This year I got to live my dream

What was it? For years, while being busy on the day to day activities, experiences, work, etc., I always fantasised with having enough time (weeks or months) to study courses in the areas I wanted, read books, to gain skills, to create content, products, reflections, images, videos, writings, websites, applications. To explore my mind, helping it get to the limits of learning and creation. 

I’m really happy I set the space for it, and gave the opportunity to myself to do just that. Taking months of very light work so I could organise my own learning and creation, and it’s been almost a whole year.

It’s a bittersweet feeling. On the one hand, I’m very grateful I had the chance to live a sort of “year gap” in which I focused on my personal growth, and that on its own is a great accomplishment, I didn’t fail that promise I made to myself while working hard for years. That moment finally came, I respected the promise and I’m grateful for it.

On the other hand, I learnt so much from it. It’s not just to have the time to do what we wish for. I thought I would be able to study 8 hours in a row like if it was “my job” for example. I’m practical terms, that’s really hard to maintain the focus and deep concentration for that long, it’s not about “hours sitting on table” it’s about real learning and creation. So I learn that having the time is different from actually using all that time in the way I wanted. Therefore achieving results that were below my expectations.

I learnt more about how motivation and creativity work. Being motivated in the medium long term requires a lot. Suddenly I had the time which I wanted so much for years, but found myself not feeling better and getting lonelier. I learnt that I need to provide a group of circumstances to actually try to get the best from myself. Doing exercise was a great game changer. Opening more, both sharing my thoughts and listening to my partner was very important. Putting effort on nurturing friendships and family bonds was one of the areas which took me long to realise and made a great change. Therefore, I was initially disciplined for my studies and I thought that would offer great results, but I found myself without motivation and creativity which was not a good feeling. I learnt that we need to provide ourselves with a group of conditions to maximise our potential for learning and creativity. Once I made more progress in my personal relationships and I did more exercise, that helped a lot to provide the conditions for motivation and creativity.

I learnt that not all time of the day is equal. At least in my case, I know I have one chip a day to try my best shot. It is often in the morning after my morning routine, for around two hours, for some reason, that’s my most productive time, most creative time, I feel able to have great ideas, visualise them, create plans, it all looks possible, great work get out of this time. Therefore, I learnt this is my most valuable moment of everyday and I should be wise deciding in what to use it. It feels great by the way, it’s a moment of inspiration and flow. 

I learnt that it’s really hard to maintain the motivation after a couple of weeks if the things that we create don’t have any consistent practical use for us or others. I was so excited gaining skills in website development, creating projects that no one was really using, so while it helps learn more, at some point the motivation starts vanishing as we don’t see any practical use for those things we are creating, making it feel meaningless and without purpose, which lower the motivation to keep going. So, the more practical use others or us can give to what we create, the better it will reinforce our motivation to continue.

I learnt that financial constraints come sooner or later. My plan was to use some of the savings from the work done in previous years, while doing part time work, then have enough time for study and creation while maintaining a sort of basic lifestyle, no fancy stuff, just paying the rent, food, and some basic social activities. That was my vision of a rich life, not where I spent a lot, quite the opposite, freeing myself from spending, and being rich in the time I was allowing myself for self development and growth. However, sooner or later the financial balance started putting me on the side in which that basic income was not enough to cover life expenses. My lesson about it? I don’t know it yet, I just know that it was bound to happen, it was just a matter of time but I’m still grateful for the nearly six months I’ve been allowed to live this dream. I’ll soon start pursuing jobs that provide me with more consistent income and try to find ways to keep doing progress in my own personal development.

I learnt that setting goals accurately it’s not an easy thing to do. There is a reason why many of us create goals that quite soon get forgotten. It requires to have a holistic understanding of the variables in place. I have got better at it in financial undertakings, however still struggle in the ones about learning skills and creating useful products. I had very high expectations of what I could learn and create if I was given the chance to have a few months of learning, training and creation. While what I learnt and created didn’t match my expectations, and doesn’t have regular use for others, I also should be kind to myself, as over 10 courses in website development, web applications, coding, and marketing were created each of them with a project, plus progress in other areas as well. Setting our own goals and having a good plan (which means a good understanding of the variables in place) is a great skill that needs training. 

I learnt that my biggest joy comes from visualising things I could create, create them, share them with others, which in term I believe inspire them to do more of what they like. So it comes from being inspired, being creative, create those things, and then the impact in has on people, I just would like that more people could find value on it for themselves. 

My second biggest joy comes from guiding people in the process to achieve what they want. It has several stages, first it is about analyse the past to understand the present base on facts, then about going deeper and really see where the motivation come from, know what are those main variables that affect the outcome, providing the right tools for measuring ourselves and our progress, and setting appropriate goals with milestones to check and adjust if necessary so the final goal is achieved. I’ve guided this process for a few people with some techniques I’ve both learnt from books, knowledgeable people, and others developed and tested myself. So one of my biggest joys is seeing how a mix of all those learnings can in some way transform into creating structural change for some people in their lives about how they approach finances, mental wellbeing, motivation and specific goals.

Through my experience this year I often wandered about a kind of model I could follow so I could maximise my chances of achieving goals, but not the expense of something else. For example, I did studied and created more, but later realised my social life and personal relationships were suffering, which affected me, so I had to take care of that first before I dare to try other things. And similar things happened in regards to nutrition, exercise, finances and so on. I could try to achieve goals but it was often at the expense of something else. If I did more progress in one area then I was often neglecting another one. Therefore, I often wandered if I could come up with a model which helps me monitor my general well-being, like an app that represents myself in all main areas of life and is actually accurate in what it shows versus reality. That’s how I came up with a model that is still in progress and testing, but that excites me a lot, I reflect on it almost daily to test its relevance. I basically want to put there the main areas that determine our wellbeing and think of a correct mix that maximises our general level of fulfilment and contentment. All of that while having a tool that helps us monitor that process and also achieve what we want to achieve on the way. 

I call this The 8 Bodies model, because while we usually only see the physical body of people, there others that equally important, it’s just that we don’t see them as easily as we see our physical body but they are very much there. These 8 bodies are: physical body, mental body, emotional body, spiritual, social, financial, professional, and both self awareness and self development. I proposed those ones as the main ones based on a research about what are the main areas of life, and based on what most authors in the topic focus about. Each of those bodies has their categories and the idea I to break them down to specific activities that we can do in our day to day which improve our health in each of those bodies. For example there are factors such as nutrition, exercise, sleep, medical checkups, emotions, stress, self compassion, intellectual stimulation, continuous learning, mental clarity, purpose, values, meaning in life, gratitude, spiritual practices, relationships with partner, family, friends, community, volunteering, financial stability, financial literacy for investment, debts management, professional growth and skills development. Those are examples of categories and they would be break down into specific activities that can be done in a daily basis such as taking cold showers, doing an exercises routine, writing a gratitude journal, consciously choosing what to eat, cycling to work, call family members, study a class of something, walk after lunch to improve digestion, drinking water, meeting with a friend, joining a group with some similar interest, practicing meditation, and so on. While it might look overwhelming to see it all in this way, that’s why it is a challenge, because there are many micro activities we do everyday, and there are also some anti habits we do which rob us of the chance to do more progress in finding an appropriate balance of activities that maximises our chances for general wellbeing and happiness. We can leave it on their own and hope for the best, or we can acknowledge that there is some science behind and many of this practices offer great results to improve our lives, the more we learn and practice the better we live which tends to be contagious for those who surround us, meaning they also benefit from it.

So, that was one of the main results of this year’s reflections and a few years of learning a lot in the topic plus trying myself and testing many of those practices. The 8 Bodies model is still in development and testing, however I envision it as a tool that we can have at hand to maximise our general well-being, fulfilment, motivation, joy, peace of mind, inspiration and health. It is not meant to be a one thing fits all. While I believe we all share some common aspects, it should be developed and tested for each particular individual to meet personal needs. 

My final conclusion is that, while I didn’t meet my own expectations for this year, I can see after some time there are many lessons learnt, the motivation to continue is still strong, which is the best sign (I have felt before in other times without motivation and that’s not good at all, we really need to feel like we are making progress in the things that motivate us). So, while many things haven’t been going as planned, there are also some very good outcomes, I’m deeply grateful for this opportunity as I’ve got to live my dream and not just fantasise about it. I wish for others to also provide themselves with the opportunity to do that something they fantasise about.

Sergio, using my two hours chip of this day for a year reflection.