Five wellness things I liked lately - December
Useful planning tools for the new year, a good holiday read and some thoughts to ponder.
This strategy setting exercise by HBR to help you get really clear on the vision for your life. Around this time of year, I love carving out a bit of alone time and sitting down to write and reflect on everything that happened in the past 12 months, and plan the next 12. I try to keep my mind very open and flexible - both in assessing the past and plotting the future. But I believe prompts and frameworks can be useful - especially if the task seems daunting - to guide, and allow you to objectively update your views, which I believe, is the only way to make better decisions.
To pair with the above, this personal OKR framework from Emi - I might be biased because he’s my husband, but I think he did a really great job at simplifying the goal setting model. He also provides quick and easy tools for implementing the framework, so all you need to do is “fill in the blanks”. Good luck!
And a third prompt you can add to your reflection/ goal setting protocol is this Past Year Review exercise from Tim Ferris. It took me about 30 minutes to go through my 2023 calendar (week by week) and assess which activities and meetings led to peak positive or peak negative emotions. I wasn’t surprised by the results because I work hard on being present and aware most of the time, but it was a useful reinforcement of dynamics I had intuitively picked up on. After going through the list, I had a very clear picture of at least 3 activities and/or people that I don’t want to either limit exposure to or spend more time on in 2024.
A good read for the holidays (or to gift) is Same as Ever by Morgan Housel. Especially at a time when we tend to make unrealistic (if not bombastic) predictions about the myriad ways in which we’ll be different people in the near year, I find it a useful reminder to acknowledge the patters that more accurately (and modestly) paint the picture of what’s probable. Yet at the same time, also remind us of how much progress is actually achievable on a longer time scale.
Finally, my favorite quote that I have pinned at the top of my notes app many years ago and that I try to live by (often failing), and that I believe could not be more poignant at the beginning of a new year.
The true birthplace is that wherein for the first time one looks intelligently upon oneself. Memories of Hadrian
