Top 10 things Not to do in New Year 2020

With lots of hopes, possibilities, challenges, smiles, difficulties, solutions, goals, achievement we have entered another new year.  After a complete assessment of goals, your new year’s resolution must be ready. Goals properly set, everything in place but very few people can achieve their goals with these resolutions. Never forget to err is human. This not-to-do list will certainly make you accomplish the goal. Humans live in a complex society with countless pressure. This pressure can be financial, professional, personal, etc. New Year 2020 will be much easy to deal with these pressures if you follow this list of Top 10 things not to do in 2020.

1. Don’t try to keep everyone happy

The year 2019 might have been full of frustration if you tried to keep everyone happy without being happy yourself. It is not practically possible to keep everyone happy. If you practice this in reality, what you would get is anxiety, depression, and pain. If you ask people to review your behavior towards them, none will have the same opinion. Their opinion will vary depending upon their feelings, thoughts, and perception. To be precise, according to their personality. Why be in mental discomfort for something that pushes you to alter your unique personality. When we try to please others, we lose ourselves. If you are no longer you, how can you be happy?  So, this year try not to please others, don’t give up on your identity. Making everyone happy is impossible. Just do things ethically.

2. Don’t expect others to understand you

2020 should bring you a step closer to self-love. For this to happen, you need to understand yourself first rather than expecting others to do the same. Honestly, none in this world can completely understand you. Okay, to elaborate this, I will brief you on the famous parable of the blind men and an elephant. It tells the story of a group of blind men and their discussion about an unknown animal elephant.  They have never seen an elephant before, but when they came across this giant animal, they visualized it according to their feeling of touch. Each was supposed to feel only one part of the elephant’s body. The one who touched its ear called it a kind of fan, one touching its side predicted it a wall. Another who touched the trunk said it to be like a thick snake. The blind men who felt its leg projected elephant as a pillar. Likewise, all had a different opinion based on their perception. Each blind man suspected the other to be wrong and had discord subsequently. What we learn from this story is humans predict things according to their perception and experience. To claim oneself right, they often discard others’ perceptions. Here no one was wrong all were partially right. 

Keeping this parable in mind always remember, that none can completely understand you. So, please don’t expect this from anyone. The journey of life for everyone is distinct. They never followed your path. Based on their experience, they will judge you. What you can do is shower unconditional love without the expectation of being understood.

3. Don’t hate yourself

Last year, some disappointments made you feel worthless. Even when the relationship was following a rough trajectory, it shook you. As long as you were performing well at your job, everything was ultimate. Then suddenly, one bad day and you were made a scapegoat for their blunder. You were having a perfect meal and someone straight off body-shamed you.  Everything temporary happened outside, but something substantial happened inside you. You started hating yourself for being worthless, dull, failure, ugly, etc. Being, very common this happens with all of us.  Self-hatred is a very destructive feeling. It can make you lonely, anxious, depressed, etc. This outward negativity around you cannot immediately vanish it can only subside by your attempt. For that, you need to be self-aware of your personality. You should not pay any heed to the outside negative thoughts. Now, its time to love and pamper yourself. The peace lies within you.

4. Don’t entertain toxic people

Toxic people can have any relation with you. They can be your boss, neighbor, colleague, partner, family, friend, etc. Sucking the energy out of you, they leave you bone-tired.  Full of complaints, jealousy, hatred, selfishness, these people often come across your path to judge you and make you feel low. They keep on criticizing without listening. Having a notion of being the best person alive on earth, they will try to make you their puppet. The blame game is what they do the best. Gossip is their favorite activity it satisfies their soul, seeing others in difficult situations.

As they lack the emotional balance, they disturb your tranquility. A toxin, if it is in the body,  it can still be removed,  but if it enters our mind,  it certainly cannot.  So this year be a watchdog of your happiness.  In order not to entertain them, you must be aware of the toxic people around you. Once you can figure out, start distancing yourself. If they spill toxicity, be sure to discard them all. Limit your conversations with them. Don’t involve them in your happiness and your life.

5. Don’t let the past bother you

Past can haunt you in innumerable ways.

Knock Knock!!

Who’s there?

PAST

And your life is all sluggish. For some, it is the past from their childhood that spook. Others can have an aching heart holding their partner’s sexual past.  Few can have traumatic professional past, etc. Bothering about the past can give you stress, anxiety, depression, and loneliness. Answer to why you shouldn’t disturb yourself lies in your present. What’s gone is gone, and now nothing can be done about it. Your experience is your own, and no one felt the same way as you did.  It’s in your hands to restore yourself to normal.  It is very tough to let go of feelings of anger, anxiety, shame, confusion, guilt, disgust, fear, etc.  We all have one life, don’t let your past hold you back. Cultivate good habits, keep yourself busy, find a hobby, love yourself, and steadily your life will start changing. Believe in yourself. Forgive and forget for the future so bright. When you are all done, no past will bother you.

This time,

Knock Knock!!

Who’s there?

PAST

Sorry, I am too busy.

A day will come when your present will build a beautiful future, with no remains of the past.

6. Don’t stick to the failures

Where some people are celebrating success, you are still sticking to your failures. It is not that you are not thinking of success, you do think, but your approach is doubtful. The doubt here is coming from your past failure. You have not reaped the rewards of success. This made you doubt your capability and question your conscience. This can continue for a couple of months. Before this failure turns a monster consuming you, learn about your failure. We often fail as we don’t know the process of doing the thing correctly. In spite of sticking to the failure and doubting your potential, you should learn from your failure – What, Where and Why.  What was your mistake?

Where did you go wrong?

Why did it happen?

Once you have the answers to these, go ahead fixing the problem. Learn more, make mistakes, and repeat.  I am sure it works, it has worked for me even. Your time should not be wasted repenting. Remember, each one of us fails.  Failures are our teacher, they come with a reward called lesson. From today onwards, don’t stick to your failure, be loyal to yourself, identify the rights and wrongs. Choose the path you love, and it’s your success.

 7. Don’t take a back seat, drive your own life

Decisions play a vital role in our life. Life decisions that are taken by parents, friends or someone else are according to their experience. As we all know every person can experience the same thing differently, so their decisions might not be appropriate for you. Life is something that you own. You are completely responsible for all that is happening in your life.  If you have your life steering, you know what’s right and wrong. You can make choices. Here, I am not telling you to go against someone, you can always have discussions. Decisions made according to your choice, considering the pros and cons always have a good outcome.  Taking your life decisions, you become independent, you know your inner voice.  You spend time in knowing  yourself, as a result, you have self-control giving you maturity. This way you know your life’s purpose and most importantly, you will never have to blame anyone for all those wrong happenings in your life. Driving your life instead of being on the back seat gives you happiness and contentment. Don’t be late to drive your own life as life happen once.

8. Don’t bound your happiness to anyone or anything

Happiness is subjective, and it depends on the person’s perspective.  What can be happiness for you may not be for others.  Meeting someone can give you happiness, but only if meeting with that individual showers happiness it is binding. It simply means your happiness is tied to the person. You feel elated in the presence and miserable without, showing your dependency.

Similarly, happiness bound to things is damaging. New car, iPhone, PlayStation, camera, etc. can have an accident, breakage,  etc causing emotional instability.  Don’t give someone else the power to make you happy.  Be happy for all that you have big or small. Happiness comes from learning new things, having fun, adventure. Evolve yourself, do activities making you happy without binding yourself to anyone or anything.  Don’t chase happiness, true happiness lies within. It starts with you, the harmony within can create perfect music of happiness. It’s human nature, to want more, expectation can only postpone happiness. Don’t delay it, create your happy world.

9. Don’t be addicted to social media

In this digital era, we all love our presence on social media. With several attractive features, it tempts us to spend our time. Being enthralled by the activities going on social media, we never realize our addiction towards it. If you spend a good amount of time on social media, it’s time to take a pause. Social media impacts our physical and mental well being. Spending hours on posting stories, updating, liking, tweeting, commenting, etc can keep you awake for a fairly long time resulting in irregular or less sleep. It also gives you stress, anxiety, depression, and mood swings. Stressing much on social media gives real-time stress.  Pictures posted with the hope of getting likes and comments keeps you glued to the device longing appreciation. Highly edited photos you see can make you feel worse about your body. It develops low self-esteem and affects your thoughts negatively. Updating daily activities might seem a routine but the reality is far away. Spending plenty of time taking a perfect selfie may make you feel vulnerable.  Social media creates a fake world that is very different from reality. If you consider yourself addicted to social media, it’s time to take back its control, limit usage, disable push notifications, update occasionally, etc. Any habit takes time to go, be patient, and keep  yourself at a distance from social media. Your physical and mental well being is more important than social media presence.

10. Don’t take health for granted

We all have heard the saying, “Health is wealth,” many times. Having heard it often, we still neglect our health until the time we lie on bed again in illness. We only contemplate it on someone’s funeral or at the time of our sickness. We live in an era, where matches are made by swiping, updates are made on a click, speech recognition performs the task on your command, pictures are photoshopped, and ready to cook fixes the meal. Where every task is so quick and easy, maintaining our health remains the difficult one.

You can encash many things for money, but health, unfortunately, doesn’t fall in this category. We always think success is when you reach the top in your career, have a highly paid job, and what else one need in this quick-paced life except for the name and fame. In this race for success, we rush and forget to slow down till our body alarms us to do so. If you take health for granted, please, focus on your health the most important of all. Always remember a healthy body will let you earn as much you want,  but an unhealthy body will surely take all that you earned so far. A healthy body is a source of peace and happiness. Prioritize your health and start making small changes towards a healthy you.

February has already started, and as shown in the recent statistics, 80% give up on their new year resolutions by this month. To all my readers, I don’t want you to be the one. Give my Top 10 things NOT  to in New Year 2020 a try.  It will simplify things for you. I can assure, it will work as it has worked for me.

Wishing  you all a very happy new year 2020.