After the holidays - New Year - Cheers for New (and old) Resolutions!

I guess you all heard this in one form or another - every end is an opportunity for a new beginning. Whether it’s a new year, birthday or “after the holidays” date, chances are that we will make some resolutions; some promises to ourselves to get things done; lose weight, start practicing, avoid procrastination, use our gym subscription and more. Seems as if this special date - a symbol for a new beginning, will make it easier for us to make it happen, although we all still remember last years' resolutions that didn’t necessarily happen…

But as they say - never never never give up, so here I am, just after the last holiday here ended, committing for these few things as my resolutions, hoping that maybe if I publish this to a broader audience this time, I’ll do better in making all, or at least most happen:-)

Move! - living creatures are aimed to be moving; not only via cars, busses or bubbles… Our body needs movement, and our spirit does too!. My work, as many of my friends' duties requires lots of hours behind the screen, much of keyboard hands' work and very few foot steps (mainly taking a step in and out of the elevators of our office buildings). Earlier this year I broke my ankle and couldn't make even one step by myself and even though I'm thankful now for every step forward which I make, I still just don't move enough. Maybe it relates to my earlier childhood memories as a fat kid, the one who doesn't dance at the party but stands by the snacks and eats too much to ease the pain which only those that don't know how to dance will understand. Or else, maybe it's my natural lack of shape, my genes... and as I'm no longer this kid, I can now blame my age too;-) can't I?. NO, I can not!. Here is my new year's resolution to practice at least twice a week; whether it's going back to Pilates, hiking or if I want to overachieve, start running!

Smile! - Sound so simple, and maybe even silly to put such a commitment in place, but it truly seems to me that this is something which I haven't done enough in the past year. The masks we had and still have to put on our face since COVID-19 came to the world may have had a negative impact over our smiling habits, but smiles are shown in our eyes too and have a significant impact over our physical and mental health and some researches relate it even to our professional success. So next time you see me, even if the mask is on me, look deep in my eyes and know I'm smiling at you and please smile back:-). Smiles and happiness can be more contagious than COVID-19 and are important these days, even more than ever!

Write! Speaking of doing things we love, things that make us smile more often, things we do not only because we have to, but because we want to. Writing is one old habit which I neglected for many years and recently got back to. It started with writing a few poems that stayed in my (virtual) drawer, followed by some of these LinkedIn articles that I decided to share with you, my dear few readers. 8 years ago, my sister, my cousin and I started writing a TV series, which was based on an idea we had in mind for a long time, but as you can understand, it was and still is, mainly an idea... However, I'm glad to report here that we used the holiday season to finally finalize 2 episodes of this so long awaiting TV series and I commit here, in front of you all, to keep on going till we write through all events we already have in our minds for this TV series. We'll bring to life the heroes of our story that already have names, titles and some kind of life of their own, playing in our heads in parallel to our real life events.

Read! - Yes, we're on Netflix, apple TV or any other good binger medium any of us is using to take a break from our routine, and yes, I do read a lot already, but mainly work related materials which is completely different of course. Going back to my childhood again, I still recall the excitement of picking up a few new books from the library, allowing my imagination to travel far away, exploring new places, new people and cultures through each and every page. I find it much harder today to find a good book and make the time to get my imagination to fly again. It's always much more tempting to get to the binge habit, which requires less effort from my mind. This year my friends, I'll make time to get back to my old reading love. Call me old fashion, but I don't care admitting that even with the great technology of e books and my strong support of a green planet, I still love the smell of those books' papers in my hands much more than any other form of reading.

Play! - "Music can heal the wounds which medicine cannot touch"(Debasish Mrinha). Some time ago, my husband came back home with an new electric piano in his hands. It was in the early days of COVID-19, prior to the vaccines era, with one lock down after another which had influence on my day to day routine and more than all, on my mood which became gloomier as days went by. My husband, who knew my love for music said he thought this new instrument may make me happier during this time. I'm not a very talented player but during the past year, I got to know an amazing company, called JoyTunes which helped me start playing the piano; a few minutes every day, magical time of me and my piano buddy. However, as many other items, I started having too many excuses to hold my practices lately; workload, apartment move and other items that left my piano dusted for too long. So here's my last resolution - I'll play a new song every week = dozens of songs till my next year's resolutions.

If you got to this last part of my article, you may be wondering whether this isn't a too personal one to share via LinkedIn articles, where one usually shares professional insights which relates to our work, more than to our life out of work. However, I think these 2 aren't meant to be separated, especially not in our changing hybrid world, where there's no real split between the part of the day in which we're working and the other part of what we used to call "life". Our work is an essential part of our life and our out of work routine has a very strong impact of what we bring to work. I believe that Moving, Smiling, Writing, Reading and Playing skills - all have strong correlation with how effective we'll be at our professional work too, lowering burndown and stress that are part of any journey to success!