The 10 Most Valuable Lessons of 2022
It was an exciting year full of challenges, successes, and a lot of lessons learned along the way. In today's episode, I share with you the 10 most valuable lessons I learned in 2022.
In This Episode, You Will Learn About:
Redefining Success
The right time to chase your dreams
Self-investment is the best investment
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Life Lessons from 2022
2022 was a great year for many reasons. Did you hear I wrote a book? Yep, that’s right. I share the details of my journey, overcoming big obstacles in life and where I’m at today. Some of the successes, the failures, and the lessons that I’ve learned firsthand that have helped me achieve extraordinary success in my life. I talk about how to develop the grit, resilience, and courage to thrive in all areas of your life. I share success stories from some of my clients, and everything in the books is to help you succeed in your life as well, to advance in your career while also having a balanced life. I’m a strong believer that you can have it all: a successful career, a family, and happiness, and I share how to do in the book.
The book isn’t due until Spring of 2023, and it will be available on Amazon, but until then to tide you over, I’m sharing with you some of my top 20 most valuable learning lessons from 2022.
The first is, it’s time to define success on our own terms. Society has taught us that success looks like having a prestigious job title, how many followers we have on social media, the size of our house, the fancy car that we drive. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy nice things, but it’s time we start asking ourselves, what does success really mean to us? I spent most of my life defining success on a job title. Rankings within the sales, ranking reports, awards, earning president’s trips, earning region manager of the year. It wasn’t until I really cracked open my heart and looked at what success really means to me and how I want to spend my life. And when I started to go through the process and the journey over the past couple of years, I started to realize that success and what it means to me is making an impact and trying to transform as many lives as I can and helping people see their unique strengths, their talents, what makes them special, their superpowers and helping them achieve their goals. It’s about impact, and that’s how I start to define success on my own terms.
The second most valuable lesson is to set boundaries. Whoever coined this phrase, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” I disagree with this philosophy entirely. Pursuing our goals should not come at the expense of our health, our happiness, our family. The fact that we set boundaries to refrain from working after hours does not imply that we lack strong work ethic. Achieving our goals begins with our health and spending time with the people that we love. If you’ve listened to (my podcast) the previous episodes, you’ve probably heard me say, “You’ve gotta fill up your cup first before you can pour into others.” That means getting quality sleep six to nine hours. It means taking care of yourself, not only your physical, through exercise, nutrition, eating healthy foods, also ensuring that you are taking time every day for personal growth and development, and time to relax and recharge. Our body needs sleep, and with that there’s four’s different stages of sleep, but the most important stage is that REM cycle. It’s the rapid eye movement cycle where our body is deepest asleep. And what happens during that time is, it’s when our mind, our brain, takes events that have place that day and stores into our long term memory. Our body needs time to relax and rest and recharge in order to have clarity, focus, and motivation to continue to go after our goals. So if you find yourself in a situation where you are burnt out and you are overwhelmed, I have episodes specifically on how to identify the signs of emotional burnout. How to eat healthier, how to get better sleep, and I encourage you and invite you to go ahead and tune into those episodes. I also have an episode on overcoming burnout by setting healthy boundaries. I am not a believer that no is an answer. I’m a believer that you can say yes while also setting boundaries.
My third valuable lesson is to plan for the future. Having a plan is not about luck or chance. It’s about having a plan and following through with it. Whether you are working in a corporate role and you want to accelerate and advance to that next level, have a specific plan in mind, create an individual development plan, and if you don’t know how to do that, I have an episode specifically on how to create an individual development plan. If you are a business owner, and you’re looking at 2023 and looking at what type of goals you want to achieve, ensure that you have a business plan in place, as well as checking with that business plan frequently throughout the year to ensure that you are on track. Always planning for the future is going to help you achieve extraordinary success in your life.
The fourth most valuable lesson is to invest in yourself. When we have someone to show us what steps work and what to avoid, our path becomes a lot clearer. It becomes a lot easier to achieve our goals, and we’re able to accelerate the results that we want. It takes constant self investment and innovative ideas to improve the lives of not only ourselves, but also to be an influential leaders and to make that impact in the world. This past year, I have invested frequently into myself to achieve the goals that I’ve wanted, and I will continue to do so. If you’re looking at what does investment looks like, it could be anything from carving out time every single day to listening to a podcast, to reading a book, to reading an article. You can subscribe to Gallup, you can subscribe to Harvard Business Review. It could look like scheduling time to meet with a mentor or a sponsor or a coach. If you were running a business, what would it look like if you had somebody to help you and to know what steps work, what steps don’t in building a successful business, having somebody that’s achieved that same success can help you get to where you want to go.
Also bounce ideas off of each other. Share what’s working, talk through challenges. If you want to get promoted into a new role, you want to step into a leadership role, invest in a leadership coach, somebody that can help you and talk through what is it like to be in a leadership role. What are some of the perceptions, but also what are some of the realities that a lot of people don’t see behind closed doors? How do you prepare for that interview? I’m a big believer in investing in yourself, and if there was one advice that I would’ve given myself day one in my career when I first started when I was 23 years old, and my first medical sales job as a capital equipment specialist in dental sales, is I wish I would’ve invested earlier in my own personal development. When I was 23, I didn’t know that career coaches existed, career consultants. I didn’t know that there were people that you could invest in that could help you achieve the goals that you want. And if U would’ve known that, then I would have invested from day one. Now that I’m a business owner, I will always, always have a business coach. In fact, I use a project management system to keep track of all the goals that I want in my business, and then also aligned with each goal I have specific investments that I’m going to make to help get to where I want with those specific goals.
The fifth is don’t get stuck in perfectionism. Perfectionism steals joy. Perfectionism is procrastination in disguise. It can prevent us from taking risks in business and in life. And remember that perfectionism, our imperfect could be somebody’s perfect. Your unique strengths are special to you. It’s your superpower. And when we get caught up in perfectionism, it can hold us back in achieving our goals. If you want to learn the steps to overcome perfectionism, I have an episode specific on how to overcome perfectionism.
The sixth most valuable lesson that I learned in 2022 is to jump into discomfort. We can accomplish extraordinary success when we lean in and jump into the unknown. Uncertainty can be scary, but on the other side of uncertainty is possibility. Take each day one step at a time, and remember to celebrate the milestones along the way, your successes along the way. Challenging chapters in life are an opportunity to learn and grow. The difficult times in life shape us into the person we are tomorrow. When we lean in, when we jump into the discomfort, that’s when we grow the most.
The seventh most valuable lesson is to embrace vulnerability. Relationships are built on a deeper level when we embrace vulnerability. By embracing vulnerability, we can be more authentic. We’re not hiding behind this guarded shield of trying to protect ourselves. When we release that shield and we start to show up, authentically, and we’re vulnerable and we share not only our successes, but we kind of share what those challenges are that we’re going through, it gives people opportunity to help us, to support us, to be a listening ear, to guide us, to be a boost of motivation and encouragement when we need it. So embrace vulnerability, there have been times in my life where i have embraced vulnerability, some of the darkest moments in my life. One of them being, when I was overcoming postpartum depression. It was extremely hard because I’ve always been a driven, successful person, very motivated, self-motivated. But when postpartum hit, it threw me through a loop. And I had a neighbor that I had always kind of passed by, said hi to, but didn’t reach out to her, and I needed help, and she came over and she sat next to me every day for an entire week while I was working through the steps to overcome postpartum depression. I’ll share with you the person that is the most close to my heart, the person that will always be an angel in my eyes, is this individual. It was because I embrace vulnerability that I was able to connect with this person on a deeper level. She is a close friend of mine and I care about her deeply, and she will always hold a special place in my heart. So embrace vulnerability.
Number eight is you can have it all. It is possible to be intelligent, beautiful, successful, a great parent, a loving spouse, and a kind person. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive. When we start to shift that mindset from I’M one or the other, shift that mindset to saying I can have it all. And it’s by learning the steps on how to have a successful career while also having a balanced life, is being able to understand what matters most to us and ensuring that we are looking at where we’re spending our time and who we’re spending our time with. I truly believe that you can have it all.
Number nine is identify your goals and write them down. When you write down your goals, you are putting yourself on the path to achieving them. By keeping your goals in mind, you’ll be more likely to take the necessary steps to reach them. Writing down your goals is a way of committing yourself to achieve them don’t hesitate and start writing them today.
Number ten is, the time is now. There is no time like the present to pursue your dreams. Now is the time for your dreams to become a reality. Go for that promotion that you want. Apply for that new job. Start the side hustle you’ve been dreaming about. Write the book. Start a podcast, or spend more time volunteering in your community. Whatever your dream is, that time is now. Make today the day you start working towards your goal. I happily relinquished may Diamond Delta status, staying in hotels over 200 nights per year to tuck my kids in at night while writing a book, working on a TED Talk, hosting a podcast, speaking on big stages and running a business.
I have stepped outside my comfort zone in more ways than I could have ever imagines, and life is just beginning. I feel alive and I love what I do, and I love the lives that I get to impact every single day. 2023 is going to be an even better year with new opportunities, adventures, possibilities, waiting around each corner.
Ask yourself, what was your biggest learning lesson in 2022? Reflect. Ask yourself, what was working, what was not working, and what changes do you want to make in 2023 to achieve the success that you want and in all areas of your life. 2022, as I said, was an extraordinary year, and I am excited for 2023, and I hope you are as well.
