Why 2020 has been a good year and why I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions
Tags: Mindset, Reflections, Mindfulness, New Years Resolutions, 2020

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Why 2020 has been a good year and why I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions Bimal Jan 1·10 min read

Now I know what you’re thinking, how is that possible? Hear me out. You’re going to think about 2020 a bit differently once I’m finished.

The beginning of 2020 felt like any other, I came back to work on 4th January. It’s the same thing all over again. Little did we know a virus would bring the whole world to a standstill. Mid Feb / Early march is the first I hear of this virus, we don’t think anything of it. There has been many in the past but life just goes on. We continue on our lives… wake up, shower, breakfast, commute, work, commute, dinner, sleep. All over again. This is how I have felt for quite a while. I have also got the added complication of a medical condition or two, which I was born with… we won’t go into the details but let’s just say I am very lucky to be in the condition I am in now, that thanks to my parents and the doctors I saw growing up. Although what I would say is often Doctors don’t know the nutrition side of things which I believe may have helped me up to today.

Here we are 2020, mid-march, I send a slightly worried email to my bosses at work to highlight my medical condition and that I would be grateful if I could work from home. Thankfully they appreciated my predicament and agreed that would be wise. I hadn’t worked from home for an extended amount of time and my initial thought was, this is going to fun, wake up just in time for work, time to do my own thing throughout the day while ensuring work gets done. Then things get serious, lockdowns put in place and I was on my own, a lot. I found this hard. Sometimes, it’d be very quiet in the apartment and I wasn’t always sleeping that well because I was at home a lot and distracted by stuff I was watching on YouTube or on Instagram — you know the feeling of watching one video and then you end up heading down a rabbit hole of another video or post. I didn’t go for walks very often as I was a little worried about this virus — I had no idea how serious it was. So then I started to read a lot and talk to people who have had experience working from home for a longer period of time and how they plan and structure their days. It was obvious I needed to do something about this as at one point I didn’t go outside for weeks, leaving me a feeling pretty drained and lethargic — when that sets in you don’t make good decisions and you can’t think clearly. Nobody needs this. Something had to change.

Initially I started to do yoga in the mornings (Yoga with Adriene on YouTube), then I moved on to doing body weight exercises before shower and breakfast. By the time, 9am came around, I was feeling amazing and ready for the day. I was doing this for a few months while also getting pretty good at planning my meals throughout the week, cooking more than I need in the evenings in order to package the left overs up for lunch over the next few days. It was going well.

Something wasn’t quite right. I don’t know what it was but I just don’t know if I was really flowing well with the work life balance. I needed to find the answers to be better at this thing called life. There are so many resources online but it all felt pretty overwhelming — I just didn’t know where to start. Fast forward to 1st January 2021… I am in a pretty good place. So why was 2020 a good year? Well, after talking to various people, I started to journal, writing down things that I am grateful for, things that would make my day great, setting certain intentions for the day and asking questions of myself. We don’t know how strong we are until something external pushes us. But why do we wait until something in life pushes us before we make a change? How many times have you heard someone say my life is so depressing, I don’t know what I want to do with myself or I had to go to hospital because of this or that issue? They do not want or know how to change, but once something really bad happens, they realise they need to change, alternatively they don’t want to change their lifestyle for the better and they spiral.

2020 was a good year because I started to realise I am in control of how I live my life, what I say, what I do and who I am. I started to realise that I have so many good things going on and all the things externally — I can appreciate them or I can ignore them as they may not be something I can really do anything with.

Over the last few years I haven’t made New Year’s Resolutions because I didn’t think I needed to wait for a turn of a new year to make a change for the better. Let’s do it now if things aren’t right.

So just looking back on the year, I’ve cooked many things for the first time, I’ve helped clean up the borough, mindset and purpose has become clearer, home has become a special place, my health has improved, my outlook on life is much more positive, I am much more grateful and I am happier. I am trying to make the good things in life a habit — and that’s the important bit. Everything is a work in progress. Short term gains build to a long term gain.

Once it’s a habit — real change can happen.

So if there are things in your life that you don’t like, change now and keep going with it if it is helping you, if you don’t know how to improve a side of your life, speak to someone, speak to me, speak to those experienced in that world, watch positivity enhancing videos on YouTube — there is so much there. Where to start? Read, listen to podcasts/videos and once you start watching life positive videos on YouTube then you will start to be served more.

Here’s a few to get you started:

Things I want to make into a habit is creating art, building an online shop, yoga, meditation and body weight exercising. People I have been following which is helping me with this: Adriene, Simon Sinek, Jay Shetty, Mindvalley, Wim Hof and Jim Kwik . This isn’t a new years resolution but something I’ve been working on for a while. To help with meditation — I listen healing sounds which help me think clearer and set my intentions for the day or week.

I hope this has helped you. Feel free to contact me via my website, twitter or instagram.

Bimal