Five Lessons To Take Into 2021
It’s been well documented that 2020 wasn’t a good year for most. No one really needs reminding of what went down.
While I definitely didn’t have it as bad as some, last year brought with it a lot of pain and uncertainty. I was alone for months in the UK while the rest of my family was in Pakistan looking after my very ill grandmother, who unfortunately passed away in June. Flights to Pakistan were banned at the time, and so I wasn’t able to attend her funeral.
Before she left us, there was even a fear she contracted Covid-19, which meant my whole family potentially had it too. Given all the hysteria in the news, I was terrified, and while we were lucky at that time it was just a scare, my family eventually did contract the disease (fortunately their symptoms were only mild).
At the same time, my parents’ messy divorce got messier, with court cases left, right and centre, and with them a lot of stress and tension.
But when I look back at the year, I don’t see it as solely a ‘bad year’, but rather as a formative one. Yes, there were bad moments, but there were good moments too.
Since I was at home the whole time, I was able to stick to a healthier lifestyle with my diet and home workouts, and dropped 10kg, at the same time building muscle.
I started a podcast with my best friend, and we even reached top 10 in documentary podcasts in various countries (one of Akon’s sons actually messaged us on Instagram saying he liked our page’s aesthetic!).
And most importantly, I came up with the idea for Impact Coffee: a cold-brew coffee infused with nootropics to give people the mind and body to make more of an impact. I’m so excited to develop this idea into a full-fledged product to release this year.
Out of all of these experiences, one thing I can say for certain about 2020 is that I learnt a lot. And reflecting on all I have learnt, here are 5 main lessons I am taking with me into this year to really make the most of it, come hell or high.
1. A New Year doesn’t mean anything
Quite counter-intuitive, I know, but ultimately, a new year is a very arbitrary occasion to celebrate. We all thought 2020 would be ‘our year’, and yet it proved otherwise.
At the end of the day, all a new year symbolises is that this old rock we live on has gone round an even older ball of gas. Bring out the fireworks!
The problems we face right now won’t suddenly go away, and things are not suddenly going to go back to normal.
But that's why, no matter what, it’s important we don’t write this year off too if it’s not according to plan. While we all hope this year is better, even if it isn’t we have to keep going and trying. Otherwise, if you keep waiting for the ‘perfect year’ for everything to work out and fall into place, you won’t get anything done.
We still face an uphill battle, and the effects of 2020 will linger on for a while still, but from adversity can come opportunity and prosperity. Regardless of what happens, it’s important that we become self-sufficient, work to look after ourselves, are compassionate to one another.
2. Be comfortable with yourself
Self-isolation, social distancing, staying at home.
We’ve heard these phrases time and time again, it’s almost as though we can’t remember a world without them. And all of these have meant that we have all had to be a lot more solitary than ever before.
Being alone can either be a blessing or a curse, but the way you can make it a blessing is by being comfortable with yourself: your character, actions and ambitions. They say you’re the average of the 5 people you spend most of your time with. In the end, you spend time with yourself the most, so it’s important you’re happy with that.
It’s not easy to do this though. To be comfortable with who you are, you first have to ask some very uncomfortable questions, ones that if you’ve never asked before may bring up some very damning revelations.
I think the first question to ask is:
‘How much of what you do is for yourself, and how much is for impressing others?’
It’s important because then you can find out what’s superficial in your life, and usually it’s that which makes you unhappy: chasing something to impress others rather than seeking self-fulfilment.
From there, you get to know what you really want in life, and whether your actions are consistent with those ambitions.
The other thing to ask is: ‘Are you really giving life your all?’
Are you really maximising the opportunities given to you, and are you truly trying to get to where you want to be? Most of the time, the answer is no.
When my friend, Lennaert, and I started our podcast, The Seasoned Migrant, one thing we told ourselves that we will give 100% of what we can to each episode given our skill levels. That way, we could be proud that we did our best.
The aim isn’t perfection, that’s never attainable. The aim is to be happy and content with who you are and to not run away when the going gets tough.
3. Nothing is worse than death
I could deal with everything else pretty well, but when my grandmother passed away, I was rocked.
My grandmother was the centre of our family ever since I could remember. She had been unwell for a very long time: 10 years ago, when she was having her pacemaker fitted in, she died twice during the surgery. She also had both her knees replaced, broke her leg from a fall and suffered from pancreatitis. There were many times we thought we were going to lose her.
But nothing quite prepares you for that final moment.
We still haven’t gotten over her death, and I don’t think we ever will. She left us on a Sunday, and now every time Sunday comes around, I’m afraid of something bad happening.
Her passing was a real eye-opener. It taught me that there’s nothing worse than death.
If you follow the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk, you know his mantra of ‘you’re going to die, so make the most of this life.’ And that’s true. But at the same time, I think it’s equally important to realise that the worse thing that can happen to you is dying, so if the chances of that happening are unlikely, then there’s very little to lose.
This doesn’t play on your anxiety, but rather it’s quite liberating, because you realise that very little that you’re afraid of should actually scare you as much as it does. It gives you an oddly comforting confidence. And especially in a year plagued with illness and death, I think this is perhaps the most important lesson we should all take.
4. Focus on what you can control
None of us foresaw how 2020 panned out.
It can be disheartening when you had plans for a great year only to see it all go to waste because of something completely out of your control.
But that’s when your focus has to shift to what you can control.
Take, for example, your health. Yes, for the best part of the year we haven’t been able to enter gyms. But that shouldn’t stop us from trying out the thousands of home workouts on YouTube, and it doesn’t mean we should completely let go of our diet.
We’ve barely been able to go outside, let alone travel, but rather than spending that money on going to a holiday destination, maybe put it to equally good use in learning something new that might actually help you travel more in the future.
When you focus on what you can control, you become a lot happier because you don’t feel things slipping away. It gives you confidence that you can still get things done, in spite of the world falling apart around you. You feel more independent and resourceful.
5. Goals are only as good as the lifestyle you build around them
I was listening to the audiobook ‘How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big’ by Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comics, and one thing he said struck me.
He said that goals are for losers, because goal-oriented people are constantly falling short of their goal, and in spite of hoping this is only temporary, it eventually gets disheartening to the point that most people quit.
This is something I learnt with my own health journey. Anyone who’s gone through the process of trying to gain lean muscle knows very well about the dreaded cutting phase: being in a caloric deficit and eating (usually) very dull, lean food.
For the longest time, I was so focused on getting out of the cutting phase, and everyday I wasn’t done with the cut, I felt like a failure. In fact, I actually started to gain weight because I couldn’t be bothered after a little while to take care of my diet or do a workout.
I got some sense talked into me by my friend and personal trainer Josh King, and I realised that I almost needed to forget about the cut being a ‘phase’, and instead treat it like I would always be on it, that this was my life forever.
So, given this new state of mind, I started planning my meals and when I would eat them so that I wouldn’t feel hungry at any point during the day. I scheduled my workouts everyday without fail at the exact same time, be it cardio or weights, and I would listen to an audiobook during exercise so that I didn’t feel I was taking time away from learning (it was during these workout sessions I got through Scott Adams’ book and many more!).
I decided this wasn’t going to be a ‘project’, or a ‘3-month plan’, but rather, this was my lifestyle now: I was a healthy person doing healthy things.
The funny thing is that I started dropping the fat much, much quicker, and before I knew it, I was off the cut. Looking back, had I adapted this mindset right from the beginning and not half-following my routine at the start, I would’ve ended the cut in less than half the time.
As we enter 2021, we all have resolutions and goals we hope to achieve. But remember that goals are only as good as the systems and lifestyle you put in place to achieve them. Don’t just set arbitrary goals without backing them up with how you’re actually, realistically going to do them.
Saying you want a six-pack by summer and will be in the gym 3 hours a day to get there is a sure-fire way of failing before you’ve even started. Instead, focus on doing a workout everyday, be it 25 minutes or an hour, and if you get a six-pack by July/August, great, and if not, then you’ll get there eventually because you’re putting in what’s needed to do so.
Summary
To say 2021 will be perfect is naïve, and to say it will be worse than 2020 is pessimistic. Either way, what matters is that no matter what, we learn from last year so that we can deal with whatever comes our way. These are five crucial lessons I learnt last year, and I hope they help whoever is reading this.
Let me know what lessons you learnt from last year in the comments below!
I’m also planning on writing every week about my journey in turning my idea of Impact Coffee into a reality, so if there is anything in particular you would like me to cover, for example the licenses you’d need to operate a food and drink business, or how to develop a brand, or how to actually develop a commercially viable recipe, then feel free to let me know in the comments section too.
In the meantime, I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2021!
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Listen to The Seasoned Migrant Podcast at www.seasonedmigrant.com, or on your favourite podcast platforms.
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