Dr. Jaime Lee: 6 ideas to help you make sense of a chaotic year

With a big, shiny new year just around the corner, AIA Vitality Ambassador Dr Jaime Lee shares some advice for transitioning out of a challenging 2020 positively, consciously and healthily.

There’s no denying that 2020 has pushed us to our limits. Almost overnight, we went from our very certain and predictable lives to suddenly having no idea what’s going to happen next.

It’s tested us in ways we couldn’t have conceived at the start of the year. And now, with COVID-19 now seemingly under control in Australia, and a new year on the horizon, I think it’s a good opportunity for us to slow down, take stock, and start to unpack some of the things we’ve learned this year.

It’s pretty natural to think that certainty is good and chaos is bad, but I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. In many ways, life is always moving between chaos and order. There’s always creation and destruction, just like there’s always day and night.

But after the chaos, after the destruction, comes stillness, and then the cycle starts again with rebirth. I think this is where we find ourselves now: at this enormous opportunity for rebirth – of who we are, what we do, where we want to go and what’s going to help us thrive as we move into a new year.

A big part of this opportunity for rebirth is being able to let go of what isn’t working for you. Maybe it’s habits that have been holding you back, recalibrating your work-life balance, or rethinking how you interact with your friends and family. Times of chaos can show you what you no longer need, as well as what you need more of. Chances are you know in your gut what these things are – try and listen to it.

Take some time to reflect and distil the wisdom from your experience in 2020.

This will be a once-in-a-generation event so write down your experiences and how you’ve felt through the year. It can help you process this experience and find clarity to move forward. Go through it chronologically: think back to the start of the year, before the pandemic, and about what you had planned for 2020.

Go through each stage of the pandemic as you remember it. Recall how you felt, how you reacted, how you surprised yourself and where you sought comfort, then reflect on how has 2020 changed you. Finally, reflect on what you are grateful for.

Anything that comes to mind. It doesn’t have to be a novel – it could be bullet points, single words, or pictures if that’s what works for you.

2020 was a year of extraordinary challenges and change. So remind yourself of your strength, courage, compassion and resilience. We often look over our strengths and forget what makes us wonderfully human. How that manifests for you moving forward is up to you, but if you can get through this pandemic, maybe that career change, that job interview, that 10km running goal or that gym membership won’t seem so scary anymore. This year, I hope, has shown you just how capable you are.

There’s nothing like a global health crisis to make you take stock of your health and wellbeing. And throughout the pandemic, we’ve seen that manifest in a boom in things like running, home-workouts, and cycling.

Exercise gave so many of us an outlet during some incredibly difficult weeks and months. I think that, through all of this, we might all have more of an appreciation for being alive, for being healthy, and for focusing more on our health moving forward.

One of the biggest benefits of this year has been this enormous new awareness and appreciation for our mental wellbeing. Almost all at once, millions of people all over the world were confronted with feelings – anxiety, depression, panic, loneliness – that they may well have never experienced before. And from that came this surge in conversations around mental wellbeing. As bad as this year has been, I think that’s such a positive outcome.

On an individual level, I think this year has taught us that we need to keep working on our mental wellbeing. We need to keep talking to each other, and to get better at resting and recharging.

Think back to when you were at your lowest this year: what did you do to move past it? Did you go running? Did you talk to your friends? Did you read or meditate? Whatever you did to help you cope, make sure you try and keep those habits up through 2021and beyond.

Dr. Jaime Lee is the Founder and CEO of Health Quotient, a company dedicated to transforming workplaces around the world by inspiring individual health and whole organisational renewal through leadership keynotes, workshops and mentoring. With experience as a medical doctor, public health specialist, corporate strategist, speaker and facilitator, Dr. Jaime works with global companies to help them sustain high performance teams in an integrated and healthy way.