21 Random Life Lessons from 2021
If you read my 2021 Review, which I posted a few days ago, you’ll know that 2021 was an up and down year.
I had lots of wins - such as nearly reaching my $2 million revenue goal in my business and launching some new programs to help my community.
But there were many challenges as well - most notably finding out that I have three brain aneurysms that will need to be repaired this year via a series of brain operations.
It’s the ups and downs of life that teach us things though and I’m the sort of person who tries to keep a positive mindset and always treat life as a learning experience.
So with that in mind I decided to document 21 random life lessons I learned during 2021.
I would like to start creating one of these posts every year so I can read back over them in years to come and see how I am changing as a person. In fact I’ve already made an entry in my content calendar to create this post again in early January 2023.
Given that I’ve also had to face my own mortality head on this year I am also documenting some of these thoughts for my kids as well. These are lessons I would love them to know and gives them some insights in to how I think. Hopefully I’ll live for many, many years to come. But if I don’t then at least I’ve started to document things for them to read and learn about me if I’m not here anymore.
So there’s many selfish reasons for this post but at the same time I hope some of the thoughts I share help you in some way as well.
21 Random Life Lessons from 2021
So here are my random life lessons learned throughout 2021.
1: Habits are everything and I make more progress when I'm consistent
I’ve known this for years now but the more I stay consistent with my habits the more seems to happen. James Clear (in his book Atomic Habits) talks about always making 1% improvements. He also talks about habit stacking - where you add one habit to others you already have bedded down (e.g. just before you brush your teeth you drink 2 glasses of water).
The stronger my daily habits and routines are the better I feel and the more progress I make.
2: This is my business and I need to do things that make me happy - otherwise I may as well have a job!
I learned this the hard way this year. I launched my business coaching program because I was being asked by so many people to do this. In my gut I knew it wasn’t something I was going to enjoy as I don’t like having regular meetings in my diary (which is essential if you’re coaching people!) and I also like to be more flexible with how I spend my days.
But against my own instincts I launched the program and then closed it again after about 4-5 months. This was extremely stressful as I never like to let people down and I am extremely protective of the reputation I’ve built as being someone people can rely on. But after much consideration I reminded myself that this is my business and I have to do what works for me first. If I’m not happy this will come through to my clients and the program will be a failure because of that.
The program has since been relaunched as a series of business short courses for designers and architects that is combined with a community platform where I share free content and other experiences for my clients. This is a model that I absolutely love because I can create on my own terms but still help designers grow their businesses, which is something I’m passionate about.
This new model is gaining lot of traction and we have hundreds of clients inside the platform - so there has been a silver lining to this stressful experience.
3: Life constantly throws curve balls. I am completely in control of how I choose to deal with those curve balls.
This year there’s been a number of curve balls. My Dad is gravely ill and has been given a short amount of time to live. He has been given the opportunity to have a heart operation that will hopefully extend his life but this has been put off many times now due to COVID, so he’s becoming less and less healthy all the time.
At the same time I have been diagnosed with three brain aneurysms as well as a spinal fistula (which is an extremely rare but dangerous vascular lesion). I will need multiple brain operations and other procedures throughout 2022 to get all of this under control and these operations have considerable risk associated with them - e.g. for risk of having a stroke, brain bleeds and even dying.
These are stressful things to deal with but they are also completely out of my control and there’s nothing I can do but work through the issues step by step. With my own health issues I’m taking it one step at a time. I have already done on procedure and it has gone OK. In 2022 I’ll be going in and out of hospital and so I just have to take all of that step by step as well.
I try and stay positive and just keep doing my normal things while I wait for my procedures. Although I of course have days where I’m stressed and upset and cry - I mostly remain positive and try and look at the bright side. For example - at least they’ve found the aneurysms and I have the chance to get them repaired - many people just die on the spot when they randomly rupture. So these are some of the ways I try to think about it.
My life has continually thrown curve balls at me - the birth of my middle son, Hugo, who is profoundly disabled is obviously another example. As my life goes on I am getting better and better at being resilient and remaining positive.
We are all going to have difficult things happen in our life - it’s up to us how we choose to think about them and deal with them.
4: When difficult things happen the best approach is to take things step by step - don't think about the worst outcome, it doesn't help.
I’ve pretty much covered this one above. There’s no point catarophising about the worst possible outcome when you are faced with challenges. The best thing is to just break it down in to small steps and move through everything step by step. The first step when I was diagnosed with my aneurysms was to do an angiogram procedure to find out more about what was going on. So that was the only thing I focused on to start. Soon I will need my first operation to get the first of the aneurysm repaired - so that’s the next thing I am focusing on.
The best approach with difficult things is to just take it step by step.
5: To gain muscle I need to eat more protein (and generally more food as well)
My strength training and overall fitness training is super important to me. I am pretty fit and strong, especially for someone of my age. But like with most women I’m always hyper critical of my body. It’s never quite as ‘good’ as I wish it could be.
But I’m trying to be kinder to myself around this and also trying to be more action oriented. This year I spent a lot of time learning about nutrition - particularly as it relates to body recomposition and gaining muscle. I want to get stronger and I want have more lean muscle and in order to do that I need to eat more protein as a first step - but I also need to eat more food as well (the right kinds of food with the right balance of macros).
I have been very focused on this and I’m starting to see results in this area - so I’m looking forward to continuing that throughout 2022.
6: It's good to live in a house before you start renovating it. You learn a lot about how the light works and how you want to live in it
Just over a year ago we bought our new house. Throughout 2021 we have been trying to figure out whether we renovate it or perhaps just knock it down and rebuild it (as there’s a lot of hidden expenses associated with fixing it up that would be much easier if starting over).
What I’ve learned over the year is that it’s really helpful to live in a house before you start renovating it. We’ve had a full cycle of a year now so we know how the light moves through the house at different times of the year, how hot/cold the house is, how the orientation of the house works on the block, how we use the spaces and what spaces we need. All sorts of things.
We have finally settled on renovating the house and have come up with a floor plan that works really well for what we need. If we had just started renovating the house as soon as we moved in we would have made some mistakes around that I think.
7: Rest is super important for my creativity and enthusiasm. I need to take more planned rest
If you read my 2021 review you’ll know that towards the end of last year I suffered from burnout for the first time ever in my business.
What I’ve learned from that is that I do have a tendency to over work and over deliver and I used to feel guilty if I was resting or watching Netflix.
But what I’ve learned now is that if I build planned rest in my day then this is a proactive choice that I’ve made to take care of myself and my mental health.
I have reframed my thinking around this and no longer feel guilty about my planned rest periods. Resting or binge watching Netflix is really only an issue if it’s a response to procrastination from other things you should (or would like to) be doing. If it’s something planned in to your day proactively then it’s not something to feel guilty about at all.
I’ve completely changed my ideal week calendar to add in planned rest and have been making the most of this for a few weeks now. I’m already feeling much more relaxed and I’m also much more productive during my shorter work days as I try and pack in as much as I can in the hours I’ve given myself rather than waste time doing things that aren’t important.
8: A lot can be achieved in a one year when I put my mind to it
This is a lesson I learned in 2020 but is one that has been reiterated in 2021. In 2020 my business went from earning healthy six figures to jumping to a 7 figure business. And in 2021 I’ve almost hit $2 million in revenue (which was my goal - but I didn’t quite reach it).
A year doesn’t seem like a long time but your life can completely change in one year if you put your head down and take lots of action towards what you’re trying to achieve.
9: Taking action always leads to something interesting happening
Taking action on things doesn’t always lead to good things. Sometimes it leads to things you aren’t happy with or things that don’t work out.
But taking action always leads to something interesting happening and I always learn something from every action I decide to take.
But sitting with procrastination and a lack of action doesn’t really lead to anything. You don’t learn anything from a lack of action and you don’t make any progress either.
10: Daily meditation helps me calm my mind
I started daily meditation 139 days ago and have been doing this consistently every day since. I am going for a 365 day streak with this. I use the Headspace app for my meditation. I do 10 minutes as the first thing in my morning and I really feel like it’s helped me to calm my mind, be less stressed out and generally just cope better with things as they come up.
I had put off meditation for years and had tried it on and off many times - but for some reason I’ve stuck with it this time and I’m so glad I have.
11: Being more transparent and authentic builds a closer connection with my community
I have stopped caring about what people think of me. I have stopped trying to be someone I’m not. I have started sharing whatever comes in my mind that I think might be helpful to someone else - even if it seems silly or weird or not related to what my ‘core business’ is all about (this blog post is a good example of that!).
And the more I show up as myself and just share stuff that I want to share the closer I become with my community. Yes, I lose followers along the way - but I have absolutely no problem with that as I know those are not the right people for me.
Don’t be afraid to just show up exactly as you are and share things authentically. You’ll put some people off and they will leave but you’ll bring those who enjoy your content closer that way.
Don’t try and be everything to everyone or you’ll appeal to nobody.
12: Large projects are best tackled action by action otherwise they become overwhelming
It’s so easy to get stuck in a state of analysis paralysis when faced with big, challenging, complicated projects. The best way to tackle it is to think what the first step is and just take that tiny, first step. Once you’ve done that step take the next step and so on.
This was a lesson I learned back when I was doing my PhD but it’s definitely one I still carry with me and keep implementing.
When I was starting my PhD the project seemed daunting and unachievable. A PhD is a huge, multi-year, self-driven project that required me to write hundreds of thousands of words. The chance to suffer from overwhelm was extremely high. But from the start of my PhD I decided to break the project in to a simple daily writing habit. Every day I promised myself I would write 300 words. It could be 300 words on the methodology, it could be 300 words summarising an article I had read. It didn’t really matter what the words were about I just had to make sure I wrote something each day. Inevitably once I got started I would write many more than 300 words on most days.
But the simple act of sitting down for a daily writing practice meant that I got my PhD completed in 3 1/2 years as a mother of three children under 4 - which seems crazy now I look back on it!
13: Reading my Kindle at night (rather than scrolling on my phone) improves my sleep
About 6 months ago I decided I needed better sleep. All the research says scrolling your phone before you sleep is the worst thing you can do so I started experimenting with reading fiction books on my Kindle instead of scrolling my phone. Although I am obsessed with business and self-help books I don’t read these at night because they give me too many ideas and don’t allow me to relax. So instead I read fiction books, which I’ve really enjoyed. My sleep is also much better for it.
14: The iPad Pro is awesome
I bought the new iPad Pro 2021 with magic keyboard and pencil earlier this year and I LOVE it. This has been such a handy purchase for me this year and I use it almost every day.
Here’s some of the ways I use it:
to present and write on as I deliver my courses and online trainings
as my notebook (I have completely given up a paper based notebook now - I use Goodnotes for this on my iPad)
to watch Netflix and YouTube videos (I often also bring it in to the kitchen to watch things while I’m cooking these days)
as an easy to transport laptop replacement to take to doctors appointments, the kids sport lessons etc. - I can get emails and other work done while I’m waiting (as I hate to waste time!)
as another screen for my MAC when I need more space (you can use sidecar to set it up as a second screen for your computer)
to access my Notion dashboards and my calendar when I’m on the go
15: Be mentally prepared for anything - you never know what might happen
Strong mental resilience continues to be one of my strengths. I have built this up over my life as I’ve had to deal with some exceptionally difficult things that many people don’t ever experience.
One thing that’s helped me build this strong mental attitude in recent years is to read stoic philosophy and learn more about that. Ryan Holiday’s books are a good place to start with this if you’re interested.
16: Daily small effort makes a big impact over time
Just make some kind of progress each day and over time really impactful things can happen.
17: Reading and listening widely helps me generate more creative ideas
I try to read and listen to a wide variety of material and listen to lots of different podcasts on lots of different topics. It’s so easy to read and listen narrowly, but when I do this I find my creativity and ideas become very limited. I have always thought of myself as a sponge and I also have a strength for applying an idea or concept I’ve heard in another context to the work I’m doing.
I’m a passionate life long learner and will continue with this forever!
18: Updating my will made me feel more confident that my family will be taken care of if something happens to me. Wasn't an easy process but was a rewarding one
We updated our wills and did our estate planning for the first time since we got married (nearly 17 years ago!). This had been something that had weighed on my mind for a few years but having our wills sorted out and working through the difficult decisions related to what would happen to our kids if we were no longer here has given me a greater level of confidence that they will be well cared for in our absence. We did this process with Lucy Percy from Head and Heart Estate Planning and she was excellent.
19: I am the only one who is in control of the actions I take and what happens as a result of those actions. Other people care about my results but I'm the only one who can make them happen (or not!)
I have lots of people around me who want me to succeed and do well. But nobody cares more about this than me and I am the only one who can ultimately make changes in my life.
Nobody is coming to save any of us. It’s completely up to us what we make of our lives. Don’t look to other people for your results and don’t blame other people for your lack of results. It’s all entirely up to you.
20: I am the most confident when I'm taking care of my health
My health continues to be hugely important to me. I have had my second year alcohol free, I have exercised almost every day, I mostly try and eat as well as I can (but sometimes I also eat too many of the kids’ snacks…).
I know that I feel the best about myself and the most confident and in control of what I’m doing when I’m at peak mental and physical health.
This year I’ve blocked more time in to my diary to continue with this. My focus for 2022 is on adding in much more stretching so I can avoid injuries in my training. I also want to improve my cardio fitness so I’m enjoying using my Peloton for this. And I’m adding in longer sessions of meditation from time to time as well - in addition to my daily 10 minute practice each morning.
If I’m not at my best then there is no way I can support my family or run my business well either.
21: I only have one life. And it can end at any moment. It can be easy to forget this until you face it head on
I’ve faced this head on this year. I am walking around with brain aneurysms that could rupture at any second (which nearly always ends in death or serious brain injury). In fact I have a 1% chance every year of that happening - so this is fairly sobering.
But it’s also been a helpful reminder that I only have one life. This is the life I have been given and there is no point sitting back and thinking about things I might try in the future. I need to get out there and do the things I want right now as I may never get a second chance to try.
And even if you don’t have brain aneurysms this is true. Tomorrow isn’t promised for any of us - so make the most of today and take lots and lots of action.
Thanks for reading the post all the way to here! I hope some of it was helpful :)
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Clare x
Dr Clare Le Roy
