Hello, hello, 2021. Thank you for trotting towards us with utmost lag and deceleration. We all appreciate your mighty efforts.
Good bye, 2020. Thank you for branding our collective bodies and hearts with the lifelong physical reminder of your once horrid existence. You will forever be etched in our history books and forever abhorred in our memories.
That said, I’m ready and I hope you are, too. Ready to make 2021 better in all the ways that I can control and ready to face with wisdom and fortitude all the ways that I can’t.
Below lies a list of 25 tips you need to know before the new year. This list has been put together over the course of this whole year. These are the things that I personally learned (and often did wrong) in 2020 and strive to better in 2021. These tips are still valid and important for any other year or stage of life. The application of knowledge is timeless.
These 25 tips are in no particular order and from no particular source. Just random bits and pieces of wisdom I’ve collected over the course of this year. They are for myself just as much as they are for you. I want us to go into this new year better together.
1. Create Systems Not Goals
Instead of writing down big, overwhelming goals, create routines and patterns that you can follow to get you to the goal. It’s better to work on putting the right habits in place to produce some kind of desired result instead of focusing on the goal itself without any means to reach it. Know your personal styles and preferences and put systems in place to get you to where you want.
2. Small Sustainable Changes Are Better Than Drastic Ones
Big steps are intimidating. Any kind of change is scary. Big changes are even scarier. So, when attempting to change any habit, make small changes that you can actually do for the long term without burning out. One by one, these small changes add up and you will have achieved your desired “big change,” but in a much more sustainable and light-hearted manner.
3. Incorporate Multi-dimensional Activities in One Block of Time
The truth is that nobody can do everything all at once. BUT, you can do many things at once. You can fold laundry and listen to your assigned AP Lit novel. You can go on a run while listening to biochemistry lectures. You can do your chores while you call a friend or family member. You can be productive while multi-tasking. However, the smart way to multi-task without being chaotic is to do two or three different things that use different parts of your brain at once, not the same parts of your brain. That means: pair automatic (low cognition) tasks with creative/cognitive tasks (not two of the same kind) and you can do both in the same block of time!
4. Focus on the Process Not the Progress
Do not be consumed by statistics, data, numbers, grades, percentages, etc. Don’t think about how far you have come or have far you have to go. Don’t worry about your progress, for you will know when you have arrived. Instead, spend that time DOING the things themselves that will get you there (i.e. the process itself) and you will be so invested in perfecting it and so much more interested in it that the numbers fail to matter.
5. Set Boundaries For Yourself
Boundaries are evidence of self-awareness and self-discipline. You know your weaknesses and what’s not good for you or your future and so you avoid it. You avoid temptation before you find yourself in the middle of it. You limit yourself, not to constrict your freedom willingly, but to enable yourself to have more of it without the negative consequences. It applies to negative people, toxic situations, bad habits, and anything that does not add value to your life.
6. Always Think Strategy Before Action
Before you embark on any new change or action, have a plan. Make an outline. Think of a strategy. Or simply envision yourself doing that thing. Yes, it might not turn out to be like you imagined or planned, but at least you gave it some thought and decreased your chances of things not working out at all.
7. Think as a Producer Not as a Consumer
How much time do you spend consuming things and absorbing information from other people? Now, how much time do you spend creating things that other people can absorb? The trends show that the most successful people are always innovators, creators, and producers; people who don’t rely on others to spoon-feed them everything, but go out on their own and bring ideas to life in whatever field or passion they have.
8. Be Emotionally Generous
In relationships, most people want to always take. They want somebody to hear them out, be there for them, and just be a pillar of strength and love at all times. What happens is that both parties want that from the other and nobody ends up being/doing those things. It’s quite selfish, egocentric, and pathetic. So, instead of waiting for the other person to offer you all of that, you give it freely to them. Be generous emotionally: listen, support, encourage, lift-up, advise, befriend, and do it all for no return.
9. Take Action on Ideas Right Away
When you have a good idea, don’t roll it around in your head until it withers up and dies. Take action on it right away. Don’t give yourself room to procrastinate, find 100 different faults with it, or discourage yourself with negative talk. Trust your gut and follow through with the idea. It might be worth it. But you will never find out until you do it.
10. Accept Your Imperfections
Nobody’s perfect. I’ll say it louder for the people in the back: NOBODY IS PERFECT. Thinking about your flaws constantly and being your own biggest critic is blatantly self-centered and conceited. We’re not gods. It takes guts to look your nasty flaws in the eye and be okay with them. It takes real humility to, not ignore shortcomings, but acknowledge them and have the same self-respect inspite of them.
11. Pursue Discomfort
It’s gruesome, to say the least. When you have been running until your legs feel like jellyfish and the bile in your esophagus swooshes around as if on a water slide; when your mouth tastes like blood and metal, while your stomach acids churn and burn and eat away at your intestines. It’s awful. But, it makes you mentally stronger. You should pursue discomfort not for the pitiful pleasure that might come from the infliction of pain on oneself, but for the noble growth of your mental strength.
12. Moderation is the Key to Successful Habit Change
Any kind of extremism is unhealthy. Anything in excess is unhealthy. Overindulgence of any kind (emotional, physical, etc.) is morally disgusting. Any kind of extreme pursuit or obsession is wrong and not good for us. Moderation is the perfect medium for happiness and inner peace. Live outside of the struggle. Nobody has to be all the way to the left or right. Life is not a tug-of-war. Find your balance.
13. Always Assume the Best
Hope is the joyful expectation that something good is going to happen. Always live with that child-like expectancy. Assume the best about people’s intentions, about not-so-good situations, about tomorrow, and about your own performance. Be positive and think positive. Yes, you might be wrong, but you will never be unhappy.
14. You Attract Who You Are, Not What You Claim to Value
You can pretend and say that you are one way until Jesus comes back, but who you really are will be detected by other people and the opportunities that life throws at you. You can say that you are a strong, loving, and compassionate person. You can claim to value all of those awesome virtues. But you will never attract them or opportunities to use them until they are no longer claims, but your true identity.
15. Pride is a Spiritual Cancer
The Christians are right: it is pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity- it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God…A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, pg. 123-124
16. Hardships Are the True Test of Strength
In the world, you cannot claim to be anything or know anything until you have proof (a grade, a degree, a certificate, a stamped document, etc.). In the inner world of every man, your reaction to obstacles is the only indicator/proof of your strength. How you handle difficulties shows a good deal about your strength as a person.
17. Those Who Give Will Receive in Equal Measure
Call it Karma. Call it the Law of Harvest. Call it sowing and reaping. Call it whatever…I’ve never encountered anything as strong and experimentally true as this concept. It slaps you in the face. It serves as a constant reminder that every action is accounted for (by God, by the Universe, by whomever). You can’t get away with anything. What you put out into the world, whether in thought or deed, you WILL get back.
18. Real Joy Makes People Radiate Beauty
Maybe I’m biased, but the most beautiful and physically attractive people I’ve seen are the ones with big smiles and sparkles in their eyes. They are so lively and are oozing with an intensity of vigor and enthusiasm that can’t be faked. Such people are the true wonders of the world, for they are the ones who have grasped the true evanescence of life, and have devoted every moment of theirs to nothing short of unadulterated joy.
19. When You Feel Like You’ve Given It Your All, Give a Little More
Don’t assume anything about your capacity or potential. Don’t put limits on yourself or what you can do. The human spirit is capable of taking man to unmatched heights. You just can’t limit it. There is always more in the tank. There is always another mile to go, another step to take, another little something you can do for someone else. It only starts to count when you think you’ve given it all you’ve got.
20. A 20 Minute Nap Can Solve Many Problems
Sleep is a blessing. This year has taught me that full-well. There is no amount of stress, anger, overwhelm, lack of creativity, or physical soreness that can’t be alleviated after a 20-minute nap. Sleep is almost always what are bodies really need when we are in dire physical and emotional conditions.
21. Comparison Kills
In the natural world, no plant or animal compares its strengths and weaknesses to those of another. The diversity produces synergy and beauty. Why do we think that we are any more superior to be doing something that nature itself, in all of its existence, doesn’t do? Comparison is a disease that stems out of the cancer of pride. We want to be better than others, so we evaluate our strengths in the light of theirs, and our weaknesses in the light of theirs. It’s toxic, time-consuming, and unhealthy, so don’t do it.
22. Delegate Tasks
You don’t have to do everything on your own. You can give some tasks to somebody you know who is willing to do them. Don’t be afraid of them not doing a good job on it…because that’s pride again. You think that if you do it, it will be much better than they could ever do, which may altogether not be true.
23. Carry a Relaxed and Peaceful Attitude
Don’t be tense and anxious all the darn time. Retain an aura of calmness and gentle assurance. Not in yourself, but in the One who makes all things work out together for those who love Him. Because the truth is that you have a very poor ability to add or detract from what will happen.
24. Ask For An Anointing of Ease
My fellow Christ-follower, this one is for you. God gives a special grace for every special place. You don’t have to struggle and try so hard in your own flesh to do things right and to get certain desired results. You can rest in God and ask Him for favor and grace and anointing wherever you go and with whatever you do. You will still have to do your part in the process, but it will be much more easier and relaxed. You don’t have because you’ve never asked.
25. Acknowledge Mistakes and Carry On
There is no point in dwelling on anything in the past, good or bad. You can pause for a moment and reflect on it, but you don’t need to camp there. So, sure, figure out what you did wrong and how to fix it or not do it again later, but then pick yourself up and carry on. Life stops for no one and no thing.
Bravo on reading this lengthy post (if you did). If you would like a cute little checklist to help you implement these tips in 2021, you could grab it right here. Have a wonderful brand new start, my dear friend!