 So I've been sitting here for like five minutes waiting to start the video because there's a dog barking outside and my rats are tearing Things up and chewing on our cage bars. I'm just gonna like trust that you guys care more about watching the video and less about Perfect sound quality. Yes. Okay. Hey beautiful people and welcome back I wanted to spend some time today sharing with you guys what I do in the new year And it's not like this is a tradition because it's literally the first year I'm doing this Last night I couldn't really sleep and so I got sucked down this like tunnel of YouTube videos of planning for 2019 and What actually caught my eye more than anything was reflecting on 2018 because I am a big advocate and big believer in how important it is to Process our past and be grateful for the things we can be grateful for and work through what we need to work through To be able to most effectively move forward in a healthy way And so that is what I'm doing this year more than like setting resolutions or anything like that So this morning I spent about an hour and a half doing five different exercises That helped me kind of frame the last year and really think about it and they left me feeling Really awesome actually and so I want to share those with you if you don't know what bullet journals are Don't have one I will link what I use in the description below. It's all on Amazon It's not that expensive bullet journals themselves are usually between like 10 and 20 bucks They last me a year the pens I use are like Three to five bucks each and then I just use colored pencils So it's really not that expensive you can go crazy with it or you can keep it super cheap You can do whatever you want with it So with that being said let's dive into the five things that I use to reflect on this last year that I feel really helped Me set up for the year that's coming So the first thing that I did is thank 2018 for everything that it brought into my life I'm not someone who thinks that like gratitude fixes absolutely everything I know that there are people who think that being grateful fixes every mental health problem in the world or everything You're struggling with I don't think that but I do think that it is incredibly important To keep in perspective and incredibly important to take time for and on a larger scale like on a yearly scale And so I treated 2018 almost like it was a person and thank it for very specific individual things Even some of the harder things one of the biggest things I thanked it for was showing me that I could make decisions like Big health decisions if you are following this channel at all and showing me that I could persevere through hard things And that I could stand up and speak in front of people even though I was really scared I did a lot of public speaking earlier in the year that Terrified me because it was on very personal topics taking some time to be grateful for like the good things and some of the Harder things felt really freeing and helped me kind of frame the year in a better light And I felt like I was able to kind of say bye to that year and instead of looking at it with any bitterness Though I'm sure there's still bitterness rooted somewhere in me Helped me look at it with gratitude instead of anger. So the second thing that I did this year was write down Happiest moments that I could remember I think this kind of helps us frame things that we want to continue to bring into our life and then new year And they weren't even things that I necessarily thought that they would be some of them were really really simple things like sitting in coffee shops With my husband and just like working alongside each other doing our own things and some of them were bigger things like going on little weekend trips to Cities that are close by or things like that and taking moment to think these were the times that I felt The most joy or felt the most peace driving around listening to really good audiobooks as I go about my work day things like that Help me reflect on what I want to continue to bring into my life and continue to bring into the new year The third thing I did was write down kind of the best of I wrote down a list of my favorite books this year My favorite movies this year my favorite music this year and the people who influenced me the most this year Not that I personally knew but kind of influencers people I watched a lot of people I listened to a lot people who I heard from a lot things like that I think it's kind of fun to keep a list of what we were interested in And so I also had a list of topics that I was really fascinated by like Scientology, I had like two months where I was absolutely fascinated by this idea and like is it a cult? Is it a religion? I apologize if anyone's a Scientologist and thinking of it as a cult upset you But you know some people suggest that and so I was just like looking into that because it was just a fascinating idea to me Then after that there was a while where I was fascinated by like morning routines And why those are so important and why people make so many videos about them and books and movies and everything And so I spent like a month Researching morning routines and why they matter and so I think it's kind of fun to be able to look back on what mattered to us At what points in our lives, and so I made a list of all of that books movies Influences and things I was interested in and music so the fourth and definitely the hardest thing that I did was right down kind of an 80 20 you probably heard of this but like 80% of the things that helped me and 20% of the things that didn't and this can be People that brought good things or not great things into your life The idea is kind of what brought the most joy and what brought the most stress And so if we look at the 20% it's like oh, maybe those things weren't great things to have in my life Or maybe those are people to to minimize or not necessarily cut out of your life, but to negate the influence of so to speak or Activities and then as we fill in we look at the 80% column Realize that those things are things that bring us life that bring us joy that we can continue to invest our time and our effort and our Mental power into I don't know about you But I find it really difficult to write down negative influences on me because I always try to spin things in a positive light. I Generally don't have any regrets because I always take something good from something, you know that kind of thing and so writing down Things that were negative or people that were negative. I had to really Make myself be honest with myself and really think about so if this is something you struggle with I really get it But when I actually took the time and made myself do it I Realize that there are some things in my life that maybe aren't great for me And there maybe are some people that aren't super healthy to be around a ton and So I did write those things down and I am going to work on Minimizing those things in my life last but not least I created a celebration column like things that I think were cool about me this year That I did like a stupid little one was going to a networking event Once a week for four weeks straight. This may sound very dumb But I have a really difficult time showing up to places and interacting with people if I don't like already Have a very specific purpose for being there and so I don't really know people at this thing It's just you just kind of show up and you're supposed to start talking to people And I made myself go and I made myself stay until I talked to one person and as soon as I did that I could leave and I did that consistently and I didn't die and so I wrote that down in my celebration column and you know giving a really difficult speech for me is something that I wrote down my celebration column and Being a leader in my Toastmasters group is something that I wrote down as as a win So the idea behind this page is big things small things anything to be glad about in yourself Things that you know you did a good job with things that were hard for you to overcome And you did things you persisted through things that you won at even if they're silly or small or huge All right, that is it for me guys. I hope that your new year is starting off wonderfully I really appreciate you listening and I would love to hear what you guys do to prepare for the new year Do you make resolutions? Is that the thing you always do does that work well for you? I would love to hear I have always been an epic failure at New Year's resolutions Which is why I just stopped doing them and started trying to kind of go in another direction And maybe I will try to do something along the lines of resolutions maybe later this month But I know right now that spending some time reflecting on the last year is something that was really good for me And really good for my mental health and so I thought I would take some time and share it with you guys Let me know if this kind of video is something that you're interested in I know a lot of people requested more like bullet journal kind of videos So let me know if you like this or not. I would love to hear from you as always I really appreciate all of your support and your kind comments. Thank you guys Please stay safe in the new year and I will talk to you soon. Bye