December! Yay! …. of 2020 … hmmmmmmmmm!
If I were to summarize this year, it would look like this:
- 1/ Suuurrrpppprrrrisssee! ==> unannounced guest … oh oops! I am in my pajamas …
- 2/ OK then, 10 minutes tops, and then I will ask them to leave, I have stuff to do ==> 6 months later …. OK fine, I will change my ways, I will not take anything for granted anymore, great, now let’s move on
- 3/ Oh cr*p, it’s already December, I am still in my pajamas, and I am running out of ‘seeing the blessings in disguise’
Yeah well truthfully this wasn’t the easiest year to go through – every year brings its load of challenges and new experiences. But 2020 packed it tight!
2020 is a catalyst and an amplifier: of what we have accumulated as a collective for so many years, the good, the bad and the downright ugly.
Here is my observer’s diary and account of a year not quite like any other.
2020 #essential – translation: what is important for me, now?
Outside of the ‘unprecedented’, ‘uncertain’, ‘pivoting’, the other buzzword of 2020 was …. essential /non-essential.
Dear Diary: my questions:
- What is important for me right now?
- What has been supporting me throughout my life?
- What do I need to let go of?
- How can I honor more my essentials?
What I can commit to doing:
- Be more accountable for what I do and how I do it
- Be more tolerant, practice more compassion
- Be appreciative of the support system that I have
And as I did promise myself that I would behave in a more conscious way, this happened…
2020 #the new normal – how do I want my life to be?
Truly puzzled, I am. Becoming an all online everything.
Now I am not one to complain to work from home, I have been doing this for quite a long time, including in a corporate setting.
But not seeing my friends, my family; not sharing a coffee break with my colleagues?
2020, you’re asking a tad too much from me.
But I also know that no matter what my experiences on the outside, I can still decide how I want to lead my life and how I want to be and to feel, right?
Dear Diary: My questions:
- How do I want my new normal to be?
- How do I define my sense of mission (at work, in my relationships, at home)?
- How do I honor my values despite what’s going on?
- What new routines can I create to stay healthy, productive, positively challenged…?
What I can commit to doing:
- Create a personal structure that is flexible enough to adapt to any ‘new new’
- Be in-tune with my body and spot any signs of frustration, burnout, physical, mental and emotional.
As 2020 kept on unfolding its unprecedentedness, I started feeling overwhelmed, scared and mostly scattered. But 2020 cannot be a year for nothin’, it has to count for something…but what?
2020 #unfollow – How can I be more discerning about what I invite in my sanctuary?
In hindsight, I can see how 2020 was also a year of loads of rubbish disguised as ‘good for you’: so I made a decision: taking the trash out, I #unfollowed.
Because I needed to create space for what is actually good for me; so that I can be more aware and purposeful in what I do, how and who with.
2020 was a good time for me to be selective about who I invite into my space (virtual and / or physical), what I put in my body, and how I was feeding my mind and thoughts.
Dear Diary: My questions:
- How does this make me feel? Good, makes sense, resonates, irritating, just plain wrong?
- Is this helpful, informative, uplifting, supportive?
- Does this contribute to my highest goals?
What I can commit to doing:
- Take an honest look at what I am telling myself. Any celebrity/influencer/ whatevs that makes me feel inadequate may not be my friend – with a nuance!
- Ask myself whether
- 1/ this is a form of toxic FOMO, that makes me feel small, helpless, hopeless. Or
- 2/ envy towards them because secretly I want to be like them or have what they are having.
- Only in case 2, decide what is realistically within my reach and go for it.
- The rest is not for my highest good.
And now my question to you, dear reader, because 2020 is mostly about questioning our ‘old’ ways, let me throw in a few before we leave this year, with grace…
- Who do you want to be, how do you want to feel, in a year, in a month, tomorrow?
Coaching Executives