“Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.”
Buddha
As I indicated last year, I prefer to start my NYR around Thanksgiving so I have a 6 week jumpstart to fix what doesn't work and fine-tune things before the New Year so I'm already in full-gear by then. Here is last year's post and a few weeks ago I already listed the things I'm consistently grateful for here. I'll spend another post on the most salient lessons learned this year, but I want to spend this post reassessing 2013.
Overall, I feel as if I had a productive year. Without realizing, I read about 25 books this year which I'm very proud of (and have never done before) and I am thankful for having open access to information (and Amazon Prime!) which allowed me to do so. I am also incredibly proud that I made the decision to do graduate school. The final decision/process was incredibly impulsive, but this was something I had thought about for many years so I'm really glad that I just bit the bullet, applied, and went and I'm so grateful that my life has eased down and worked itself out here. On that note, I still cannot believe that in 3 weeks I somehow managed to not only complete my research project (an endeavor that appeared to be at a road-block for the longest time and broke-through just in time while putting in 90+ hours each week) and also pack, ship, and move my entire life half-way across the country all by myself without help from anyone. (This was madness in its finest form since I'd come home around midnight, pack all my stuff for 4 hours since I arranged FedEx to come in the morning and then after getting in a fight with my concierge I had to hire a TaskRabbit to sit next to the concierge booth and guard my stuff until FedEx arrived and only have 4 hours to sleep before going back to the lab to finish.) I love and thrive being so insanely busy and feel an incredible rush of adrenaline to have a lifestyle where I'm preoccupied towards something big 90 hours/week. Additionally, this might be seem like a small victory in comparison, I learned how to cook meat for the first time in my life. This really was a huge deal for me as I've never cooked a proper chicken before and I not only successfully cooked a chicken but I learned to do it all on my own. So yes, it is possible (thanks to Google) to truly be an Independent Woman. (Capital I, capital W.) After everything, I feel reborn.
Here's the breakdown of my specific resolutions from last year:
1. Have an undefeated mind and conquer pain. -I don't think this is something I will ever cross off my list, but I definitely tried and will always need to keep trying.
2. Stability --YES! Somehow amidst the chaos that ensued in Boston (the terrible aftermath of the marathon, lockdown, snowstorms, heat waves, moving misery etc...) I managed to adhere to my schedule a good 60-70% of the time which is more than I can say for previous years.
3. Stop impulse purchasing (to the best of my ability during hypomania). -Oh goodness no, but I've made this a priority for 2014 and am trending quite well so far.
4. No excuses, no exceptions. Always play like a champion. -Yes and no. This is hard to quantify.
5. Deliberate practice. Everyday. -YES. Not everyday, but my practice matrices and wonderful literature that I've read to help guide me have really helped make me better.
6. Care -Goodness, not even sure what I meant by this, but my current interpretation is for others and the world and I would say yes. I'm significantly more conscious (of both others and the environment.)
Buddha
As I indicated last year, I prefer to start my NYR around Thanksgiving so I have a 6 week jumpstart to fix what doesn't work and fine-tune things before the New Year so I'm already in full-gear by then. Here is last year's post and a few weeks ago I already listed the things I'm consistently grateful for here. I'll spend another post on the most salient lessons learned this year, but I want to spend this post reassessing 2013.
Overall, I feel as if I had a productive year. Without realizing, I read about 25 books this year which I'm very proud of (and have never done before) and I am thankful for having open access to information (and Amazon Prime!) which allowed me to do so. I am also incredibly proud that I made the decision to do graduate school. The final decision/process was incredibly impulsive, but this was something I had thought about for many years so I'm really glad that I just bit the bullet, applied, and went and I'm so grateful that my life has eased down and worked itself out here. On that note, I still cannot believe that in 3 weeks I somehow managed to not only complete my research project (an endeavor that appeared to be at a road-block for the longest time and broke-through just in time while putting in 90+ hours each week) and also pack, ship, and move my entire life half-way across the country all by myself without help from anyone. (This was madness in its finest form since I'd come home around midnight, pack all my stuff for 4 hours since I arranged FedEx to come in the morning and then after getting in a fight with my concierge I had to hire a TaskRabbit to sit next to the concierge booth and guard my stuff until FedEx arrived and only have 4 hours to sleep before going back to the lab to finish.) I love and thrive being so insanely busy and feel an incredible rush of adrenaline to have a lifestyle where I'm preoccupied towards something big 90 hours/week. Additionally, this might be seem like a small victory in comparison, I learned how to cook meat for the first time in my life. This really was a huge deal for me as I've never cooked a proper chicken before and I not only successfully cooked a chicken but I learned to do it all on my own. So yes, it is possible (thanks to Google) to truly be an Independent Woman. (Capital I, capital W.) After everything, I feel reborn.
Here's the breakdown of my specific resolutions from last year:
1. Have an undefeated mind and conquer pain. -I don't think this is something I will ever cross off my list, but I definitely tried and will always need to keep trying.
2. Stability --YES! Somehow amidst the chaos that ensued in Boston (the terrible aftermath of the marathon, lockdown, snowstorms, heat waves, moving misery etc...) I managed to adhere to my schedule a good 60-70% of the time which is more than I can say for previous years.
3. Stop impulse purchasing (to the best of my ability during hypomania). -Oh goodness no, but I've made this a priority for 2014 and am trending quite well so far.
4. No excuses, no exceptions. Always play like a champion. -Yes and no. This is hard to quantify.
5. Deliberate practice. Everyday. -YES. Not everyday, but my practice matrices and wonderful literature that I've read to help guide me have really helped make me better.
6. Care -Goodness, not even sure what I meant by this, but my current interpretation is for others and the world and I would say yes. I'm significantly more conscious (of both others and the environment.)
7. Remove/minimize encounter with life toxins--YES and on multiple levels.
8. Improve cholesterol to "best" range for LDL and improve vitamin D levels to well within the range.-I won't know this one until Feb 6th since Swimming procrastinated on scheduling her annual physical, but I guess this buys me 2 more months to improve my health.
9. Resolve-to be better everyday? YES.
10. Resilience: Fall Down Seven times, Get up eight-more like fall down 7000 times and get up 7001. YES.
11. Grit-YES.
12. Diet: Minimize sugar intake. Sugar is a killer. Eat fresh things and eat 3 meals per day.--Yes and no. This is a battle, but I am trying everyday. I am on basically an entirely fresh-food diet especially with my return to the kitchen.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
8. Improve cholesterol to "best" range for LDL and improve vitamin D levels to well within the range.-I won't know this one until Feb 6th since Swimming procrastinated on scheduling her annual physical, but I guess this buys me 2 more months to improve my health.
9. Resolve-to be better everyday? YES.
10. Resilience: Fall Down Seven times, Get up eight-more like fall down 7000 times and get up 7001. YES.
11. Grit-YES.
12. Diet: Minimize sugar intake. Sugar is a killer. Eat fresh things and eat 3 meals per day.--Yes and no. This is a battle, but I am trying everyday. I am on basically an entirely fresh-food diet especially with my return to the kitchen.
What are my 2014 resolutions? Well all of them frame around the idea of being a more true individual in every aspect of my life for the purpose of better serving my future patients.
1. Confidence! (How fortuitous that I am watching the real Sound of Music and this song comes on.)
2. Consistency
3. Stop impulse purchasing/online shopping. Darn you Amazon Prime and your convenience (as I just 1-click purchased 6 boxes of Matzos.)
3. Stop impulse purchasing/online shopping. Darn you Amazon Prime and your convenience (as I just 1-click purchased 6 boxes of Matzos.)
4. Assertiveness (Lean IN here I come!)
5. Consistently improving performance.
6. Continue having an undefeated mind and conquering pain.
7. Apply to medical school (for real this time, goodness me it's now on my blog so I finally have to do it!) Admittedly I have been in fear of the 60% rejection rate statistic but that will never change (and will probably get higher) so I just need to go for it next year. Furthermore some of the best physicians I know had to reapply and they are some of my role models and ended up just fine. From what I know and have heard, this process is daunting and transformative but also a great deal of luck is involved and perhaps even a crapshoot. The fact that 60% are rejected each year really only indicates that some great physicians are delayed by 1 year. Thus, when I do #7 I must keep in mind #8!
8. Grit/Resolve.
9. Be Fearless everyday.
9. Be Fearless everyday.
10. Serenity.
11. Eloquence/abstain from profanity. I would like to get back to being more language-appropriate. Boston was a tough city and I think a way I coped with things was with foul language. According to this my dialect is from Boston/Worcester, MA and Glendale, CA and the exact opposite of Cleveland (how bizarre eh? Apparently the first 20+ years of my life growing up in Michigan made no difference in my conversation habits.)
12. Stay within a budget--this is more because I really don't want to be a physician that isn't conscious of budgets especially since more individuals have access to healthcare it is a reality that my patients may not be able to afford every top standard quality of care available and I would like to already be equipped to strategize how to work around that for myself and eventually for them.
13. Weekly meal planning (I half-ass this but would like to get better and more consistent!)
14. Improve cholesterol to "best" range for LDL and improve vitamin D levels to well within the range.
15, 12,000 steps per day.
Thanks again to all the readers who keep this blog alive. I will definitely be blogging about more health-related and medical things to come but I'll always be sure to keep things fun and informative!
HAPPY NEW YEAR
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