It feels seriously outdated to look back on the last month of 2019 as we come close to the end of the first month of 2020. Yet this is really testament to the crazy month January has been, at work and outside of it. As one meme said, ‘January is the trial month, 2020 starts in February’. More on that in my next post. 

As I look back on the last few weeks of the past year three things stand out:

Random acts of kindness 

Spending Christmas on another continent, away from family, might get to you. You start questioning why you planned for it to be this way. Thankfully, random acts of kindness like the one we experienced this Christmas make it less difficult. On the eve of Christmas I was asked by a friend if I had any plans for Christmas day, to which I could not hide the lack of any. Next day we were at the family’s Christmas lunch, which included some 30 members of the extended tribe. It was as warm as it was random. The couple were surely paying forward similar acts of kindness they experienced when like us, they lived on the other side of the world for a few years. 

Signing up for uncertainty 

On one evening in December we invited over a friend who just made the big move to Australia for a travelling and working holiday. What stood out for me from the various conversations we had around her plans for this travelling adventure was that she has signed up for uncertainty – although she is a qualified professional, she wants to do none of that during her stay here. If we suggested nice places to get accomodation in the city, she said she just wanted not to be based anywhere and travel. When we got creative on how she could earn some money, she said she was happy to work in return for accomodation and food. There is a season for everything and in this season, this young friend is signing up for uncertainty, by choice. 

Retrospective of a decade 

In 2019 I learnt that one of my top strengths leads me to assess continuously ways in which things can be done better. It is no surprise that at the end of a decade I reflect on how the next one can be better. One great article I stumbled upon to help anyone assess where they’re going, at any time, not just the end of year, is this one.I particularly like the fact that whilst it enlists important things to prioritise, it suggests that if you are too busy to do this, you are busy enough to go off-track. 

So unless you are signing up for uncertainty as our friend, you might want to make time to do the five things in the article mentioned above and, on top of that, add random acts of kindness. Wishing you a great year ahead!