Well - happy new year!!! Happy to have you here!
This post is about 2023 - and some of the things I will be doing to make sure it's better than 2022. I don't know about you, but 2022 was overall a pretty good year for me - or, at least, it was better than 2021... and certainly better than 2020! Just to put things into perspective. Yet, there is room for improvement. In fact, regardless of how outstanding or abysmal the year was for you - there is ALWAYS room for improvement.
With a bit of humility, we soon understand that we can't control world events, the economy, armed conflicts and wars, the weather or climate, and even a lot of what happens to us or our loved ones (influence: yes!! - control: no). Which might lead to HOPING things get better, but that's seems somewhat unsatisfying.
What we can control, however, is ourselves - so I have sat down and compiled some of the key areas that I want to sort out this year to make sure that this year is even better than the last. This turned into quite a lengthy exercise, which I will be sharing with you over time, but here are my top three for a start - maybe you find them helpful.
1. Control my time. Much to be said about this one - and I'll be revisiting this in future posts, but here's the essence:
Schedule all routines. Only what's scheduled gets done. So if I'm going to get my dog walks in, my study, my yoga - it needs to be in my calendar and take up space (which subsequently becomes unavailable for anything else). For example, writing this blog post was scheduled for this morning - and: voila! Here we are. Magic.
Eliminate social media. All social media apps (except YouTube) have been deleted off my phone for almost a year now - but here and there, they still creep in, and it annoys the crap out of me. Even to access my daily yoga video on YouTube, I can get sucked into the shorts, and it never ends well - half an hour of my life disappears that I will never, ever get back. And it adds nothing to my life - nothing at all. So out it goes and I will be EVEN MORE vigorous about this. I use the 'pause' technique - checking in with myself: Do I REALLY want to give up my time for this right now? Then pause a few seconds before clicking through - by then, I'm usually over it.
Schedule time for rest, relaxation and adventure. I've realized my standard repertoire of 'adventurous' and 'fun' activities is pretty limited and I'll be putting time aside to do things that are exciting and joyful this year.
2. Control what I allow to enter my head. It's SOO easy to be nabbed by sensationalist headlines, informing me of the next and the next and the next looming disaster. It's not helpful. Yes, being informed is good and a carefully curated look across world news every now and again is part of being a responsible citizen. But I don't need to go down every available Rabbithole. Instead, I will make sure I focus on enjoyable activities (see above) and actually read or watch something useful - be that a book on self-improvement or a relaxing novel. My well being is key to my contribution in the world - and I can't show up my best self if I'm consistently poisoned by catastrophes.
3. Healthy habits. In addition to the above, with advancing age I'm realizing there are a few things I can't take for granted - energy, strength, vitality, mobility to name a few. I read a book by Robin Sharma over the Christmas break who put it like this: "Never allow an old, stiff person to live in your body". Time to get back to daily yoga, regular exercise and healthy fuel. Speaking of which, here's another impactful quote to consider before biting into that bar of chocolate: "What healthy thing are you NOT eating because of this?" Both of those hit home for me.
Let me know what you think in the comments!
PS: Just a heads up: I'll be popping into your inbox shortly with some news about a series of programs I'll be launching this year to REALLY help you make this year the best one ever. I'm pretty excited about this and I will love to have you with me for this, so watch this space!!