If you followed my posts, you know, this year we challenged ourselves with reaching a completion rate of 90% of our base in Eastern Europe, while I worked 2000 miles away in the UK and my wife was co-ordinating the refurbishment on the site. This required a solid resilience from both of us. Just a week ago the last works completed at our base for this year, however we are back in England for 2 months already. (Luckily, we have some professionals who were working at the site all year long and who we trust, so we could let them complete some finishing touches without any supervision.)
During the year we were both resilient; I started a new job, managed to study and even helped some of my friends with giving them guidance in life and uplift their mood, while traveled 2.5x around the World in distance in just 6 months. We realised, we learnt to perform the best under pressure. I expected, upon our arrival back to the UK, we will have an amazing time in the European winter, in our rented, 200 years old cottage. This will be the time of recharging, relaxing and letting go all stress and worry. Not exactly this happened so far…
After the first week without traveling, working on the building site, we settled in our British cottage and I enjoyed the quiet time, quality time with my wife again. Then on the third week I started going down the slope and had mood swings. I had no real reason why, melancholy took over the drive of my life. I felt emptiness, boredom and loneliness, deep apathy. I was keep questioning myself: “what is wrong with you?! Why can’t you enjoy this time without much responsibilities?”.
I was left alone with multiple identities in my head…first my mind recreated the image of my father and multiplied his bad attitude 100x times. As soon as I was in a relaxing mood, the noises struck…it really hurt me and could not stop it. This made me ask, in the recent years, did I make myself busy purposely to avoid being with myself?! I wanted to take over control of my feelings but weeks passed without any improvement. Then I tried something that worked. As soon as this image in my mind started saying how bad I am, I did 15 push-ups. Then again and again. After about 5 occurrences the negative, my father like self-talk stopped!
Then I new feeling took over on me; I missed the traveling lifestyle, living an extraordinary life, the chance to get know new people on our road trips. Now we are in a voluntary self-quarantine for months, years and just could not cope with this thought. This would be a perfect opportunity to study, shine at work (now as I have a perfect home-office), get know myself better. Why do these self-created images in my mind troubling me so much? Luckily, I have a supporting wife who spent countless hours keeping me together and helped me to find some answers.
Last night after chats with my wife and looking inside me, I found some answers and solutions. I must revive, restore my strength and it will be only possible if I review what I can do better. Last night I sat down with my notebook and started noting down my current daily routine first. I identified so many areas for improvement, the small adjustments all can contribute to feel better, stronger and more resilient. The key is to be 100% honest with yourself when you review the daily tasks in your life and identify areas you can make an improve on. An example is: I practice Wim How breathing technique now perpetually for 2 years. In this May I already done the Advanced level which is about holding your breath for 3 minutes. Then I skipped few days and just did the intermediate level with 2 mins and until yesterday, I was doing this…because it was comfortable. Cold shower is something I have time to time, not consistently – however I do know that I feel better if I have a cold shower but…a warm water is more comfortable….In Yoga, I practiced over 7000 hours until today but I cannot stretch my legs in downward–facing dog pose (Adho Mukha Svanasana) and in so many poses I stretch only in a beginner level…why? You know the answer: because it is comfortable. In my opinion, to feel better, I must do better those routines that makes me feel better.
As a next step. I reviewed my annual journal and the section about “Lessons I learnt or must learn” in every month. One of the most common lesson was: worrying and panicking for no reason! Shocking, I made a note of this in 8 months out of 12. I worried so much this year and the fact is, even I have never missed my flights (had over 50 flights this year to catch), my body was in a state of “I am going to miss my flight” stress for about 50% of these trips. Weekly, we paid out often thousands of Pounds to building materials and labour work from our savings and the money I earned from my current contract – due to the rising cost of everything in this year. So I got into the worry feeling, how will we reach the target completion of our project, how much of our saving we must spend on? On top of this as I changed a contract at work in October, there was a likelihood of my first payments may will be delayed. So I worried about this too…Of course, there was no delay with the payments and we just spent our budget on the project, no more.
My body needed to survive countless hours of being in fight mode my mind created under worry and stress. A big take away for me is worrying on a likelihood of something slowly kills. What were the other great lessons I learnt? Here is a summary of all. Please comment under the post if any of these lessons resonate with you.
20 Lessons I learnt in 2022
1) Right in the beginning of 2022 I learnt, never say never! When we left the UK in 2018 I thought we will never be back again. The planet has so many countries, so much to see, why would we spend our life in only one country? BUT! After discovering more than a dozens of countries in the recent 4 years we realised, UK is one of our home we always love to return.
2) When an opportunity arises out of nowhere, never say no without doing some research. I must be sure what I say yes or no for. I could be a dollar millionaire by now if I would have listened to buy bitcoin when it was $600.
3) Stress and worry less on events in my life I have no control over. Worrying about things I had no influence over caused me so much headache and bitter moment. 9 out of 10 times the worst scenario my mind imagined, never actually happened. So the question is: is it worth worrying about something that may not will happen? Remind yourself for this.
4) When I am under pressure I tend to let the situation go out of control. I must stay focused. Easy to say than do, right? This needs me to be more balanced and resilient. This is a skill I must work on. How about you?
5) I must trust more in my own capabilities. At work -even after 15 years in business-, I often get anxious before big projects and thoughts rushing through my mind like “am I skilled enough for this work?”. I have never failed in any project were given to me, so why I am not trusting in my own capabilities? The root cause must be my limiting beliefs.
6) There is always something in life that can stop achieving our goals. Be prepared for obstructions and instead of giving up, find an other way to achieve your plan. Things often do not go easy, need a replanning. Don’t panic. Navigate through life like a SatNav (GPS); as soon as there is a stalled or slow traffic ahead, find an alternative route.
7) Do not overthink and overcomplicate. Try to simplify your daily routine, your work, your goal. What you can, delegate out. In the recent years I have ran 3 companies in 3 countries and each was managed by a local accountant. I spent only 15 minutes in a month with managing the accountancy of my companies and I had more time to spend on working myself, be with my family. My daily routines are simple and do not take individually a long time – therefore I have a success feeling every evening when seeing I completed mostly all my daily routine. This could be a challenge if every one of them would take an hour!
8) Once I tried something better, enjoyed that and decided to own/have it, do not want to justify that in quality something less valuable is still “good enough” for me. An example is when you choose your next car. If you are owning a Jaguar now, don’t lie to yourself that your next ideal car would be an Opel Astra. Respect you levelled up since you owned an Opel and rather look for a Range Rover!
9) Look for distractions in your life and close them out. Especially at work and in your loving relationship. At work I noticed how distractive is my mobile phone. Sometimes, I even made mistakes because I was too busy with chatting or scrolling Facebook. I introduced a new way of working: purchased an electric height adjustable desk and when I must focus on work, I sit down, YouTube is stopped, I put the mobile phone muted and in a drawer – until I finish with the task. Then I raise the desk, music is on, can check mobile phone and free to dance, shake down stress. Repeat.
10) Think before saying something hurting – to anyone! Be wise and think first. A skill I must work on.
11) Be self-respectful. Did you notice the most cruel person around us is often in our head? Respect who you became, stop hurting yourself and forgive for the mistakes you made.
12) When you want to reach a goal and you wish a particular positive outcome, focus on it WILL happen instead of it WON’T. Always remember, “where focus goes, energy flows. And where energy flows, whatever you’re focusing on grows.” – Tony Robbins. In other words, your life is controlled by what you focus on
13) Keep your vibration high in any circumstances. One of the most challenging daily “struggle” for me is to keep my good-vibe. Walking in nature, exercising and listening to music usually helps for me. Notice what makes you happy and keep those activities in your toolset; be ready to use them any time of the day when you start feeling low.
14) When you get a good feedback and then a bad one, do not consume only the bad feedback, it is only part of the story. We tend to focus on the negative things and the positive is like what just did not happen. A good example is my Air B&B review from hosts, on my profile. 70 hosts gave a 5* rating, one is only 2* because somehow that host felt, we did not leave the flat as tidy as it was expected. I felt bad about this for weeks!
15) Do not watch/read the News. If you want to get know what is going on in the World, limit your time how much you spend on keeping yourself informed. So much anxiety the News caused me this year – often enough to read the headline! Remember, the News are about getting your attention and that article might not always show the truth. Protect your mental wellbeing.
16) When we are in a low emotional state we tend to seek for pleasures. This is normal but can be dangerous and can lead to addictions. Monitor these activities and consciously decide how much you spend/consume from that pleasure, is it a healthy “dose”? If not, time to limit or quit!
17) Past cannot be changed. Accept the decisions you made and even you feel remorse for what you have done, let that go, forgive yourself.
18) When you make a mistake, acknowledge that and take full ownership. Try everything possible in order to fix that mistake and do everything possible to make sure, never happen again.
19) We often seek happiness from external sources. This source can be an expensive item you buy or a person/friend/partner in your life, who always cheers you up. You must realise, you cannot always depend on buying more and more treats or on your good-vibe person in 24/7. Happiness is inside us and we can choose whether we feel low or good. This is a key take away for me. I am conscious enough to decide whether I have enough of feeling low and whether I want to feel happy.
20) It took me 4 years (since I am on plant-based diet) to identify my protein intake daily is about 20% of the daily required intake. I had an active life this year, with workout 3x/week, walking 3-5x/week (7-10.000 steps) but somehow my muscle did not grow or the result was just lasting for a day or two. As per sclhealth.org the recommended protein intake is for Men: 0.84g per kilogram of body weight per day. For example, if a man weighs 85kg, his recommended intake is approximately 71g. Women: 0.75g per kilogram of body weight per day. For example, if a woman weighs 70kg, her recommended intake is approximately 52g. If you do any sport activities, you may need to double this rate. If you are vegan or considering to try this lifestyle, read this Book: The Plant-Based Power Plan: Increase Strength, Boost Energy, Perform at Your Best by Tj Waterfall (you can buy it from Amazon). Don’t make the same mistake I made that I did not complete a proper research before starting this lifestyle. Lately, my days are about hitting the nutrition targets – my muscle growth has significantly increased since!
Bonus: if you are like me, consciously working on yourself, did you notice how much time we spend with reading self-development books? How much action do we take after completing each book? How much do you remember from the books? After reading approximately over 50 self-development books in the last 4 years, I noticed, barely can recall any of the books. Mostly I can recall only how I felt after a book. In the new year I decided, I read over and over the 3 best books I read in 2022, and try to apply as many tips as possible in my life. Check out Mentorbox and Blinkist – where you get the essence of thousands of books. Get access to key insights from 2,500+ bestselling nonfiction books, transformed into powerful packs you can read or listen to in just 15-60 minutes. Workbooks help to learn what you just heard. In the new year, I use Mentorbox and Blinkist to level up.
Summary: My biggest challenge in ’22 was to control my melancholy and apathy. I will crack the code and take over the control in ’23! Reviving is a must. I know, I must be stronger than ever mentally and physically in a fast-changing World. With my wife, we decided we are going to bio-hack our body and monitor it, bring out the most to be the best shape ever. We are on the right track, so you can expect I will post more about this progress in 2023.
Thank you for your attention and time, I appreciate you come back time-to-time to read my conclusions about life. May the coming year be full of grand adventures and opportunities. 2023 is the beginning of a new chapter.
This is Your year! Make it happen! Wishing you a fresh start with renewed energy and confidence throughout the New Year.
With Love and care,
Zollie
