On being successful.
2019 has been a big roller coaster for me. Now I’m at the end of the year, 31st of December, which is the perfect time to reflect. The year was a big big big and long long long sigh for me. No kidding, I sighed time and time again, trying to regulate my emotions and a lot of the times I found myself overwhelmed.
As someone said to me once, life is a lot of events that happen at once. If you think you can focus to only one challenge at a time, you'd be dreaming.
Life will throw you not one lemon, not two lemons, not three lemons, but all of the fruits will fall onto you from the tree at once whenever possible.
The question is how will then you handle all the sourness and turn that situation around, maybe create a lemonade business that will bring you profits, if you realize that what you are given are 'resources' and not 'disasters'.
I surprised myself that apparently, after all the bullshit I thought i was getting for the major part of the year, today I can look back and say that I’m actually grateful for the experience. Really. Genuinely. Authentically. I’m not even kidding. I feel really good today. I feel that the past week I tried my best to be kind to myself. Treat myself like someone I truly love. And like magic, it’s actually working!
I started to feel an overwhelming acceptance, from myself. Cos that’s what matters the most. Not from others, but from myself.
I learned a lot more about myself this year. The source of my resentments, my irritations and frustrations.. disappointments.
Human beings with all of the intricacies. Humans have needs, wants, desires, dreams, expectations..
I learned that a lot of the time my frustrations coming from a need to be in control. I hate to be seen weak. I hate to be seen NOT in control. And that’s where it doesn’t match with the reality.
The reality, is constructed of uncertainties. No one really know the answer. Not even the experts. There's too much to know in the universe, and human capacity to comprehend it all is of course limited.
And that's okay.
Successful individuals are the ones who can survive despite uncertainties. Who can respond, curate what works, modify, improve and continue to a more exciting and a better equipped journey.
It is actually pointless to dwell in one challenge or misery (like seriously, I had dwelled in misery for months, and in hindsight that experience helped me so much to understand my response and identified how to make it a bit more manageable next time)
This year, the stress had taken its toll on me that I experienced physical pain. I had migraine attacks during meetings, during presentations, and even just to have a rather heavy conversation.
The high expectations I put to myself were overwhelming. And ironically, nobody actually did that to me without my consent. I let that happen.
This year, I learned how important it is to be healthy. Not for the short term goals like to be seen with a toned body (who doesn’t want that though), but to enable a sustainable of good quality of life.
You can never enjoy life when you’re sick. You can’t be productive when you’re sick. You can’t build wealth when you’re sick. You can’t contribute to the society when you’re sick. You can’t help people when you’re sick.
Being healthy doesn’t only mean to take care of your physical body, like exercise and nutrition, but also mental health. You can be physically healthy but you won’t be able to enjoy life when you’re depressed. Hence it’s very essential to understand how to manage your health.
There's plenty of things that influence our brains and minds. We need to be able to 1) identify our needs, expectations, fears, and insecurities, and then 2) categorize them all, so we know which 3) tools we need to deploy, and accordingly 4) manage these emotions, so they don't blow out of proportion.
Know that no problem is too urgent that you compromise your own mental health. You won't be able to find solution anyway if your brain is clouded with negativity. Your brain will shut down and that's the opposite of what you want, which is to get out of the problem in the first place.
I don’t know it all, and I will continue to learn.
I aim to be successful, and I’m in it for the long run.
Honestly, I’m really proud of myself.
I feel like I have graduated to the next stage.
