrote are not easy to do. I am not expecting myself to be able to do this overnight just because I wrote it down. Wouldn’t that be nice? Instead I just want to make progress and grow to enjoy life more and more.
# 2 – Love and Acceptance – I noticed I am my own harshest critic. This may sound funny as well, but I need to love myself a lot more this year and accept that I am already perfect just the way I am with any and all mistakes that I will still make. There will always be people who will choose to criticize us. People with power at work are the worse offenders of this. Many people don’t understand the difference between giving constructive feedback that motivates vs. just giving criticism in the guise of feedback. When the latter happens, realize it’s their problem, not ours.
#3 – Slow down and focus on one thing at a time. I noticed that I have been trying to juggle too many things at once because work and family all have lots of demands. Even this blog became a to-do later on last year. I don’t want my life to be just full of tasks. That’s not the way to live. I started this blog to share experience and enjoy the process. I want to work to make a difference. I want to enjoy family time without stressing about tasks. So I am going to
- Do less at home – enjoy more. Be okay if I forgot something. Ask my hubby to help. I am lucky he is such a great partner and are willing to help.
- Say no at work and minimize multitasking – I was answering emails while on conference calls while IMing for months now. It’s exhausting. I think I was trying to cram 14 hours of work in 9 since I need to get home at a certain time and don’t want to take work home. Multi-tasking is a myth. None of us can actually do it. All we are doing is exhausting ourselves more and doing each task less effectively. I need to just do a regular 40-45 hours a week this year and let the chip fall where they may.
- Say yes to me time – to read, to work out, to sit around and do nothing once in while 🙂
- Remember to take long deep breath everyday and the big picture.
At the end of the day, I just want to grow and enjoy while I am still alive. We only have now to enjoy life. Tomorrow is not promised to any of us. Only when I enjoy the now can I truly be the best for my kids, my husband, my blog, and myself. Best wishes to you in 2015. May you not only have the courage the define success in your own way, but also enjoy life to the fullest.
Your comments: How do you plan to think and behave differently this year to improve your life? What are you doing to enjoy life? I look forward to your comments.
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I am always in your corner.
Lei
p.s: I dedicate this post in memory of Mike Batzle, a long time friend and business partner of my father. Mike died of cancer on Jan 10, 2015 at the age of 64 after a brilliant career in the field of Geophysics.