#358 Happy New Year 2024! Reflection, wins, and learnings.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
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00:03 - Agi Keramidas 
Welcome to Personal Development Mastery podcast episode 358. Happy New Year 2024. During the end of last year, I did something that I do every year really, and that is to take time and do my annual self-reflection process. So I go through my year and I look at the wins, the lessons that I've learned, the things that didn't work in the way that I wanted them to go, and also it is a period that I look ahead, setting intentions and goals for the next year. I will discuss more about the 2024 intentions on the next episode coming Thursday. Today I will focus on the reflection, my annual reflection of 2023, and share with you my wins, my learnings and my gratitude. I have already discussed a couple of episodes ago the reflections specifically on the podcast and what happened during the year, so I'm not going to go into that today, apart only from stating that I believe the single most important win about Personal Development Mastery was the shift of its direction towards spiritual topics. So, besides the podcast, what was clearly my biggest win or achievement of the year that just passed? That was the milestone of publishing my first book 88 actionable insights for life. 

01:56
I have discussed previously in the podcast about the creation, the intention, the content, etc. What I haven't discussed is the challenges that I had, and in particular, during the launch period, the last few days before and during the actual launch of the book. So the universe sent me many curveballs, or trials, if you want, or tests of faith. You know when you are about to launch your first book and a few days before you realize some potentially catastrophic problems unless they are fixed, and I mean catastrophic in terms of the success of the launch. So I'm not going to go technical here with the details. What is most important to share is that to deal with these issues some of them I needed to take very specific corrective action and, you know, put long hours and do what I needed to do. However, the biggest trials that I had were about some things that I really didn't have the ultimate control over. In other words, they were dependent on other people or on Amazon and there was nothing I could do about it. And the big learning and realization was when I allowed them to be resolved, when I asked for them to be resolved and then letting go of the outcome I wanted and accepting that there is this situation here and allow for things to happen as they are meant to. 

03:59
I remember a very specific example. It was a few days, three days, before the launch, and it was late at night and I was waiting on two different people to come back to me with something that really needed to be done, and none had responded to my email. So there was a high level of stress there and eventually I realized that the best thing I could do at that time would be to let go. I used a phrase, which I'm going to discuss a little bit later on, because it was an important learning of the year, a phrase wouldn't it be nice if I woke up tomorrow morning and these issues that exist right now are resolved? And to my astonishment, the next morning, when I woke up, I had received two emails from those two people I was waiting on. Somehow they did what needed to be done during the night or very early in the morning. So when I started my work in the morning, both issues had been resolved. And I believe that this happened like that because I let go and allowed, rather than pushing it and pursuing it, at least at that particular time, because, as I said, it was really not up to me. 

05:28
And since I brought it up, let me discuss the phrase that I mentioned and that was one other big learning this year. That comes from a book that I read, and it is actually one of those books that I wish I had read ten years ago. It's the book Ask, and it is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks. There is one particular practice in this book that I have highlighted and make a conscious effort to implement as much as I can, as often as I can, and it is using the phrase wouldn't it be nice if? And then insert what is it that I would like to happen? I have realized on many occasions that doing this practice, using this very simple phrase, is a path to manifestation. 

06:31
And let me carry on with some other of my biggest learnings of 2023. And the first one is what I notice is what I create. What I notice is what I create, and I had mentioned this phrase in my previous annual reflection, actually, but it is certainly worth a second mention because I've been observing it, living it, and let me give an example that applies specifically to me, but I'm sure that many people resonate with, and probably you as well. So when you notice, for example, others around you succeeding, let's say that you open Facebook and you see someone sharing a big win that they had. What happens is that you create what you notice, which is success, which you are noticing, success, and you create success and this is the time to genuinely congratulate them and to celebrate their victory and get into that vibration of celebration without any needs to compare, without any envy, because when you think about it on some level, their happiness is your own. 

08:04
One other thing that I realized last year very much is that I'm always supported. It's something that I have felt throughout my life and, yes, I am supported by people friends, peers, family, mentors, people I work with, etc. But what I mostly mean when I say that I am supported, I mean from my guides, from my higher self, my spiritual side, the universe. It doesn't matter which words I will use to describe it. I have had many examples that I show this support happening, particularly the last year, and also I've had many examples of receiving confirmation for the support when I asked for it. And there are two podcast episodes that come to mind, one with Isabel Gatherer and the other with Rose Place, where, if this interests you, you can listen and find more ideas and information and inspiration about what I'm talking about here, and I will put the links in the show notes. 

09:28
One other big win and also a daily, monthly annual practice that I began to implement last year and I'm going to carry it on this year also, was setting the theme of the year. This is a practice I learned from one of my guests, victoria Raider, and, as a matter of fact, what I said earlier about what I notice is what I create. I also learned from her, so a big gratitude here for that as well. So this practice about setting the theme of the year that I learned from Victoria, she taught me first how to first realize what the theme of the year or the theme for the year is, and then each month having a theme for the month to support the theme of the year, and she taught me a very specific phrase that I use to determine every day what is the daily action or decision I can do to support that, and it has truly been a very empowering practice, a miraculous practice. There, I say, and if this intrigues you, I will invite you to go back to episode 288 with Victoria Raider, how to Manifest Miracles. 

11:00
It's one of the podcast episodes that I highly recommend, and I will mention three final learnings I learned last year, quite brief but very powerful. The first was reframing gratitude into appreciation. This really changes the vibration, sometimes, for me anyway, when I'm in a lower vibrational state. If I try then to do a gratitude practice, I find it difficult to switch to gratitude. However, if I change the word gratitude with appreciation, if I reframe it like that, it makes it much, much easier. For some reason, appreciation for me comes much easier and natural than gratitude, and even though they are in essence the same thing. 

12:02
The second Final quick lesson I wanted to share, which I got again from one of my podcast guests, angel Hartwell, was that when you worry about things, and in particular when you worry about money, you put out an energy that is like a dark dump, must be smelling, gray, ratty, old army blanket on it. I still remember her description when she was saying that it was so vivid when she was describing the, the energy of worry, that it stuck with me. So that's the equivalent of the vibrational energy of of worry, and you can understand how Pointless it is and how detrimental it also is. And the final big lesson of the year that I will share today is the concept of being a rock on the river, which I learned during my days crewing in the fire team during Tony Robbins event Unleashed the power within, and I have discussed this previously in the podcast. 

13:24
But the essence of it is that many times, life throws at us things that we Were not expecting, or even chaos, and when this happens, if we maintain our focus, our Grounding, then we are not directly involved in that chaos anymore. It still exists, still there, but we are not carried away by it. It moves to the periphery, it's not anymore at the forefront of the focus, and this is like the big rock in the middle of the river. The water goes around the rock, but the rock doesn't care about which direction the water is going or what is happening. The rock is there, and this is a metaphor for life that I have taken or I Endeavor to take, because it is a journey. 

14:22
I can't say that I have mastered being the rock in the river in every situation in my life. However, I endeavor to be that, to embody that, and I will start concluding this episode today with two more things. The first is I want to express my Gratitude to you. Thank you from my heart for listening and for allowing me to be a part of your journey, your personal development journey and spiritual journey, and in the next episode I will share more about the year ahead and the intentions for myself and for the podcast in 2024. So again, I wish you a happy new year 2024 with fulfillment, with personal and spiritual growth, with health, with happiness and with purpose and intentionality. Until next time, stand out, don't fit in!