Episode 86: Lessons from This Year

I spent a lot of time this year waiting for things to get better. But what if the challenges and disappointments of 2020 were “better?” At the end of a difficult year, I wanted to review some of the lessons that I learned and found most valuable in my earth life experience this year.

Each day of our lives here is precious. And if the most important thing about being human is learning to choose, then the moments where we face disappointment and choosing is the hardest will be best for us in the end.

In today’s episode, I wanted to share with you the lessons that I learned this year.  I hope this will be meaningful here at the end of a difficult year and give you a few things to think about.  

Lessons from This Year

1. Your life is fast and precious.

Our life is lived a day at a time and all the results we create happen because of the small, seemingly insignificant decisions we make every day.  

I think so often we think someday we will do that big thing and someday we will change in a significant way, but it never happens like that.  It happens a day at a time.  It happens in the space between sunrise and sunset every day of your life.  

The choices that you make on a daily basis are what counts.  And so if you want a different result in any area of your life, I think it can be really helpful to stop thinking of it as an event or an arrival point, and start thinking about it as now—as a daily creation, as an accumulation of thousands of tiny decisions.

Catalog of Awesomeness

Make a thorough list of every single result you created in 2020 that you’re proud of.  

• What value have you added to the world?  
• Whose life is better because you were alive this year?
• List all the ways you’ve contributed and all the results you’ve created.  
• What is the effect of you being in the world this year?  Who did you help?  
• Think about thoughts you’ve adopted, skills you’ve mastered, what used to be hard that now is easy.  What are the things you overcame?   
• Small stuff and big stuff.  Tangibles and intangibles.

Really put your brain to work thinking of things.  And don’t stop until you have at least 50 things. If you don’t Feel massively proud of yourself after you do this, you are doing it wrong.

Do it before the end of the year. Self-celebration is not optional.  Your brain is going to tell you it’s not that important.  And your brain is wrong.

2. We are wrong about ease and comfort.  

When it comes to creating an amazing life, we are wrong about prioritizing ease and comfort.  Because our brains were programmed to seek pleasure and avoid pain, we naturally think that difficulty is less desirable.  

But when the circumstances are difficult, we have to be way more purposeful about the way we think about things.  Happiness and joy and love are harder when things are difficult, and requires us to discipline our thinking.

The whole point of us coming to earth is to learn to choose—to not just take what our brain is giving us on default, but to choose our experience for ourselves.

We think that it would be better without difficulty.  But what if difficulty is better?  

I spent a lot of time this year waiting for things to get better.  But what if the challenge and disappointments of 2020 were better?  What if that was better?  If the most important thing about this earth life experience is learning to choose, then those moments where choosing is the hardest are going to end up being so much better for us in the end.

3. It will all be made right in the end.

 Despite the disappointments of earth life, it will all be made right in the end.  Because Jesus Christ did not disappoint and did all that was required, everything is always okay.

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