Ten Life Reflections from 2019
I’d honestly start by saying 2019 was one of the hardest years personally and professionally I’ve ever had. I moved across the country, away from lots of lifelong friends, and was unemployed voluntarily for the first time in my career. All in all, a learning experience that opened my eyes a lot.
Some thoughts I’m marinating with:
- The more you care about something, the more likely you will be to procrastinate given how much more the failure hurts. A tweet I recently saw that I really love from @visakanv: “Procrastination isn’t just about aversion to icky, tedious tasks — it’s also substantially about aversion to failure and disappointment.”
- Pain is a safe emotion. Stress is a safe emotion. Discomfort is a safe emotion. Everything short of injury and trauma is an opportunity to rediscover the way you process emotion.
- Not all mediocrity deserves the same attention. There’s no harm in learning three songs on the piano without forcing yourself to be a pianist.
- Your identity doesn’t have to be defined by something you do often. It has more to do with how much you want to see yourself surrounded by others with that identity than it does with how well you represent it yourself.
- Be more self-aware about commitments. Half-hearted commitments are more of a net negative than no commitments at all.
- Within reason, you are not accountable for the vision others have of you in their head. You cannot break promises you’ve never made.
- Trust = consistency over time. There’s no shortcut for either.
- Give yourself permission to change your vision of who you wanted to be when you started. Sometimes, the scariest bridge to burn is the one between you and who you thought you were.
- Quitting is a reflection of situation, not character. Quitting consistently is not a sin — it’s an invitation to realign how you allocate your energy.
- Doing something 95% right doesn’t get invalidated when the 5% receives criticism. When you are so close to the details, you forget how long it took to learn them. Your expertise is unique, sometimes difficult to remember and sometimes difficult to get 100% right.