Happy New Year! I can’t believe another year has past and it’s already 2020. As I began my year, I reflected on the past year. Looking back, my word for 2019 was intentional. I had chose this word because one of my friends attempted to commit suicide, but luckily, did not succeed. Because of this scary event, I wanted to make sure I lived my life with meaning and purpose for the rest of my life.
Goal 1: Spend intentional time with friends and family.
The suicide attempt was a big wake up call for me. I wasn’t ready to lose my friend to suicide and death. Life is too precious to let my loved ones slip away. I started to question how much I cared for others and let them know that I cared for them. Perhaps if I cared for them more and they knew I loved them, they wouldn’t even consider going through horrific tragedies. So, I looked back and realized that I did my best to reach out to this person in 2018 and in years before. Didn’t this person know how much I treasured our friendship?
Mental health is a tricky area that is not as simple as I thought. I began to reach out to my mental health professional friends to figure out how I can best help my friend. I wanted my friend to be mentally healthy, so that suicidal thoughts vanishes in thin air. My counselor friend recommended that this person have a suicide plan that included:
- having a safe person to turn to if considering to commit suicide,
- figuring out what the person could do before considering suicide, and
- seeing a counselor/therapist.
After I learned of these three steps, I told this person that I could be the safe person to turn to, which gave my friend assurance that I was here to help for the long run. Knowing my limitations as a friend and not being a mental health professional, I pointed my friend to get professional help through life coaching, which I’m glad my friend received professional help.
During the year, I called and met up with my friend to intentionally pursue our friendship. As a result, my friend has been mentally healthy for an entire year and did not end up in the mental hospital.
Goal 2: Be intentional about staying physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy.
I experienced burnt out in 2019 from serving as missions leader at my church, which wasn’t a new to me. When I experienced this back in 2018, I took a one month sabbatical from serving as missions leader in May. At that time, I felt physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausted. Time away from serving was refreshing, but I don’t believe I fully recovered in 2018 because I faced burnt out again exactly a year later. Like 2018, I took a month sabbatical in May 2019. I hoped this time off would help me to recover before I led a missions trip to Japan at the end of July. I felt somewhat relieved when I took a month sabbatical in May 2019, but I still had my duties of leading the missions trip hanging over me, so it wasn’t a fully restful time.
After coming back from my missions trip to Japan in August, I realized that I was not physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy. I decided that I needed to make big changes for myself by taking a longer sabbatical to fully rest and recover, so I decided in September that I would take at least three months off from serving as missions leader.
I wondered how I came to this breaking point and why I had to hit rock bottom for me to take care of my health. If only I took better care of my health back in 2018 and recognized the signs, I wouldn’t been such a wreck in 2019. Being a goal oriented person, I could have kept going and pushing through, but I’m thankful that I was intentional to take care of myself.
Goal 3: Be intentional about building career skills and learning new things.
In 2019, I tried two new careers at two start-up organizations. I added many new skill to my resume such as managing people, technical writing, and learning Confluence and JIRA softwares. At both of these jobs, I took initiative at developing myself professional and staying on top of my tasks.
I don’t think this was the wisest choice to be intentional about building career skills and learning new things because I was already physically, mentally, and emotionally tired from being burnt out as a missions leader. In the end, these jobs caused me to become even more drained physically, mentally, and emotionally where I was surviving on a thin strand.
Reflections
2019 was the year of intentional living. Last year, I took a deep look at the things that were life giving and things that caused great distress. What helped me the most was self awareness, which I was able to do by reflecting back to see what worked and what didn’t work. This helped me to make positive and intentional changes in my three goals for 2019.
The lessons I learned from trying to achieve my goals last year:
- As a friend, I have my own limitations. Sometimes, being a good friend means pointing others to get professional help rather than trying to figure the problem by myself. I am reminded that I am not alone.
- Self care is important because if I am not well physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, I am not able to serve others well. Currently, I’m on a road to recovery in finding myself again and healing from burnt out.
- Before trying to go full force in accomplishing a goal, pause and check in with myself first. Ask myself the question: do I have the bandwidth to succeed at the goal with my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual capacity? Sometimes, goals need to be put on hold because the time is not right. Goals are more successful when I am physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually well.
Now, I am able to move forward in 2020 with my intentionality. Cheers to 2019 and I look forward to this year ahead!
