23 Learnings of 2023

Here are 23 Learnings of 2023 that I experienced over the year.

Every year I share some life lessons that I experienced over the year.

2022:

2021:

2020:

2023 has been fascinating with setbacks and becoming a mature person. Here are 23 things I learned this year:

HEALTH

1. Prioritise health by setting up specific goals and maintaining consistency:
   Last year, I tried to prioritise health but in 2023, I promised myself to remain consistent (4x strength training) + start running + eat well and avoid junk.

   The goal is to document the consistency and to have minimal data points.

   A few key points every month:

   • Gym/Running: If I went to Gym or run. it’s a tick. If occupied and do home exercise for more than 10 minutes, it’s a tick. (Ideal would be: 80%)

   • Steps: How many steps throughout the day? (Ideal would be > 1L Steps)

   • Diseased days: Avoiding virals(cough, cold, fever - as I feel it’s related to immunity and need to be minimised at all costs) (Ideals would be 0)

   

2. Visit your local park once in a week or two. It’s a nice place to breathe fresh air, open up to nature, run, walk, jog, play, exercise, and relax.

FINANCIAL

1. Avoid getting scammed:
   I made the enormous mistake of getting scammed not once but twice financially and emotionally. I got slapped by the reality that the world deceives you for its benefit. The primary learning is to avoid getting scammed financially, or emotionally. There’s no framework but to delay your actions if money is involved.

2. Money - if not used for barakah. what’s the use then?

   Barakah/t is an Islamic term which loosely means - good fortune or prosperity. Money should be utilised for prosperity in your life. I made this mind-shift this year when I thought of leveraging money to protect my sanity in life. I understand a lot of other things are required for prosperity in life but money is one of the key factors. At least, utilise it well keeping your savings and investments intact.

3. Stop impulsive buying:

   The world temps you buy stuff you don’t need. Capitalism made you aware that you need this-and-that. Although, I am very keen on spending on stuff I lost the plot in 2022. I made sure in 2023 that I am not at all tempted to buy and spend on things that I don’t need. Similar to impulsive buying, we’re habitual of impulsive eating. we saw something, we were tempted and craved and ate without any second thought.

LIFE SKILLS

1. Stressful situations are the places where you tend to grow:

   This is the most crucial and life-changing learning from last year.

   The timeline of stressful situations:

   Pre-2013: No stress.

   2013-2017: Escape the responsibility = no stress. Escapism to avoid such situations.

   2018-2021: Owning responsibility comes with stress. These years I tend to grow the most. Don’t know how to optimise stress and take it personally.

   2022: Owing responsibilities and optimising stress but life opens up for more responsibilities.

   2023: Changed outlook towards stressful situations. Learning to optimise, becoming better, smarter and sharper.

2. Don’t indulge with your folks on conflicting issues. Don’t overthink some interpersonal conflicts.

   Conflicting issues are pain points and cause arguments and sometimes, it doesn’t end well.

3. Avoid talking “about” people. Third-person talks are spicy but it’s of no use.

   Gossip is spicy and it’s useful to catch up on what other person is doing in his/her life but instead of talking to each other, we tend to talk about others. It’s useless. I realized gossip is time-wasting and needs to be replaced with catching up on each other life. Explore the unexplored territories and interests.

4. Sacrificing makes a brave character. Sacrificing makes you mature. You must make difficult decisions and do difficult conversations to maintain peace. Stand for what’s right.

   Brave - I am not used to this word but I realized that bravery is standing up for yourself humbly, and maturely. brave people are not stubborn, they face the challenges life throws at them. Standing up for what’s right and needful is the remark of bravery. Adulthood is shedding and sacrificing the things that are once dear to you but not anymore.

5. Speak: Language of Assurance.

   “Everything will be fine“

   “Let’s hope that things will eventually work out.“

   Speaking words that heal is a remarkable learning of 2023. If you assure people to not worry, have patience and let God decide their fortune, it will make things easier for you as well as for them.

6. Simplify your life: Doing one task at a time.

   In this world where you’ve loads and loads of options and temptations, work towards simplicity and simplifying your life. Avoiding multi-task, switching from one task to another. You’ll end up in a rabbit hole of chaos if you choose to do multiple things at the same time.

7. The end goal of an argument is to re-establish boundaries and get lost in the pleasure of fighting and hunting down.

WORK-RELATED

1. Be clear and confident

   One of the feedbacks I got from my peer or boss at work is to become confident and clear. The lack of confidence misses the clarity. You need to be confident to speak and deliver. On my path to becoming better, I took this quite seriously. I want to make sure that office communications are my workspace for personality and communication grooming. I don’t lie and own my responsibility and mistakes.
   My clarity is intact due to my journalling skills but I don’t dive deeper into issues at work and often, lack clarity due to this. I am working on it. These are two major areas that often make me restrict my potential.

2. Doing > Learning.

   Learning is a highly volatile space where you put efforts to gain a level of knowledge but knowledge is of no use if not utilized. Highly smart individual understand the utility of knowledge and applications in their field. In my field, 10 hours of POC is better than 40 hours of learning.

3. Need to take control of my time. Things will go on and on.

   Two major trade-offs at work would be commitments and boundaries. Do not over-commit and never under-deliver. these come with breaching the boundaries and hamper work-life balance. You need to take control of your time. Focus on things based on priority. Optimise things at work. Most importantly: maintaining boundaries, especially with time. Use your time wisely. Spending hours and hours won’t be great.

4. Focus and flow are achievable states. Keep calm and do your stuff.

   I struggle at work. Understand the patterns of your flow state.

   few hacks on focus and flow:

   • Pockets of your day where you can do deep work. I find it somewhere around 10-10:30 or 11. Doing even one hour per day can even make my day.

   • I have something called “rush hours“ in the evening where I rush to complete the tasks assigned to me. In that rush, I tend to complete the task and those tasks are not analytical.

   • Listening to lo-fi, ambient, chill or binaural music. Invest 5 minutes to just enter into the state of flow and go deeper into that state by:

     • keeping your phone away

     • designated task/deliverables on that 1-hour

     • Plan other stuff later.

   

5. Keep doing good work, rewards will follow you eventually

   Doing good work is always appreciated at work. I believe the corporate system is made in such a way as to keep the reward system for those who do great work for their clients and the company. Although I shy away from broadcasting my achievements I understand that excellence is an achievable state and you’ve to work hard to become excellent. Even though my outlook towards work is quite balanced, I believe overall you’ve to maintain the standards at work and rewards will eventually follow you.

6. It’s okay to skip a book. It’s okay not to read some books deeply or thoroughly. it’s preferred the book that made a good impact in your life

   This year I changed my attitude towards books. Books are a medium to understand things better through stories, descriptions and the author’s journey. For me: I realize it’s okay to skip a book if it doesn’t interest you. Some books are chewed, some are swallowed or some are thrown up.

PERSONAL

1. Read one thing about what you eat, do or think.

   Cultivating the habit of why you do what you do. It’s the first step towards purposeful and presence-ful living. you understand your life from your third-eye perspective. You should read more to understand things more. why do you eat bananas in the morning? why did my body get sick in February?

2. Try cold showers:

   This year, I took the challenge to only bathe in cold water irrespective of the weather. It worked in favour of my immunity. Comparatively, I shorted on sickness, felt better and my focus spiked.

3. When your gut and mind say you’re right, Make a decision and take the risk. Be practical with a touch of optimism.

   It is somewhat related to “lack of confidence“ point where I am so sure and calculative but become shaky when it comes to taking actions or risks. If you’ve done your homework and your gut and mind says you’re right, make the move.

4. Plan trips on your own

   In an era where information is easily available to you, it’s quite better to plan your trips on your own. it’s nice experience to create macro iternary of places to visit and things to do. having a flexible plan. have more experience of unexpected.

5. Obsession over productivity, learning, and following systems. Having obsessed with an idea can make you optimise for productivity, learning at the fastest pace possible and making a system to leverage things on scale.