{"id":4136,"date":"2021-05-10T14:23:40","date_gmt":"2021-05-10T06:23:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darylchow.com\/frontiers\/?p=4136"},"modified":"2024-01-12T23:11:04","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T15:11:04","slug":"looking-back-at-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darylchow.com\/frontiers\/looking-back-at-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking Back at 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

What’s essential is invisible to the eye.<\/strong>
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince<\/em>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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This is long overdue.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It’s end of April 2021, and I’m only beginning to be able to look back at the past year. I don’t know about you, but the first few months of 2021 moved pass me at the speed of light.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Clearly, 2020 is going down in history of the year of the pandemic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

(Note: This post isn’t about the experience of the pandemic. Feel free to listen to this webinar<\/a> where a couple of us were invited to speak on what we can learn from the COVID-19 experience ).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

For those who are familiar with the Frontiers of Psychotherapist Development (FPD)<\/strong>, I do an annual evaluation to see where I’ve been, so that I can get a sense of where I’m going.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Here’s the previous year’s reflections:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

2018<\/strong>
Private Thoughts (Part I)<\/a>
Personal Learnings (Part II)<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

2019<\/strong>
Personal Mistakes (Part I)<\/a>
Personal Learnings (Part II)<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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I’ve been using a template called Highlights in Weeks<\/strong> to document the main takeaways each week of the year.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

If you are interested in using the template, I’ve made a revised version of this, and you can download it for free. (note: I’ve printed it out as A2 size, so that it’s feasible to write on).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Download HIW Template<\/span><\/a><\/center>\r\n\r\n\r\n
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Here’s a snapshot of mine for 2020.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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And here are my 6 key “Reflect and Learn” (see bottom of the image “Reflect & Learn”):<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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1. WWMM<\/h3>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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When I looked back at 2020 and my previous 2 years of “highlights in weeks,” I realised that a good day often constitute these four parts:

i. Wake
ii. Write
iii. Move
iv. Music<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

i. Wake<\/h4>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Not that I have the luxury to sleep in, but when<\/em> I wake up and what<\/em> I do seems to have a correlate to how I experience the day.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

If I wake up after hitting too many snoozes on the alarm, it usually means that I don’t get to start the day on a good note. (mostly it’s getting the kids up and ready for school).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Given my temperament and the way I work, I am now accepting the fact that I have to wake up before everyone else does.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

This gives me the opportunity to be in a spacey reflective mindset as the day breaks, do some stretches (I have developed a lower back issue), and write (see the next point).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

ii. Write<\/h4>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

It has become obvious to me over the years that the highest level I can get in my work, not only in reaching out to others through the blogs in Frontiers<\/a> and Fullcircles<\/a> (for the general public), but writing really helps me sort out the mess in my head. (See point #10<\/a> in 2018’s reflection)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Most of the time, I really like the feeling of having written, but not the writing. Admittedly, this has gotten less painful over the years. I persist because the rewards of going through the process of writing has such as huge payoff for me, in terms of sharing ideas, but also sharpening my thinking. I am sure a messy non-linear thinker, and starring at the “cursor” cursing at me on a blank page (must be a reason why it’s called “cursor”), and letter by letter, word by word, paragraph by paragraph helping to take shape the ideas into something beyond what my head can hold all at once.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

(Sidenote: This is why I rarely start writing from a blank page. My note-taking habits have had a huge pay-off through the years. I talk more about this in the course Deep Learner<\/a>)<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Writing has been so important to me that this is the only thing I track using a shockingly powerful app called Beeminder<\/a> to help me stay on-track with my intentions to writing daily.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Beeminder: Stings that help<\/strong><\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Essentially, the app is free. But based on a commitment that I make from the outset, if I fall off-track with my writing goals, I get “stung” by Beeminder and I pay $5 to them. I’ve been doing this since July 2020 and I’ve slipped twice. I know, it’s irrational, but paying $5 is really different<\/em> from losing<\/em><\/strong> $5. (I dived more about the use of a Kahneman’s notion of “fear of a lose adversion” in the Deep Learner<\/a> course).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

iii. Move<\/h4>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

I never though I would have done this in a million years, but I bit the bullet and since the 3rd week of Feb this year, I’ve succumbed to the self-torture of joining a gym.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Many of you wouldn’t see joining a gym as a form of self-inflicted pain, but I do. I am not a gym kinda guy. I caved in only because the gym that’s 5mins away from me has a pool.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Here’s my plan:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n