21 Lessons I learnt in the year 2021

Life is a long journey, offering us the opportunity to learn continuously. Throughout our life journey, we keep rising and falling like the stock market, picking up life lessons along the way. Some of these lessons come from experience, some come from watching others. Year 2020 and Year 2021 have taught me a lot.

I thought 2020 was challenging for me when I was grappling with non-stop coughing, frequent fever, headaches and anxiety issues, but year 2021 beat 2020 hands down.

Year 2021 brought tsunami into my life and gave me life altering lessons.

1. Life is uncertain and can change in an instant. Appreciate what you have while you still have it. Lost so many loved ones in wave 2. In the blink of an eye, things can change.
2. Nothing is important than family and friends.
3. Health is important. Wake-up call came as high BP 200/90. Good health cannot be bought. Choice is mine… I want to live a life dependent on medicine or take steps to get my health in order.
4. Running taught me that if I want to change the trajectory of my life, I must embrace commitment (this gets you started), consistency (this gets you somewhere) and persistency (this keeps you going).

For example, encouraged by my therapist, I started writing and found writing to be therapeutic. I consistently wrote and published 1 article per week on LinkedIn. Even on the days when I didn’t feel like writing, I forced myself to show up, sit on a chair, and write. In one year, I have written over 50 blogs, 40 letters of encouragement to people in my environment. Recently came out with my first E-book and second one on Mental Wellbeing is WIP. Writing a book was on my bucket list for last 5 years 😊

If you want to change your life around:

• Commit to one thing.
• Stay consistent with it.
• Push through it.

5. Individuals who are more self-compassionate have greater motivation, better relationships, and physical health, and less anxiety and depression. They also have the resilience needed to cope with stressful life events.
6. Boundaries are necessary components of self-care. Without boundaries, we feel depleted, taken advantage of, taken for granted, or intruded upon. Whether it’s in work or in our personal relationships, poor/lack of boundaries lead to resentment, hurt and anger.
7. It’s okay to say No. Saying “no” was always challenging for me. People often associate no with being selfish or rude. Saying “no” means you value yourself, know your value and respect yourself enough to stand up for your belief systems.
8. Always give something to the other person even if it is hope or words of encouragement. We don’t know what battle he/she is fighting.
9. I might be a tiny part of this universe but have superpowers to make a difference in people’s lives.
10. Sometimes we need to disconnect from the world to connect back. Unplugging reduces stress. Encourages solitude and self-reflection.
11. Words are like bullets; they can hit hard. They can cause pain and hurt that may be irreversible. So, speak mindfully, weigh the repercussions. Witnessed it firsthand in my therapeutic relationship. My therapist didn’t even realize how much her words pierced and wounded me, causing irreversible damage.
12. Psychological wounds hurt more painfully than physical wounds. Physical wounds will heal with care and medicines and pain to certain extend can be subsided with the help of pain killers but same can’t be said for psychological wounds.
13. Forgiveness is a strange medicine. If you give it to others, it heals the wounds of your heart. Forgiveness doesn’t make me weak. In fact, it strengthens me and makes me confident.
14. Don’t expect sorry. It may never come. Saying sorry means that I did something wrong. It takes lot of courage and guts to admit that we have done something wrong.
15. Just like body keeps the score, God also keeps the score. Make sure your report card is good.
16. It is tempting to hit back the person who has hurt you. But if you do the same, then what’s the difference between you and the person who has hurt you.
17. Human contact is not optional.
18. Struggle leads to growth. As difficult as this year has been, it has also led to my phenomenal personal growth. One by one, I have been improving different areas of my life.
19. Share your progress, not your goals, and you will always be motivated.
20. Comparing ourselves to others is one of the most toxic habits that does more harm than being beneficial. Create your own definition of success.
21. Self-care is looking in the mirror and asking yourself some hard questions.

• What’s weighing me down.
• What do I need to let go of to allow myself to bloom.
• What self-limiting beliefs am I holding onto.

Self-care is realizing that you are your greatest obstacle. And that’s one of the greatest lessons I have learned during my therapy. My beliefs, ideals, habits, the way I speak to and of myself, the extent of self-acceptance, thought patterns… All these things, if not evaluated and upgraded, will sabotage my progress in life.

I can never thrive or experience any positive sustainable change in my life if I keep carrying the baggage from past. Self-care is the active process of learning how to identify these self-sabotaging patterns that are weighing me down. Once I let go of things which are not serving me well, I make space for things which will allow me to grow and thrive.

2021 has been a hell of a year. And yet, we have also witnessed profound moments of beauty of human spirit. So, there is no reason to look at the year 2022 with pessimism. Bigger things are around the corner. Just change the lens through which we are looking at the world.