19 Lessons I Learned in 2019
Or, the year 2019 in review.
Some day, I will write as unapologetically as Kris Gage. Check out her year in review.
But meanwhile, I’ll try. Here’s my 2019.
(Pics unrelated to lessons but act as section breaks)
The best thing I learned was how to relax. (2 lessons)
1. If you want to truly, truly relax, let go of the guilt that you need to be productive all the time.
On July 6th, I was 45 days into a new job where I was creating a new doc-set from scratch, and 6 days into a new volunteering role as a division director in Toastmasters, where I was trying to improve the Toastmasters experience of 400 people.
I was the most burned out I’d ever been in my life, and that day I decided I would just stay at home and that’s okay. Taking that day off without guilting myself to be productive was incredibly rejuvenating.
I wrote about that in more detail here:
Also related is…
2. Enjoying your own company is the greatest gift you can give yourself.
November and December in particular were months where I retreated from everything a bit — allowing myself to be at home, watch Dungeons and Dragons content*, and just breathe a sigh of relief after a decent day at work.
I haven’t ever been able to do that before. I would always NEED somebody to spend time with me, talk to me, validate me. This year, I stopped needing that.
(*I got into D&D this year. There are no D&D related lessons in this review.)
I think it came down to having a shred of self-esteem, so let’s get into that.
Self-Esteem and Self-Worth (4 lessons)
3. Treat everyone, young and old, with kindness and respect.
For the first six months of the year, I was working with ~60 new Toastmasters across 2 clubs, mentoring them and teaching them the ropes. In that time, I focused on 3 things: self-awareness, creating a personalized process of speechwriting, and maintaining your enthusiasm.
A lot of time was spent sitting down with people 1-on-1 and understanding them better, and then helping them with personalized recommendations.
I now have over 30 people, some older than me, who call me their mentor. The amount of gratitude I received was staggering, which leads me to…
4. It is possible to overload the bullshit meter on your self-esteem issues.
On February 23rd, I was heading the food and hospitality team for a Toastmasters event under my predecessor division director. I received a lot of love that day:
- Senior officials praising the hospitality team on stage
- My mentees gave me a standing ovation when I went up on stage
- My co-mentor for one of the clubs (previously on hiatus) told me that working with me made him feel more enthusiastic about making a full return to the organization.
Like many others, I have a tendency to deflect and dismiss compliments in favor of a bad self-image. However, I received so many that day that even I had to say, “I must be doing something right.”
While I still have self-esteem issues, I’m much better about accepting compliments now.
5. Your worth is not defined by the job you have.
April 19th was my last day at work. I got laid off from my job of 5 years that I hated — the first job out of college. I hadn’t quit in 5 years because I had an irrational fear that I would never find another.
On May 20th, I started at a new workplace. 🤷♂
And it’s been good so far.
6. You can be hyper-charismatic or downright awkward, depending on your mood.
Part of getting that new job was taking 5 short interviews with several heads in the company. The first of those 5 didn’t go well, but after that I was in the zone, and I found myself adjusting my style of speaking based on who was talking to me.
Some days, whether at work or in Toastmasters, I can carry a conversation with anybody, and make everybody else at the table feel involved. Sometimes, even people off the table.
Some days, I can’t even say tell a cab driver where I want to go.
The variable is my frame of mind. If I set my mind at the start of my day to really enjoy the day, I get into the right frame of mind. In practice, it can be as simple as taking note of 1 thing you’re grateful for, 1 thing you want to do, and 1 thing you want to believe about yourself.
Let’s take a moment for bad things. (2 lessons)
7. Anxiety is shit.
It’s always been a problem for me. I’ve had several panic attacks before, and enough things happened this year to induce several anxious spells.
But this year I noticed that it’s really because both of my parents are insanely anxious people. They anticipate (or create) problems, and then try to solve them by telling other people (i.e. their kids) how to live their lives.
When I noticed it, I told myself I don’t want to live like that — because they aren’t happy with their lives, just like their relatives aren’t, just like our community isn’t, just like other adults aren’t.
I wish wishing anxiety away worked, but it doesn’t. However, two things did help reduce anxiety — experimenting with cannabis, and making the conscious choice to not care about several things, such as small expenses, small rudenesses, and small failures.
8. I’ve been hanging on to depression as an excuse to not do what is needed.
4 years of clinical depression. Several visits to doctors and therapists. Nowadays, it’s more of a come-and-go thing.
Doesn’t mean I can sit back and bemoan my fate. I’ll never recover that way. And so…
Therapy is gooooood. (4 lessons)
9. Mindfulness can make a dramatic difference in a couple of weeks.
I went back into therapy in October, after a very long break from it. My new therapist had me “check in” and log my mood every 2 hours for a week. I barely ever managed to do it in those 2-hour timeframes, but what an amazing difference it made.
Very quickly, I habitualized the practice of coming to the present, and checking how I feel. That helped me break out of whatever I was doing at that time, and whatever negative thoughts I was having at that time.
As a result, I was able to A. make a small correction to my mood frequently, instead of one big correction a day, and B. find that I suddenly had a lot more time to do things.
Try it yourself with this free worksheet from TherapistAid.com (not a sponsor).
10. Forgiveness is not about the oppressor at all.
Also learned in therapy: forgiveness is a mindset specifically for your benefit, not for someone who wronged you. I specifically did exercises to understand and forgive my past with my parents.
You DON’T need to give the other person the satisfaction of saying the words, “I forgive you”, but keep the idea in your mind.
Think of it as forgiving your younger self for allowing bad things to happen to you. Make a mental shift about how you feel about what happened to you.
For a deeper understanding of forgiveness therapy, see this free worksheet from TherapistAid.com (again, not a sponsor. I am an internet writer… I don’t get paid for shouting out people).
11. Anger isn’t an effective tool in relationships…
Well, duh, right?
Before I went back into therapy, I noticed that I had started snapping at people again. A momentary lapse of judgment creates a crack in any relationship you have, romantic or otherwise. Put enough cracks in the ship, and it will sink.
12. …but an amazing tool in personal development.
However, before the depression originally hit in 2014, I used to use anger a lot to motivate myself to do things. It often became my default state, which isn’t good, but in short bursts, it is amazing to get over feelings of laziness or malaise and get off your butt.
I’ve rediscovered my anger recently, and that comes with the problems of lesson 11, but harnessing that for personal benefit is my current goal. It helps me be discontent with the state of my life, and from there, I can begin executing change.
Leadership and Caring are Basically the Same (5 lessons)
13. Mentoring is a taste of parenting.
I mentioned in points 3 and 4 that I was personally mentoring an obscene number of people.
In putting together training material and sessions for them, and then answering many questions beyond the scope of Toastmasters, I got a lot of training experience.
A few people asked me whether I would pursue training and coaching professionally.
My answer was no.
In my training experience, I found that a lot of coaching is simply giving people permission to try things. Motivation is a huge portion of the deficit that people feel in their minds.
Essentially, I’ve found that coaching is a supplement to parenting, and I don’t want to charge for parenting.
Who knows? I might change my mind on this later. I might pursue professional certification in coaching. But for now, I want to continue doing it for free. It is rewarding in itself.
14. Habit stacking is the way to go.
Any habits that I managed to practice through the year — reading, meditation, journaling, skincare — happened because I paired it with an existing habit.
I put a face-wash and an exfoliant next to my toothbrush. Most mornings, I would wash my face after brushing my teeth. The act of brushing my teeth became a trigger for me to clean my skin.
Similarly, I started taking a train to work late in the year, and started reading on that train journey. I get through about 12–30 pages a trip. In the new year, I’m continuing that practice, hoping to bolster my poor book-reading habits from the last few years.
15. Doing work is easy, getting work done is hard.
The first six months, I’d go to clubs myself and work with new speakers directly.
The next six months, my role as Division Director required me to lead a team of people who’d do that themselves. That transition was hard. I often ended up going myself, and fatiguing myself in the process.
Letting go of the control of taking action yourself, and instead having to trust someone else to do it, was really difficult. I constantly felt like nothing was being done, and that spiked my anxiety about the whole affair.
16. Compassion fatigue is a thing.
Take everything I’ve described up till now, and put it in the context of the world — with all the disasters and the politics and the racism and the conflict — and it is SO easy to burn out and feel hopeless.
That’s where the whole relaxing thing was born. It became a necessity.
17. Showing up is not half the battle. It is the whole battle.
Have you heard this — “Showing up is half the battle?” This principle states that your life will be fundamentally better if you are out and about and meet people, even when you don’t want to do that.
The assumed other half in that equation is “performing” — once you’re present somewhere, you need to be your best self and wow everybody with your charisma and your presence of mind and your humor and whatnot.
That assumed other half is a non-factor. In the long term, your skills and presence improve with enough practice. You don’t need to be your best self at all times — you just need to try, and as you try enough times, you will become better.
This is extremely useful for socially anxious people. By taking away the pressure of the performance of socializing, we can help people reduce their anxieties and go out more.
I try hard to make yourself show up, even when I don’t feel like it, and I want to keep that up in 2020.
Final Notes (3 lessons)
18. Idle is bad, reading is good, experiencing is better.
A strong portion of the year was me not being mindful, and shutting down mentally at the thought of being overwhelmed with things to do.
A lot of time was spent on deciding the best course of action.
I’ve read a lot more this year — a few books, a lot of Medium articles, and myriad other things. I’ve learned many valuable lessons about self-management. But I’ve learned many of those things before.
This year, I got the chance to put a number of them in practice, and each of those hit like a ton of bricks (see #9: mindfulness).
Reading is good, but it often leads to false choices and decision paralysis. As much as possible, opt to execute: you will see a lot more personal growth.
19. Arbitrary patterns are nice but meaningless...
This year-end review didn’t need 19 things in it. It just sounded nice to have 19 things from 2019.
More than anything, it may have made the piece far too long.
I mean… it definitely made it too long.
We wait around to get things lined up, because we love arbitrary patterns. But waiting around results in a lot of lost time and often, lost motivation.
This is why waiting for the New Year to start on resolutions fails so often. Why is January 1st any better than any other day? Every Monday can be a “new year”. We put off things to put them into arbitrary patterns.
20. ...but if you make a commitment, complete or overdeliver.
I’ve seen enough “X things” lists that don’t have X things in them to get violently angry. Complete your commitments, cowards. Occasionally, overdeliver for an added boost.
Also, in general, keep your word. It’s the only meaningful thing you have. All these other stories happened because I made a commitment to somebody then forced myself to follow through.
Take some time to discover your own lessons — we go through a lot in the course of a year. Without reviewing your year, you may not recognize the importance of past events, and may feel like the year was wasted, when nothing could be further from the truth.
Thank you for reading, and have an incredible 2020!
