This is question #5 of the Year End Countdown Challenge held in Dec 2012, where we count down to the new year with 13 reflective questions. The challenge is now over but you can do the tasks in your own time. Visit the overview page for all the challenge tasks.
Welcome to Day 9 of the 2013 Countdown Challenge! :D
2013 Countdown, Question #5…
Questions for the 13-day, 13-question countdown so far:
- #13: How has your year of 2012 been? | 179 Comments | Post Your Response
- #12: What are 12 things you love about year 2012? | 121 Comments | Post Your Response
- #11: What were your lowest points this year? Why? | 133 Comments | Post Your Response
- #10: What lessons have you learned from those low points? | 85 Comments | Post Your Response
- #9: What could you have done better this year? (Be honest with yourself) | 65 Comments | Post Your Response
- #8: What can you do to ensure you don’t repeat the same behaviors in 2013? | 43 Comments | Post Your Response
- #7: What are you most grateful for in 2012? | 39 Comments | Post Your Response
- #6: What are your biggest accomplishments this year? | 16 Comments | Post Your Response
Today’s question, question #5, is:
What lessons have you gained in 2012?
Your Task
- Reflect and answer today’s question. There’s no word limit – whether minimum or maximum. Write as few or as many words as you want. It’s all up to what you want to express!
- Share your answer. After you are done writing, copy and paste your answer in the comments area and post it there.
- Check out other participants’ answers. Other participants will be sharing their answers too, so feel free to read and reply to their answers.
Look forward to reading your answers! :)
(After you are done, proceed to #4: What are your biggest goals for 2013?)
(Images: Field, Girl by the sea)
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Life is to short
You don’t have to experience everything to know it isn’t right
God gave us two ears and two eyes to observe and listen and one mouth to speak
Love does exist don’t give up on it
Procrastination is pointless because at the end of the day the task is still there
don’t dwell in the past
listen to wisdom
be careful what you speak out into the word : life lies in the power of the tongue
not everyone is your friend
hurt people …. hurt… people
my mom does what she does because she loves me
The lessons I have learned this year are lessons that we’re always told, but don’t always listen to. The thing is though, I’ve slowly learned what they mean and how to apply them. I’m still learning, of course, but I’ve made some major progress in actually understanding and accepting these lessons:
Be yourself: Figure out what it means to be you, what’s important to you, the kind of person you want to be. Aim to achieve that in everything you do. You will always have yourself, so be the best version of yourself you can. Stay strong for whatever you believe in. Don’t compare yourself to others, no one is like you and you are not like them.
Do your best: Commit to whatever it is you want to do, to be good at. Put in your best effort, and plan to allow yourself the time to do so.
Always strive for growth: Try new things, see if you like them. Take risks. Aim to do your best whenever possible, never settle. Always see what you can do to become better, and aim for it. Learn everything you can, be forever curious.
Stay positive: Things go wrong, things get hard, everything can always become better or worse. Look for the positives because the negatives will be working much harder for your attention. Remember to take the time to relax and take a break from your worries, but make sure you’re only worrying about things you can do something about.
We’re all gonna die: Strive to make a positive impact while you’re here. Life’s too short to worry and panic over things we can’t change, over the mistakes we’ve made. Keep moving forward and do your best.
Of course there’s probably more, but this is what I can think of right now, and I believe they comprise the biggest lessons I’ve learned.
”Always work with facts,for the human mind is filled with bias. Move with the tide for the need is always filled with time,Nothing goes for nothing,Self control avoids disaster”.
I have learned to:
* Never leave today’s work till tomorrow
* ‘From little things, big things grow’- Appreciate little things and never expect too much
* Hard work pays off
* Enjoy the Now and whatever in the past stays in the past
* Focus on my short and long term goals and tick them off one by one :dance:
Life is SHORT! You never know when it will be over so don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today.
I have always known I am a very capable woman and yet i have been scared to move forward with a business. I’m learning to trust that it is okay if things don’t work out the first time. I really fear failure. I had never felt I failed at anything until my divorce and now I fear failure. I realize I am choosing to focus on the negative rather than the positive. Huge thing to work on, but now I see it.
#2013Countdown, #5: What lessons have you gained in 2012?
– Dreams come true when they become goals. :D
– Miracles happen and we are capable of far more than we think is possible.
– “Being” is as important as “doing”.
– We are here to experience, give, receive and share LOVE, joy and happiness.
– Happiness and the desire to grow expand and show our best to the world is our natural state.
– We need to be gentle with ourselves and take care of our mind, heart and body EVERY SINGLE DAY.
– We need to set limits to other people, including our intimate partners and family. They will treat us well if we will speak up when appropriate and show them HOW we want them to LOVE us, what is acceptable and what is not.
– We need to accept our critical, judgemental and sceptical part and let it go… :angel:
– Other people will surprise us and show us ALL they are capable of, if we trust them fully and acknowledge their unique talents and beauty (it feels right even though sounds far too serious and words are too BIG). ;)
To learn when to let go somethings are just not worth the effort its okay to give up n quitting doesnt mean that u r a loser just means that u are looking at better things
To be more happy and satisfied with urself rather than finding it externally
Keep smiling always having a frown neither helps nor makes a difference
Try doing things only that u love be selfish to urself
Nothing is certain n things and plans keep changing, u just need to go with the flow and adapt to whatever the situation is
Keep smiling and carry on – even through the difficult moments, time heals all, as long as you try and keep positive and ride it out.
Burying your head in the sand does nothing at all – best to face things head on, no matter how scary.
The more you give to others and help them – be it time or money or whatever – the more you somehow seem to get back.
And life is so short; worrying does nothing but ruin moments you’ll never get back.
• Light comes after the passing of the darkest hour of the night.
• Life is way too precious to be broken over lost love, dreams, or relations.
• You have to carry yourself for success at all times.
• if I am not getting promoted or getting an increment it could be because I have silently slipped into status quo and the only way out is to continuously keep developing myself professionally, in knowledge, skill-set, physical appearance, and personal development.
Learned persistence is the key.. if you want to achieve something keep doing it no matter what.. all days are not the same, usually the initial excitement fades away soon, sticking on to what you are doing no matter what is simply whats required to achieve your goal
Some important lessons I learned this year:
Happiness is a choice.
Removing negative things from my life boosts happiness.
To accept that things won’t always go my way, but that I am capable of bouncing back.
That I am the one responsible for my happiness.
Don’t assume
Watch who you trust
No matter what you do where you live you should have an identity of your own.
You should be able to live alone n not be lonely
you should have financial independence
happiness should be found with in yourself
always expect less and accept more
giving is more important than receiving
focus focus focus
learn the difference between live and survive
teach atleast one kid educate atleast one human
Learning is a life long process
and again stand for something or fall for anything..
I have recently discovered the site and its awesome beautifully written. Congratulations to celes for the wonderful work . Happy new year to you and hope you inspire andmotivate
The lessons I have gained in 2012:
– To cherish my alone time
– To show and do the things I wanted to do regardless of what others may say or think, so I won’t regret it later on not doing it
– To save money for the long term
What lessons have you gained from 2012?
Some friends come and go and others become members of your family.
It is hard to make decisions about the people you have in your life but sometimes you don’t realise how much they are hurting your soul and being until you let them leave your life.
If you accept challenge and hardship in your life as a positive learning experience, there is much to be gained as long as you are open to it.
Hard work pays off.
Lessons learned from 2012 include not being overly trusting of strangers. I can be gullible sometimes and this leads to financial mistakes.
It occurs to me that a lot of my answers have been either interlocking or the same. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
I’ve learned this year that I’m capable of sustained hard work. I’m a smart guy, and learned early on in school that I could get decent grades with next to no work, so I didn’t work hard. Got to college and being smart wasn’t enough to keep me a float – I didn’t last a year. Went into the Navy, where I *HAD* to work, but even there, and in my subsequent jobs over the last 15 years, I’ve done… enough. This year was my first full year of classwork on my Return To College (local community college, 2-3 classes per semester while working fulltime at a 12-hour rotating-shift job), and I’ve maintained an excellent GPA. Though I’ve learned that 3 classes a semester is not a good idea :). But it took me over 40 years to get used to the idea that I can’t just coast. Now that I know that, now that I really BELIEVE it, it’s almost like a door opened or something. Not just for school, but for everything I need to do in my life – I need to lose weight and increase my physical fitness, I need to get my degree, I need to get a dayshift job. These things are now, apparently, within my reach because I have finally internalized that I have to WORK at them.
I’ve also learned, finally, that it’s okay for me to have needs and even desires, and that those needs and desires are just as valid, just as important as anyone else’s. That it’s okay for me to work on those wants and needs for ME. I never really understood that before, but it’s REALLY IMPORTANT. It might seem basic, even a “well, DUH!” kind of concept to you – but I never had that. I always felt like I had to avoid even a hint of selfishness, and as a result, my wants and needs fell by the wayside and were not met. Because of that, I got bitter and angry because, well, I was putting all my work into others’ wants and needs, and no one was meeting mine. And those others didn’t especially like me when I was bitter and angry. Then, again, kind of like a door opening, it came to me – I *CAN* spend time and effort on myself. I can work on changes, not for others but for ME – and that’s okay. I can do things for no other reason than because it’s what *I* want. Being a little more selfish might, ironically, make me a better, nicer person.
To go with the flow of life. When I miscarried, my mom said to me ‘we don’t know what’s going to happen in life, we just have to make the most of it. Look at your grandma’ That’s when I learned my grandma was diagnosed with breast cancer at 101, now 102. My mom said in spite of this, that her mom still acts as if nothing’s wrong. That’s inspirational.
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