I planned to do a lot of things this year that I’ve totally failed to do. 

That’s just life I guess, but it’s definitely easy to look back at the year and think about what I didn’t achieve.  

I’ve regularly left work feeling like I’ve been really busy all day… but also like I haven’t actually done anything. 

The culture of email notifications, and the “busy work” of form-filling and endless spreadsheets doesn’t help. And then there’s the tasks that just don’t have an end point.  

But when you actually stop and take stock, really take the time to properly reflect, there are actually loads of little wins. 

The reference I wrote for the student who got the job, the 20 minutes I spent showing freshers around campus because they were looking lost and nervous. The half an hour spent looking something up for a colleague in need of help. 

We dismiss those things so easily because our work culture doesn’t value them, but when we add them up, we can see that we’re actually doing things that are important to us, and that means that we’re probably living much more authentically than we give ourselves credit for. 

I’ve learned a lot about myself this year and how my brain works. 

I’ve been really busy with lots of different projects, and while that has definitely been extremely stressful at times, it’s actually what I like to do. 

The podcast, the Stress Toolkit, the research, the talks – it’s all stressful and it’s anxiety inducing, but I’m willing to tolerate that unpleasant feeling of pressure because it’s in the service of doing things that I actually love doing – things that have meaning and value for me. 

It’s about changing the relationship I have with the stress in my life, so I can do more of what I actually value. And if I can do more of that and less of the other stuff, then I consider that a win! 

I’ve learned a lot about actually putting self-compassion into practice.

I see self-compassion as a necessary part of self-care and that’s been a big thing for me, especially towards the back end of the year. 

Being deliberate about how I’m talking to myself and thinking about myself when I need to take a break or switch tasks… when I’m not capable of doing absolutely everything. Times when I’ve needed to let something go for a few days because my brain just isn’t capable of it right now. 

Letting go of some of that negativity and being kinder towards myself has been really important. 

But it has to be deliberate.

It’s only in writing this that I’ve genuinely stopped to reflect on all the amazing stuff I’ve done this year. I won’t write it all down because that feels a bit like showing off now that I think about it, but some highlights include:

• Recording a bunch of episodes of All in the Mind for BBC Radio 4.

• Hiring a Podcast studio in London to record an episode of Eighty Percent Mental live with Team Ace of Blades, which turned out to be one of my favourite experiences of the year.  

• Doing more with my social media and seeing that some of it is having an impact here and there. 

• Hosting a live panel discussion at Hay Festival

• Sauna and cold plunging in a freezing Swedish lake with some of the best colleagues (and best people) I could hope to work with. 

• Not falling off the stage while talking at the Sporting Chance Summit in Birmingham 

And that’s just work stuff – there’s loads of personal stuff too, like completing Lego Marvel Superheroes on the PS5 with my daughter, and finally getting the broken TV aerial down from my roof!

It’s funny how I thought of those things that I have done as showing off though. Like we’re programmed to be modest, to hide our successes, our achievements, to shy away from really highlighting the good stuff, no matter how big or small… apart from on LinkedIn.

Not to dampen the mood, but it does also feel a bit frivolous to talk about this stuff against the backdrop of significant and extremely harrowing world events. But I think we have to be a bit compassionate about that as well. 

We can let ourselves celebrate the good things in our lives, and that doesn’t mean we can’t also be aware that life really is intolerably hard for a lot of people.  

So, if there’s one thing that I can leave you with it’s to take the time to really reflect on the good stuff – even if it feels frivolous, even if it feels self-indulgent. 

Be deliberate about it. 

It’s easy to dwell on the stuff you didn’t get done – so make sure you celebrate the stuff that you did.  

Happy Holidays, 

Dr Pete Olusoga