What I learnt in 2009
What I learnt in 2009!
For me 2009 has been a year of uncertainty, happiness and unhappiness and generally in decisiveness about the future and what it holds. The year started out well I started my fitness challenge, I planned to spend time developing my online ventures and I also planned on addressing my debts and saving some money.
All was well until I returned from holiday in July. I started having problems with my eyesight and to cut a long story short I lost most of my vision in my left eye and was rushed in to hospital to have an operation to correct it. After a five day stay in hospital I had to have two weeks off work and it really limited hat I was allowed to do. Frequent hospital visits followed including a minor operation on my right eye. In the three months that followed I also had six teeth removed which has meant I have inherited a £3000 orthodontist bill for the next 18 months.
I still have regular appointments to have my eyes checked but after the three months of treatment I could return to my normal life. Because I stopped weight training for three months I lost about seven kilos of the weight I put on. Training restarted but it was painstakingly slow because of the amount of strength and weight I had lost. I had to go right back to basics again. Frustrating to say the least! With the help of a personal trainer I am beginning to get back to where I was. 
So a lot has happened this year and the year certainly did not turn out as I had planned. My internet projects suffered and my plans to gain financial independence through internet marketing took a back seat for a while. But looking back at what has happened and being able to learn from the experiences is rewarding because it reminds you of how things can change in the blink of an eye.
So what lessons have I learnt this year? Here goes:
1. Nothing in life is certain – As much as I had planned to achieve my goals this year I could not say with complete certainty that I would achieve them. I had goals, deadlines and ambitions to have an amazing year getting closer to my overall goal of financial freedom, better health and a better quality of life. We are always told to plan for the future because you need to know where you want to be in five years time and you need to save some much money etc. I am not saying I am not going to plan my goals and ambitions but I will be changing how I go about achieving them. I will still need deadlines and targets but if I have learnt anything over the last twelve months it is that you can not plan for the future if you do not know what is coming. The future is not written and life can throw you a curve ball at any time. What matters is how you deal with it when it happens.
2. Live life for the day – This really leads on from my first lesson. People dwell on the past and what has happened and likewise people are obsessed with mapping there future out. This takes such a priority that they forget to live in the present. I have learnt that what is in the past has happened and there is nothing you can do to change it, so why worry about it? Just let it go and move on. If you can not change the past and you can not predict the future then the only logical way to live is in the present. That means embracing life on a daily basis, give everyday your all and make sure you put into everyday more than you expect to get back because ultimately it will provide you with a happier life.
3. Anything that life throws at you can be dealt with – This may sound a bit simple but it certainly rings true when you are going through a difficult stage in your life. Sure when I started to lose my vision in my eye it scared the crap out of me to think that there was a possibility that I could lose my vision in that eye completely. And when you are told that there is a possibility that the operation to correct it could result in a loss of vision in that eye as well things get real pretty damm quickly. After the initial worry and anxiety and uncertainty had set in I began to think things over and put things into perspective. I told myself I can deal with this. I have to deal with this because I am the only person that this affects directly. And having to deal with it made me realise that what ever comes our way in life can be dealt with, you just have to come to terms with the situation and take steps to deal with it.
4. Take action – you can not expect to achieve anything in life if you do not take action in the first place. I had forgotten this for a while during the time I spent in and out of hospital. It took me a while after my recovery to get back into the swing of things and remember that I will only see results and improvement if I take action. Taking on board my new found ideal of living life by the day I have designed a daily method of operation plan for my internet marketing plans. It details everything I need to do on a daily basis to progress further in my projects. I do have deadlines and plans and goals for what I want to achieve but breaking it down into a daily plan makes it more productive because if I achieve everything on the list everyday I know I have had a productive day and not wasted any of my time.
5. Deal with worry – As you can probably imagine this played a large part in some of 2009. Worrying about things is part of being human I guess. But what we do not often realise is that it can be very damaging to our health. I must say that I felt worse when I was actually worrying about what was going to happen, was I going to lose my eyesight? How would that change my life? And a whole host of other things. I had some sleepless nights because I was worrying about things so much, I lost my appetite and felt generally unwell.
After I was admitted to hospital I had a lot of time in my room and bed to be alone with my thoughts which to start with was not comfortable because the worry and thoughts in my head just went round and round and probably made things worse. After a while I began to deal with these thoughts. I put things into perspective and asked myself what the worst possible outcome could be. Once I had that outcome, I began to accept the fact that it may happen and I allowed myself to be ok with it. I prepared myself mentally to accept it if it happened and I began to realise that the worry had been removed because I had dealt with the situation in my mind. Although it was a scary time I removed a lot of the worry that was making feel worse than I actually was and I think that it helped me improve upon the worst situation if it were to happen.
I have learnt that it is important to deal with worry as soon as it starts to set in because if you don’t you run the risk of it affecting your overall health and that will only make you suffer in the long run.
Just to summarise, the five things I have learnt from 2009 are: Nothing in life is certain, live life for the day, anything that life throws at you can be dealt with, take action and deal with worry!
These experiences will certainly help me in 2010. Thanks for reading and good luck in the New Year.
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