Decide your story about 2021

This is episode 115 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now, your host, vitality and peak performance coach, Kari Schneider.

Hello, hello, hello.

Happy holidays, everyone.

It's one of my Christmas presents, so I thought I'd show you a little.

Power up your holidays. So happy holidays, everyone.

I hope you are all well today.

We're gonna do our mindset Monday because.

Just because it's the holidays doesn't mean.

Our minds take a break, doesn't mean.

We stop everything that really serves our best selves. So we're diving into deciding your story for 2020 and how this will help you immensely in 2021. So the reason that this is there for me is because it's this week, this big, huge week that everybody puts so much emphasis on, because it's either the first week of 2021 or the last week of 2020. And everybody thinks that this is so momentous in deciding what's going to happen for our future. And it's not. The truth is, is that this whole thing, this construct of time, is just something that we as humans have decided that will serve our structure in life. So this week isn't that much important than any other week. However, so many people right now want to get out of 2020 so badly that it's awful, it's horrible. We would just want to move on to 2021, but that's not the thing that's really going to serve us the best. So I'm going to give you a few tools to serve you going into 2021 in a way that can have you looking at your future from a story that serves you about 2020, because your story that you tell yourself, the story that you tell other people about 2020 is coming with, like it or not, how we think about it is what we're going to carry forward. This might be in two weeks, this might be in two years. When somebody asks you, what was it like for you? What was 2020 like for you? What did you think about that? What you decide what you think about that year? About 2020 is going to influence not only you, but the people that depend on you, the people that you serve, the people that are around you, the people that you influence in your life. So decide your story about 2020 now. And what I mean by that is not making stuff up. It's not glossing some icing over crap. That's not what I mean at all. But what I mean is taking a look at it, honestly taking a look at it, to really see everything that's there. So we bring our perception as we go forward. But what's the meaning that we want to make? It doesn't mean we twist it into a bed of roses. It doesn't mean that we turn it into something that it's not. We're not delusional about all the awfulness that went on. We are simply deciding what really impacted us. Be fully open and aware, because there's a whole lot of bad, there's a whole lot of good, there's a whole lot of failures, a lot of successes. There's fear, there's joy, there's all the things. All of that's been there in 2020. But if we ignore all the good things and only focus on the bad, then that's what we're going to bring with our story. If we focus on all the good things and ignore all the awful things, then that too is what we're going to bring. But if we look at the realistic view and really see how we grew or how we failed, whatever it may be, with openness and honesty and decide, then we can decide how we're going to influence our future year. So what I wanted to do is really serve you with some questions that you can ask yourself. This is something that I've been reflecting with so that I can take an honest look at this and go, how do I want to remember this year? How do I want to reminisce with my family about what went on? You know, if we really look at this, we've got a family that we've never not spent a holiday time together over the Christmas holidays. And we had to. We had a family member quarantined. And we found this out just a couple days before we were starting into our festivities. And so it changed everything for us. And we could make that mean a whole lot of things. And what we chose to do is simply pivot. Like a lot of us, all of us have had to pivot in some way or another, you know, And I think of people who expected to go to the Olympics. I think of people who expected certain things in their lives, people who have lost massive, massive financial losses because of business shutdowns. I think of people who have not been helped because they're homeless. I think of so many people who have been so impacted by this that it's immeasurable. How do we even measure this? But at the same time, when it comes to you and yourself and how you look Forward. What does that look like? So start to ask a few questions that really allow you to reflect in a way that's not just shining a light on the crap or trying to gloss things over, but really looking at how it grew you, how it served you, and how maybe you failed in certain ways, but really taking ownership and accountability of how you're going to view this scenario. So what is your current story of 2020? This is the question. What is your current story of 2020? Do you have a few lines that you say about it over and over? Is it something I've heard myself say, oh, what a shit show. Oh, I can't believe this. Or that I've heard myself say these things and I consciously understand that I may not want to keep saying that. That may not be something that I want to use to remember this past year. So what is your current story of 2020? Are you saying things like, this was the worst year ever. This was the hardest on my family. This caused us blank, blank and blank. But just write it down, pay attention. What is your current story about it? Because it's exactly that. It's a story. It's what you've decided to make it mean. For some people, it's their best financial year they've ever had. Their business took off on it because they're a delivery service, who knows? But it doesn't mean that they're wrong or bad. It just means that that's what occurred for them. What's the story you're making it for you? Here's the second question of the story that you currently have about your 2020. How does it serve you? Because there's a reason that we say the things and believe the things and make the things that we do. And typically the reason comes down to there's some way that it helps us. And I know that for me, if I started saying things about 2020, for me, it helped me understand, it helped me deal with the uncertainty, it helped me deal with the pain, it helped me deal with the fear by saying it was a shit show or saying that I couldn't believe that this happened to them or them or them, or saying how awful something was. It helped me deal with the pain and helped me deal with the uncertainty. And that's why that story was serving me. So take a look at what you have as your story about 2020 and how it's serving you right now, because acknowledging that is how you can go through creating the story that you want to carry forward. So what is your current story of 2020, how does this story serve you? And next is, what do you want your story to be about? 2020? Do you want it to be one of those stories that has the good and the bad and the right and the wrong and the failing and the successes? Do you want it to be a really learning experience story? And that's what is coming down for me, is what have I learned from this? What caused me to grow? How did we grow? What changed? What were some of the pains? And what did I learn from that? There's a lot, a lot of learning. So what do you want your story to be about? 2020? Not a fairy tale, but rather something that serves your future and how you want to remember this past year. Because the more you repeat that same story, that's going to become embedded, neurologically ingrained in your brain. How do you want to remember it? What will you want to repeat? What did you learn about the events? Because so much happened in the world, we had to expose ourselves to understanding things that perhaps we never understood before. What did you learn about the events? Maybe it was. Maybe it was the epic changes and protests around race in the world, especially in the US Maybe it was the pandemic and understanding more about immunology and viruses. What did you actually learn because of so much that happened? Maybe it was politics, because the world was riveted on what was happening politically in the US the elections. And how can what you learned. What did you learn about yourself? How can what you learned in 2020, how can it serve you in 2021? I know that one of the deliberate things that I want to think about 2020 is that I learned so much and that we as humans can overcome so much. There will always be awful things in the world, and we as humans can overcome. And we need more than anything. If there's one thing I've learned we need more than anything human connection. And that's one thing that I am so committed to, is human connection. And that's something that really became profound for me in 2020, is how much we need each other. So I've learned a lot. I'm not going through all my lessons at this point. This particular topic is simply about being deliberate and deciding what 2020 means to you. Decide what your story is about 2020, because that is what you're hauling into 2021. So be intentional about what you want to remember about this past year. I hope this serves you. I hope your holidays have been safe and warm and loving and just with the things that you need to nourish your body, mind and soul. So my heart is with you. Have a fantastic rest of your week. This is your mindset for this week. Go for it. I will see you soon.

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