5 Lessons for an *Acceptable* New Year - My 2022 in Review

My boyfriend's sister, Rose, is one of the most remarkable people I know. She trains in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, leads a content marketing department at Multiverse, travels the world, and constantly welcomes new experiences. Recently, Rose explored 12 things she learned in 2022 in a blog on Medium. I am a huge proponent of written reflection, and I imagine this project helped her to clarify her thoughts, refresh her perspective, and keep up her momentum for 2023.

Rose's heartwarming and inspiring reflection inspired me to do the same. I've been needing to establish a regular writing routine, so I saw this as the perfect opportunity to take action (and practice overcoming my perfectionism-fueled procrastination). So, thank you for the inspiration, Rose!

One of the reasons I decided to force myself to write this is that I tend to be a little bit pessimistic when I don't take the time to reflect. Unfortunately, my brain tends to latch onto the negative. It's a pesky self-preservation habit that can get out of hand. However, if I make a conscious effort to remember all the good things - the things that put a smile on my face and made me feel proud - I can almost instantaneously reverse my mood, my outlook, and my motivation to move forward.

Now that I'm stopping to think...I have so much to be proud of in 2022. It's been a pivotal year for my confidence, growth, and spirituality (my energetic connection to others and the world).

The Secret Sauce: Strategic Soul's Mindset Rewiring Program

I owe much of my growth in 2022 to a special person named Karina Gutierrez-Noriega. Karina owns a mindset coaching and holistic healing company called Strategic Soul, based in Philadelphia, PA. Acknowledging that I am the leader and the designer of my own life, I want to say that I put in the work to understand myself and make progress, but much of what I achieved wouldn't have been possible without Karina's guidance. She is truly a wise sage in this world. Many of the items I'll discuss below are things I learned (or reinforced) with the help of Karina's coaching.

I am eternally grateful to Karina and Strategic Soul, and I highly recommend her 12-week Mindset Rewiring program to anyone feeling stuck and unsure how to move forward in life.

Thank you, Karina!

5 Things I Learned in 2022

1. Action is better than perfection.

One of the most massive obstacles holding me back is my obsession with perfection. This obsession causes me to postpone taking action on my goals because I wait for the perfect moment when everything feels "right." Of course, that moment almost never arrives. And so...I rarely act. I've missed out on many potentially life-changing experiences because of this. I've quit countless hobbies that I know I could've excelled at - like learning Japanese and playing the guitar. If I'm not immediately perfect at something, I would tend to just quit. I have very high standards for myself, and when I don't meet those standards, I feel disappointed and incompetent.

I have made incredible progress on this issue over the past year. I entered a poetry contest on Vocal, took steps toward a potential freelance writing career, and completed the Mindset Rewiring program. I've also stuck with a new hobby for perhaps the longest stretch of time ever: crocheting. And I'm getting pretty good at it, I might add. How did I do all this? Through intentional self-reflection, I realized that the perfect moment to do these things would NEVER happen because perfect moments don't exist. I didn't want my perfectionism to stop me from experiencing life anymore.

Even just the simple act of sitting down to write this post is a manifestation of my progress on perfectionism. As I write, I know there are a million grammatical errors in the previous paragraphs. But if I stop and start trying to perfect every sentence, I know I'll never finish this. So, for now, I'll just keep going. Now, I strive to do this in every aspect of life.

I've learned that sometimes you just have to keep going and put one foot in front of the other. You might get off-track and go around in circles sometimes, but you'll never reach a destination if you're not moving. I know I'd rather go around in circles for a bit than stay stagnant and rot in the mud. I'd rather fail at starting my own business than never try at all. Because there is always a lesson or two buried in failure.

2. How to meet an important goal or overcome a bad habit: understand your emotions first.

I love data. I enjoy numbers and seeking patterns in datasets. So, managing my finances is actually fun for me.

As such, I've been keeping a meticulous budget in Google sheets for four years now. I track every single penny that comes in and every single penny that goes out. I categorize my spending, set a budget at the beginning of every month, update my expenditures multiple times a day, and practice continual analysis to improve.

This is the first year I actually met my savings goal. So what was different?

For the first time, I thought I ought to tackle the underlying emotional reasons I was addicted to shopping. I'm not an expert, but I believe that behind every addiction is an underlying emotional attachment that must be uncovered before real progress can be made. To meet my savings goal, I needed to understand 1) my emotions around spending, 2) what was triggering me, 3) why I couldn't resist the urge to spend, and 4) alternative coping strategies that would satisfy my emotional needs without spending money.

In the middle of 2022, I embarked on an internal journey to acknowledge, accept, and move past the emotional traumas that had fostered my spending addiction.

Through seven consecutive days of journaling, I realized I had a toxic relationship with money. This relationship was influenced by a childhood where money was a constant source of worry. This is not to say my needs weren't met. We always pulled through, and my family always ensured I had the essentials (and extras) needed to have a fulfilling childhood. Nevertheless, there was a consistent underlying current of anxiety around money and having enough of it. As an adult, I found that spending my money on things I wanted (and pretending like I had an endless source of it) was my way of rejecting my past and my money anxiety.

Only after acknowledging this could I recognize the situations triggering past memories and the thoughts, emotions, and fears leading to my spending sprees. Finally, by understanding my triggers and their context in space and time, I could develop strategies to satisfy my emotional needs without spending money. Next...experimentation and refinement!

I am very driven by competition (with others and with myself), so one of the strategies I experimented with was gamification. I developed a system where I awarded myself points for each day that went by without buying a specific list of desired items (one point per item per day). Once I earned a certain number of points, I could spend them on one of the items on the list. Surprisingly, I found that by the time I'd earned enough points to cash in, the desire to buy the item had dissipated. By the end of the year, most of the items on my wish list went unpurchased.

I've employed many more strategies than this, but the point is that my strategies were highly tailored to my emotional needs and personal modus operandi. And I wouldn't have figured that out without acknowledging what was within.

A lot of times, I think people approach their financial goals from a purely mathematical perspective, and for me, this wasn't an effective approach. If anyone reading this is struggling with a similar problem, I'd highly recommend journaling about the problem for a week, defining your spending triggers, and customizing your strategies to fit your personality.

3. Acknowledge despair. Fear is not just a normal part of life but an important part of life.

One of the first exercises Karina guided me through in the Mindset Rewiring program was an identity exercise that had me explore the dual nature of my being. In the exercise, she asked me to name and define my "fearful" self and my "expanded" self. I ended up naming my fearful self (the part of me driven by fear) "Despair" and my expanded self (the part of me driven by love) "Autumn." Giving these versions of myself a name and personifying them helped me recognize when each was present and learn to treat them (and, in turn, myself) with compassion. Here's a summary of my two selves:

Fearful Self

Despair is not happy with her life. Despair thinks she has no true friends. Despair hates her body. Despair thinks she is too broken to fix. Despair obsesses over everything she’s ever done wrong. Despair is afraid that people will abandon her. Despair isolates herself from others. Despair gives into addictive behaviors. Despair does not take any risks. Despair feels debilitated. Despair is irritated and angry a lot. Despair procrastinates to an extreme amount. Despair is resentful.

Expanded Self

Autumn is confident in herself. Autumn is resilient through storms. Autumn feels peaceful. Autumn wakes up excited to go throughout the day. Autumn is grateful for what she has. Autumn has a fulfilling career. Autumn treats herself with respect. Autumn is energetic and productive. Autumn has a net positive impact on the world. Autumn is a world traveler. Autumn takes risks. Autumn feels loving towards humankind. Autumn makes learning and mind expansion a priority.

The point of the exercise was to help me understand that everything I think, say, feel, and do is a manifestation of either my expanded or fearful self. By understanding these dual personalities battling within me, I could begin to recognize from moment to moment "who" was controlling me, why "they" had control, and what "they" were trying to accomplish. Instead of rejecting and resenting Despair, I accepted her for who she was and acknowledged that her actions were simply her way of keeping me safe...safe from abandonment, pain, humiliation, rejection, disappointment, and failure.

While her strategies were misguided and often harmful in the long term, Despair's main pursuit - to keep me safe - is ultimately a noble one. The world is full of pain. If I didn't have Despair, I may have harmed myself physically, gotten myself into dangerous situations, pursued more toxic relationships, and spiraled completely out of control. Despair helps remind me of the consequences of every potential action so that I don't end up alone, penniless, and broken. She's important. She just doesn't need to be in control all the time.

I needed to instill a balance and cooperative effort between Despair and Autumn if I wanted to experience life fully...not reject Despair completely. So, I'm going to take a moment to say, "Thanks, Despair!" You are needed, and you are important, and you'll always have a place.

Acknowledging Despair has calmed and quieted her to the point where I am able to embody Autumn more frequently.

Now, I strive to ask myself each day how I can embody Autumn so that I can get closer to the life I want, take action, and achieve my goals. I would highly recommend any person to do this identity exercise and see what comes of it.

4. When you feel overwhelmed, take a moment to zoooooooooooom out.

As I stated before, I tend to remember only the bad things that have happened to me (if I don't make a conscious effort to remember the good). This is probably just Despair at work - just trying to ensure that the bad things don't happen again. But if you're constantly "living in the bad" in your mind, it's kind of like those things are happening anyway - every day and all at once. That is not a pleasant place to be, to say the least.

In addition to the past, my brain also tends to live in the future - running through all the bad things that might happen. I'm sure you can see how this leaves little time to think about the good. At times, I can get so overwhelmed with negative thoughts that I feel mentally and physically debilitated.

Another useful tool from the Mindset Rewiring program was the "zoom-out card." A zoom-out card is just a list of positive statements, written on an index card, that you can quickly read to yourself when you're getting overwhelmed with negative thoughts. The statements are designed to help you "zoom out" your mindset to think about a situation in a more holistic way. This helps prevent you from spiraling into a dark place and reminds you that things aren't as bad as they seem. And even if things are bad, there's always something that can be done or a lesson to be learned.

I designed my zoom-out card around my anxieties about work, but I've found it incredibly useful to use the zoom-out methodology to think about life in general. Whenever I feel disappointment, despair, discouragement, or debilitation in a particular moment, I now consciously try to zoom out and look at everything that's happened. I try to see life as an endless flow of movement. A constant transfer of energy from one state to the next. Things get bad, but they rarely stay that way for long. And this mindset shift has been instrumental in preventing many a long-term spiral into depression.

One of my favorite statements from my zoom-out card is, "We're all experiencing humanity for the first time. Sometimes things get messy, and that's ok." This statement has helped me cope with difficult interactions at work, at home, and in public. It has helped me become a more forgiving and understanding person, which I suspect will help me break down some of my self-isolating behaviors.

When I stop to zoom out and think about 2022, I start to remember all that I've overcome and accomplished. And I realize the Despairing thoughts aren't true - I'm not useless, I'm not "falling behind," and I'm not lazy. I'm capable of accomplishing difficult goals, fostering healthy relationships, and leaving a positive impact on the people and world around me.

So, this is purely just for me, but here are a few things I accomplished this past year, in spite of the bad times:

1. I successfully completed a 6-week beginner Peloton program and consistently worked out for 12 weeks in a row since I got my Peloton!
2. I wrote a whole ass book! I have always wanted to have my name on a published book. And while this was a work project, and I'm only credited as a ghost author, the fact that I could get the job done speaks volumes.
3. I achieved a savings goal for the first time ever! I was able to work through my emotional issues with money, develop alternative coping mechanisms to shopping, and save almost $20,000. I know I can save even more this year and set myself up for financial freedom and stability.
4. I took action and prioritized my growth. I acknowledged and accepted the fact that I needed help, put in the research to find a program that worked for me, spent time and energy actually doing the work, and completed the program. I feel super proud of myself for sticking it out and putting in the work. This is a major departure from my history of committment and procrastination issues.

I'd encourage anyone reading this to just sit down for an hour and do an "accomplishment dump" - just start listing every good thing or accomplishment from the past year and don't hold back. Also, come up with your own zoom-out statements to help you cope and shift your mindset when you start to feel trapped in negativity.

5. Acceptance is the single most important tool we possess in the pursuit of happiness.

When I started the Mindset Rewiring program, one of my main goals was to feel happier. But this was also the most ethereal and intangible of all my goals. I didn't really know how to define happiness. And because I couldn't define it, I didn't know what I could do to "achieve" it. Each week on Sunday, I would fill out a form rating different aspects of my life, including rejuvenation, emotional control, exercise quality, mind expansion, and happiness (to name a few). But each week, I found that when it came to happiness, my rating was stagnant and rarely fluctuated. I didn't feel particularly happy, but I didn't feel extremely unhappy either. I felt like I was just existing.

I wish I had expressed my confusion about happiness and why I felt stagnant sooner, but eventually, I told Karina I was unsure of what I could do to score higher on the happiness spectrum. Karina's response to this is perhaps the most important thing I learned in the program - and all year. She suggested I might want to work on acceptance. Accepting how my life was at that very moment, accepting myself for who I was, accepting the people in my life for who they were, and accepting where I was in my career and personal life. It seemed too simple to be true, but now I think practicing acceptance is the single best thing anyone can do to invite more joy and peace into their lives.

Everyone is different, so happiness will mean something different to everyone, but to me, it manifests as consistent physical energy, excitement (even through the most mundane days), feeling peaceful, finding joy in the little moments, and having a net optimistic outlook on life and humankind. What was getting in the way of feeling these things more frequently, thus keeping my score stagnant? A lack of acceptance.

When I reflect on my inner world this past year, there was definitely a lack of acceptance. Right now, my boyfriend and I are attempting to make some pretty weighty long-term plans and goals. These include figuring out how we want to live our lives, where we want to go, and the things we want to experience. Do we want a family? If yes, when? Where do we want to travel and live? How will we plan to make our living?

While I enjoy planning a future together and find the act of planning incredibly important, I've found that if it's not coupled with intentional acceptance, it can cause me to live in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction and resentment. At the end of the day, if I want to be happy, I need to acknowledge that some things may never change and that we probably won't achieve everything on our bucket list. Life is full of surprises, and things tend never to play out exactly as they do in our minds. This is actually the rule of life - not the exception. I will never have complete control over my surroundings, circumstances, and the people around me.

I'll say it again...I will NEVER have complete control. Never. I must learn to let go of my desire for control and release my desperate clinging to how I want things to be. Instead, my happiness will rely on me accepting the way things are and learning to experience joy even if nothing were to change. Yes...even if I never traveled to Spain. Or if I started a business and it failed. Or if someone close to me passed away. Or if I fell ill and it prevented me from being physically active. Because the reality is that these things happen to people every single day. Unexpected roadblocks will appear on my path. But there are endless paths. When one path is blocked, there are a hundred more I could take. There is always something I can do to feel better. There is always something I can do to move forward.

Looking forward to the rest of 2023, I think we should all strive to look for happiness in little moments while planning out our next steps. There is happiness in a cool autumn breeze as I walk around my neighborhood. There is happiness in a little cuddle with my best buddy Domino (my cat). There is happiness when an old friend texts me out of the blue to check in on how I'm doing. There is happiness in a delicious meal at a new restaurant. There are unexpected moments of happiness waiting for me around every corner. But I have to be looking. I have to be accepting. I have to be acting and just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Acknowledgments

And with that, I wish everyone a 2023 defined by peace, growth, action, and acceptance!

Thanks again to Rose for inspiring me to take action and write this reflection - even though it's hard not to let my perfectionism get in the way.

To the new friends I've made and the old, I've enjoyed connecting in person this year after long hiatuses and getting to know each of you better.

To my little nephew Kaiden, I can't wait to spend more time with you and watch you grow up.

To Shuan - my main man. I can't wait to see what we do this year, and I know we'll continue to help each other grow and succeed.

To all my grandparents, know that I appreciate you, I think of you every day, and I hope you know that you're so special and important to me.

To the rest of my family and friends, my sister and brothers, aunts and uncles, Mommy, Jon, and Daddio, you are integral and appreciated, and I am always rooting for you.

Cheers to an acceptable New Year!