#7 Reflection on 2020 and plans for 2021
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I think that the whole world failed this year. So it was a year of big achievements, big positives, but also horrible negatives at the same time. So it was very in extremes.

Hello everyone and how are you doing guys? Welcome back to the next episode of our podcast with Ioana, which we still don't have a name for and it's almost the end of 2020. For those of you who is new here, we are running a podcast about UX design. We're talking literally like we are having a coffee and just discussing normal design things. And today, right now, I think it's December 15th. I think it's time for us to start reflecting on this

whole crazy freaking year if I may say so and so yes the topic of today's episode is how this whole year has been for us what were our highlights of the year and also what are our plans or intentions for the next 2021st year but before we dive into the topic actually there is one huge

hyper announcement that Ioana probably has to say. I'm not gonna do this anymore, Ioana, the floor is yours. So hello everyone, thanks for tuning in and yeah, I have quite a big announcement to make which actually I kind of feel weird announcing this but because it feels very personal on one hand but at the same time it's like the biggest event in my life so

So I feel like sharing it with the world. I welcomed my baby girl one month and a half ago. So far this one month and a half, although exhausting and extremely intense.

And it has been a really beautiful time for me and the time of discovery, self-discovery, life discovery. I don't know. It was it was very it was beautiful. And I also wanted to know if you feel yourself like a different person or it's just like an extension for your life right now.

I love this question because I ask this question of myself every day because I'm trying to, I'm actually trying to understand or reflect on, dissect, unpack what's happening. But it's really hard because there's so many things happening at the same time. So I have to make sure that this little human being survives.

which is very, it causes a lot of anxiety and it's continuous. It's not easy at all. But at the same time, I'm also looking at myself and how I evolve in terms of, in relation to this experience. And then I'm also paying attention to my relationship and how it changes and my partner, how

how he's different and how he's living this experience himself. So it's a lot of things to, there's a lot of things to process. And I just feel at this moment after one month and a half that I'm not making any sense of anything.

But I do feel that I'm changing in a way that's kind of more selfless, if you want. So I was very much a very competitive, very career-oriented person, very much about doing and every day, I don't know, having this...

daily and going after goals and going after targets and on this continuous race. And now I feel like I'm slowing down a little and I'm being more present and I've become more mindful all of a sudden. So it's like I am a different person after. It's just it's amazing that this kind of experience just catapults you into a different perspective on things. So this is what happened. This episode will be absolutely interesting in terms of us

discussing our plans for the next year because I feel like we're now on those different opposite like sides of the river whereas what you have just described like I'm competitive I'm trying to achieve my goals this is like what I have prepared for this episode everything about the goals and stuff and hustle and blah blah and you're like present mindful and I feel like oh yes this is what we need to discuss now this is very interesting yeah

Yeah, it's exactly like two sides of the same story. And I think that probably where we're going to get that, where I hope we'll be getting at is that you can have both. But yeah, right now we're maybe in two extremes. So you're very on the career motivation side and I'm very much on, hey, just forget the career for a while. Enjoy this event in your life. In the back of my mind, sometimes when I'm running through the day, almost like a hamster in a wheel, it's

i do you know i cut myself in this thought that what if i would have a baby right now this is just impossible like this whole thing everything i'm doing would be i'm not gonna say like irrelevant but it will be impossible and

I don't know how important it would be, but it's just like sometimes I have the thought in my head, what if I would have a baby right now? Everything I'm doing would be just impossible to do or even not important to do at all. And I'm almost freaked out even when I start thinking about this future potential for my life.

Yeah, I was actually exactly the same because I was very attached to my career. And for me this year, so the pregnancy was actually a time for a lot of anxiety because I was very afraid of this change. And I know that I used to discuss this with my mentor and my friends and my partner and everyone, what's going to happen to my career. I'm going to be removed from the, so it was, it was a very, very big problem for me having to reconcile the baby with the career. But I

I'm now hoping I'm optimistic enough to feel that at some point I'm going to be able to get back on the hamster's wheel. Okay, let's now try to dive into the actual topic of this episode. And I think I would have to divide this episode into two main blocks. One is really all about this last year, 2020, and

Let's just face it, this year was not easy, was not pleasurable, was not a good one. And I assume that most of us would love to forget this year for some time now. However, we still need to...

try to find good things in this year and sort of look back with positives, but also maybe reflect on what can be done better in the next year. So on this note, I think what if I start with the question that goes like, Ioana, what are your top three achievements in 2020? And I know already the number one achievement, but I still want to hear your reflection on

Even through all the hardships of this year, what do you think was three highlights and three main achievements in 2020 for yourself?

Yeah, so indeed, the number one achievement is, well, I always thought of people that are parents, like they make so much out of parenthood. They talk about their kids all the time and it becomes such an important part of their identity and they lose their identity, their professional identity. And I don't know, I always hated this from the other side, but now that I'm on that,

side I can understand everyone indeed you are drawn completely in this experience so you lose yourself in this experience so this in the beginning when you actually have to so it's like it's uh it's evolutionary it's important from an evolutionary perspective so yeah but um

indeed my daughter is my biggest achievement not only this year but in my life so far although I'm very attached and uh and grateful for my career so far and I love it it's it comes second to my daughter so far maybe I don't know maybe in a few years I'm gonna say you know what having kids is overrated and it was fun for a few months yeah I don't believe that achievement number two and number three then

Yes. Number two is actually a very personal one. It's on a personal level in the sense that I was very afraid to be myself in 2019, especially in the social media space. So I was...

very I don't know controlled and censoring everything and trying to filter the information that's out there and not having my opinions expressed directly for the fear of not being judged and so on and hiding myself for a very long time on the social media just because I didn't want people to say that oh she's sharing photos with her face and this is not a professional account and so on and

So I had a lot of fear in 2019 and I feel like in 2020, I managed to overcome those fears to be myself, to show myself, to be more authentic and to be, if you want, true to myself in a way. So, yeah.

yeah, this is something, this is the second most important thing that has happened this year. And the third thing is that it's a more practical one 'cause I wanted to choose something that's a bit abstract and emotional and interior if you want. And something exterior is the fact that in my job at UiPath, in the beginning of the year, we set out to redesign, to completely redesign the product I was working on.

And I just found out I was pregnant and I thought that I'm not going to be in the mood for this huge project that's on my hands. And I was actually the only designer

But by the end of the project, I managed to engage some other designers in the process and also get support on research side. So although a couple of months I was just by myself, at the same time, I felt like I'm not going to be able to pull it through to get this redesign, to make this redesign happen. But yeah, since we're talking achievements, I actually did.

in the end and yeah so I managed to completely redesign the product with which was a very technical and complex and big product if you want and it's now live since November and yeah I'm very proud of it congratulations congratulations for so many babies for this in this year yeah we also joked in my UiPath themed of in my in the product team we joked that actually the redesign is my second baby and

We were wondering which one comes first. So I'm really curious to hear your achievements. Oh my God, it's very hard to talk about my achievements after your beautiful speech.

So my achievements and literally this is exactly the difference I was thinking that we will have. And I think that the difference is really there, that your achievements or your insights on this whole year with achievements were really like internal and life-changing and really external, internal and life-changing. Whereas for me, it was honestly just a little bit more

again, milestones and practical and life in the project-based type of tempo or pace. So my achievement number one, and it's interesting because...

Obviously, we didn't do the podcast last year, but the goals for this year were absolutely different for me. And I had some more ambitious projects in my plate. Whereas in fact, and in reality, I realized that I'm only able to do the projects I'm dragging from the previous year. And my biggest sort of achievement is the project I finally finished in 2020, which was this online course that I guess everybody knows already about.

So it was really big and honestly speaking, it felt a little bit strange to me because I was planning to finish it back in 2019. And then I was thinking, okay, I will take one more, two more months maximum to finish it in 2020.

But 2020 met us with a lot of unexpected changes and also with me being unable to manage my time really nicely or really like realistically. So in fact, I finished the course not in February, but only in the middle of the year, like in June.

literally when the course was one year old. So I finished my better one year after the launch only. But if I think about it, it's really, it sounds like, Hey, come on, just do this project, you know, spend some time and do this. But when you think about it and try to kind of decompose it into, into some sort of things, what goes into building it, it's just insane how much things you can do together with this, let's say like full-time job and other things. So

I'm really kind of proud of the fact that I was able to do so many things on my own, like, you know, this community that you have to support, a new page that you have to build, update the websites, Instagram page, prepare the exams, prepare the test, you know, certificates for everybody, support and manage every student and give them, you know, all the...

information and support needed. We have online calls every once in a while. So like, if you start thinking about it, it sounds like, yeah, just finish it. But when I think of how many things that has to be done was there, I just feels like it's never ending. And it's huge.

And also, as a part of it, I think it could be included in this sort of achievement. It was like we had three mentoring groups, which was about 14 people. So also, I think the huge part of this year for me was still running an online course. And as much as I was ambitious and planning to do another project and

publish another product or do something useful for the market again I felt like this whole year I had to actually focus on the course and literally until the end of November I couldn't stop

doing things and improving things and taking feedback and improving this part and this part and this part. This also was due to the fact that I'm still doing it on my own. So I think part of my next year goals would be definitely to optimize things in order to make some time for next projects. But I think I'm definitely proud of what I was able to build on my own in terms of this online course. It's definitely like a baby. And it's very hard to compare the babies, of course. It's a very practical baby, but I think it's still like...

It's the baby that took me almost two years to pull together. I want to feel like a mission is completed in this year at least. And I want to add that actually you have all the reasons in the world to celebrate the course because I've seen immense feedback, positive feedback from the people that are attending your course. And I think that it's amazing that you made it by yourself.

and built everything by yourself and managed to have so many students already. So I think I really, I've been sitting on the bench and admiring you all the time with the UX course. And I think that it's really a reason to celebrate and something that, I don't know, you can always keep in your life from now on. So it's really, it's a long-term achievement. I mean, it's a lot of work and it's a lot of intellectual work. And I think...

I would have been drained completely by this. So I've always admired you. Honestly, I think it's fantastic, really. So congrats. And yeah, we should drink champagne for that. Okay. And the last two things I want to pull, but it's actually much faster. Another small thing, which definitely is achievement for me was that

We got our first apartment. So we just bought this apartment I'm sitting in. And this is like a huge, huge thing for me because I guess three years ago I was traveling. I didn't have even rented apartment. I was like homeless, hitchhiker, doing all the crazy adventures. And now only three years in, I feel like, whoa, we just bought an apartment. This is extremely different for me. Like it's definitely new feeling, new experience.

new emotion and kind of feeling that I'm settling in finally. And it's, we bought it in Prague in Czech Republic and I'm originally Ukrainian. So I'm, I'm still a foreigner here. I still need to learn a language here, but it's, it's this huge thing that you feel like, whoa, this is my first apartment. It's been definitely a huge, long process as well to settle down as a foreigner with all the papers and just stuff. And the,

I don't even know if I should go into the third sort of achievement because it's all small things. Everything else is just small things, you know? And again, it's so tactical, which I cannot even say there were like a big shift in my mindset or something. It's small things that helped me being more efficient at my work. For example, shifting to Figma instead of Sketch, like a new system, new processes, new tools in place, and maybe...

Definitely, I feel like a better designer this year. I started a new job in a different company, which is extremely technical and extremely...

stuff that I've never done or thought about in my life. I have no clue about these things. So it's basically, I would just say the third achievement is this designer's growth, both because I lost a job in the beginning of this year. And then I was doing a lot of freelancing and then starting a new job in 2020, which definitely brings in a lot of growth in terms of learning to manage it remotely.

So it's also like a lot of things, small things, but not as huge and prominent or life-changing probably as it was for you. Yeah, I think that...

Before we move on to the next part, I just want to say that I think the structure that we began with, talking about achievements and then the next chapter that I'm going to let you introduce, I think that it's very telling for 2020. So it was a year of big achievements, big positives, but

also horrible negatives at the same time. So it was very in extremes. Okay, let's dive into it then. So what were your top three fails of 2020 Ioana?

Yeah. So, fails, I think that the whole world failed this year. So, I also had my fails alongside this big fail that was the coronavirus crisis on

On a personal level, I think I also something similar to what you shared. I had a lot of plans for 2020 and maybe I got demotivated because of the Corona crisis. Maybe I got lazy because of the pregnancy. I don't know what happened, but I had not as major goals as you had.

minor goals like launching an e-book which I had written in January I had it like 80% completed but it's like the

and I still haven't launched it. Although I think I could have launched it at 80% and nobody would tell that it's 80% and the parts are lacking, but I never felt confident or satisfied enough with it. So it was such a minor thing that I had to do and I didn't do it. And it felt like, but then I tried not to be hard on myself

Because, okay, the coronavirus made us all confused or maybe not as motivated as we normally were. Or maybe, I don't know, it was because of the pregnancy. I tried to be gentle with myself, but come on, it was an e-book and I wasn't able to launch it, although I almost finished it. And the other, the second thing is something quite similar. It was not a very big goal. It was important to me.

I kind of started it, but I didn't actually make it happen. It was launching my YouTube channel.

I just created a YouTube space. I mean, I created the channel, but I have no content whatsoever yet. And I'm going to postpone this goal for 2021. But I don't know, with the baby and all, maybe it's not going to be next year either. But it was also, it was disappointing because it's not, I have all the ideas. I have all the content. I know what I want to say. I know what I want to talk about. But at the same time, I don't get myself to do this. And yeah, I don't know.

I think it's so normal. It is so normal in 2020. Like, it's so many emotional drain, especially as you know that you will have the baby now and the world is, you know, going on fire. And every single month we had new, more emotional news happening everywhere.

And it was just very hard to be creative and actually, you know, achieve those goals. Yes, we could set those goals, but actually we are still emotional people and we're still those animals that live not only on the rational side. So it's not always easy to just, you know, say and do this.

as much as we want it's sometimes not even dependent from us yeah and actually not being hard on myself leads to the third fail and maybe the biggest one was the fact that I tried not to be hard on myself but actually I was very hard on myself in the end so

I, I, I was, I was, I guilt tripped myself very much. I was very judgy with myself that why aren't, why can't you do this very basic goals? And, and the most important one, I think that I didn't give myself the space to enjoy the room, the time, uh, to enjoy, uh, my pregnancy more and to welcome my baby with the more, I don't know, present energy, more presence because I

for the entirety of my pregnancy, I was super preoccupied with what's going to happen with my career. I have to do as much as I can now. And I took freelancing projects and I took all this, I don't know, partnerships and doing all the things constantly. And that made me distracted from the pregnancy journey, from preparing on an emotional and

mental level for welcoming my baby girl so it was all kind of messed up and confusing and agitated and I didn't really I wasn't able to give myself a

F word break to give myself a break this year and just say, OK, you know what? I'm not going to be doing all these things. Maybe I'm going to be inactive and I'm going to feel disappointed with myself. But I shouldn't. I just I should just enjoy this journey. I didn't do that. I was really hard on myself and felt guilty all the time that I'm not working enough. I'm not doing enough and so on.

You just said the future scenario of my life. What will happen to me as well? You were saying this and I was thinking, oh my God, this is so much like me. This is exactly what I will do. I know myself. But let's hear what happened. So we know your future. Let's hear your past year. Yeah.

Okay. So first of all, I think it's also coming back to some of the goals I was setting up for 2020. And again, let's repeat it over and over again. 2020 was unpredictable. So let's be realistic. Not everything that we wanted to do was possible to do or achieve this year. Okay.

And funny enough, I will actually start, this was my third fail I have mentioned, but I will start from it in the beginning just because it's funny, but I have a very similar goal to your first goal, but it's not exactly the same goal. So I actually also wanted, the goal of my 2020 was to publish like a physical book and

And the issues that I thought it's so easy to do, I will basically spend half a year writing it, another half a year publishing, launching, et cetera. I didn't even have one page in the beginning of the year. And I was so funny in my ambitious that I wanted to publish it maybe in the autumn, maybe. So right now I can definitely say, and I know about it. I know this about myself. I'm extremely optimistic with my ambitions and my goals.

But right now, yeah, I definitely should say that it's not just the fail that I didn't do this. I didn't even start writing it. It's the fail that I was, I guess, naive to think that I can do this in one year without, yeah, with all the time that you have to do, spend on the other things. Like, you know, we have this blog and course and full-time job and stuff like this.

So it's my fail to be so naive in my ambitions. And I just have to tell this publicly over and over again to myself that I need to be more realistic. I still can never manage my real ambitions or my timeline goals. That's the first one. Second one is that...

I also planned to, well, apart from the fact that, you know, we all plan to travel and be here and there, the whole year was literally planned every month was, you know, today in US, today in New Delhi, and today you're in Mauritius and stuff like this. So the whole year was planned for traveling. And also the whole year was planned, actually wanted to take the course on some sort of leadership with talking at the conferences, running different workshops and stuff like this. And I almost didn't,

get zero opportunity to do this, first of all because of the traveling restrictions, but secondly also because

I think I just didn't get enough energy to even start pulling it all together. There were opportunities when somebody said, do you want to talk at this conference? And I was just unable. I was still running in this hamster wheel, unable to find even 10 minutes of free time to prepare some talk or something. So last year, I was, again, ambitious enough to think that I can start talking at the conferences and doing some more leadership things. But I think I've managed only to do...

two workshops for the community through the whole entire year and few like webinars yeah so that's not enough and I definitely feel like okay I should have done better but if I think and look realistically back back it was just impossible because the whole time was just filled in with different things so

I should again be more cautious about not having time and think how can I optimize my things that I'm doing today. And that's another fail that I was not able to build the systems, more effective systems to work and operate within so that I can have my free time to focus on other things I really want to achieve. I'm still like in this, you know,

you know, support mode, not build mode, but I'm in the support mode right now. And if I want to create something new, I just need to completely rewound my lifestyle and time and calendar as well. And the third fail is, I'm going to be brief here. I failed Instagram completely.

I failed my blog completely. I had a lot of sort of goals running into it. I wanted to get to 100K and I wanted to have some sort of consistency in my posting. But again, I was not consistent at all. I was posting sometimes once in a month. I was struggling with the style of my blog. I was struggling with the topics.

Then in the middle of the summer, something changed with algorithms. So I started losing people instead of gaining new followers. And now I'm in the block of Instagram. It's insane. Like I cannot even post anything because I cannot reach even 10,000 people anymore. So I feel like Instagram was really hard on me. It was my biggest frustration this whole year.

And as we're going to talk about the next goals of the next year, I think I want to really completely move away from Instagram, but let's get there first. On this note, I would like to move to the next question for you, Ioana. And I would also like to ask what are the three goals that you would like to achieve in 2021? Well, the first one is very aligned with the

the last fail that I mentioned, not being able to take a break, an actual break. And to my biggest achievement, actually, I'm planning on trying to enjoy my daughter and be present for her, to be guilt-free in regards to my career and just do whatever I can do without getting too distracted from my daughter and my

Being there for her first year, I think, is important. It matters more than anything. So my biggest goal is to not care about career as much as I did for the rest of my life so far. The second goal is quite a big one. Actually, I'm now in...

partnership with a design leader from the industry that's working at Fitbit, that's a design manager, and he managed to build a small team. And we're trying, we're actually not trying, we're going to soon launch a UX bootcamp, which is actually more of a mentorship program.

program if you want. We're also going to have a curricula, but the main value proposition will be around the mentoring. So I think that for the students, what matters most is that they're supported on a one-on-one level or group level by somebody that's senior and can actually guide them on this journey. So yeah, I

I'm hoping that I'll be able to launch this school. And I know that as I'm talking, I realized that actually my number one goal is very conflicting with my number two goal because launching a school feels like, okay, it's a lot of work and I'm not going to be able to enjoy my daughter. But I think that I'm trying to balance both. And in this project with the bootcamp, I have a good team that I can rely on and they're very supportive of me.

And the goal number three is to actually have a more substantial, I don't know how to call it, sophisticated approach on my content. So not just have this very bite-sized and sometimes what I find to be shallow or superficial posts, but maybe create a system, maybe move.

Just like I think I'm anticipating you're going to share maybe other channels, YouTube finally, I don't know, maybe not even 2021, maybe the next year will be my year for YouTube. However, my plan is to create more meaningful content if you want. So I think that this is a...

how I'm gonna do it it's not clear but I know that I feel that I should be improving my content game and offering people something that's more valuable than more meaningful so these are my these are my three goals this is cool I'm pretty sure you'll settle in maybe one two three months after the beginning of the year and you'll manage to do this

And also it's very important that you have a team, that you have people to support you, to have your back if you need it. So that's very important. That's something I should have done or have also in my journey with the course. You should be doing it from now on. I mean, you're at a level of, you have too much work to do. You're one person. And I think that I'm hoping that in your goals, I'm going to hear something about that. You will. That's great.

Okay, let's talk about the goals or intentions for the next year. And I'm saying the word intentions because now I know that not always you should strive for the goals.

especially when you never know what's happened next year. So goal number one is still, and I'm still hoping for this, but this time I'm trying to be more realistic, is to build at least or write at least the whole book of UX. And it's not going to be like another book on the shelf. I think I want to really focus on being or making it really like a practical UX guidebook, something like this, where...

It's not just a mindset. And mindset is important, but we have a lot of books about mindset. And I really want to focus on how to get started with UX practically and how to have this sort of system and plug and play tools in place in one place, in one book, if you will, to get started with UX and sort of nail your first project as a UX designer.

So that's something I want to focus on. And I've started doing a lot of drafts basically just this month in December. I have things, bits here and there. I have everything in a very, very Macy's state. So I think with basically in the beginning of the year, I'll take some, I will try to take some off time and

organize this mess and sort of think of this first days or first part as the discovery journey where I'm kind of going broad and trying to put together every bit that I was getting through the mentorship program we were running with the students from the student feedback, students sort of struggles and stuff like this and try to really

Go abroad with everything I can put there. But then of course, then later in the year, I'll try to converge this into more digestible information and the most kind of impactful information I want to see there. So the goal is basically to at least build that book. I'm not going to even say like publish it or, and actually I'm crazy enough to think that I can do this in a physical form of the book, but we'll see if that's possible. So at least I want to have the content ready.

The second thing, and as I think you now understand why it is important as well, it's having first of all support and the system in place for the social media. You mentioned that you want to do like a meaningful content. And when I think about what I'm doing right now, I feel like I know what I'm doing and I feel like I know the content I want to keep pushing.

However, it's not organized. It's also always like this chaotic, messy sort of inspiration that comes in and I'm like trying to clean my table and

sort of build it in a last minute moment. And it's not very strategic. It's very impulsive. It means that I'm not doing it in the right time with the right sort of people in mind and the right, maybe even hashtag strategy and stuff like this. So I try to be, I will try to be a little bit more organized with everything. And I will use Figma to build my design system. So I would have like basically everything organized, hopefully, I don't know. And also, yeah,

I'm already looking for support. So for a social media manager for first time ever, which sounds to me a little bit like I'm betraying myself, but we'll see, we'll see. I honestly want to develop some sort of authentic system together with this person. And actually in the next three days, I have around seven interviews with the potential candidates. So it's interesting how it goes. I was also reflecting today on how I want to talk to them, what kind of questions I want to ask them to make sure that we are on the same wave

But I'm looking for the person who will be like creatively on the same page with me, but also still experimenting and offering ideas and sort of helping me to move it to the next level with consistency organization, as well as sort of visual style of it. And that's the second goal. But yeah,

The third goal is, again, back to the fails of the 2020, that I want to still kind of pursue my leadership sort of direction. And I want to still do those workshops, at least practice, at least do them maybe once in a month. But I want to make more workshops with the community or with more at work as well.

as well as maybe finally start thinking about some public talks, conferences and stuff like this. Basically, this is the level where I need to build enough level of confidence in what I know and managing the energy in the room, be it a workshop or be it a conference room. But it's something, it's the next challenge I kind of want to put myself into.

And now I'm saying this, I'm feeling like I'm freaking out already. But I think if you feel a little bit freaked out, that's probably the right direction to move forward. So we'll see how it goes. I can't wait for our podcast at the end of 2021 where we look at these goals and we are going to say, take them all. I feel like I'm going to be like, ha, ha, ha, how nice of you again.

I expect this from you already. But yeah, no, I mean, we'll do it. Let's hope for the best. Do we want to also discuss a little bit of what are the sort of personal learnings or improvements we also want to see in 2021 for ourselves? Yeah, I think that actually there is one professional challenge that I'm facing ahead and it's brought by launching the bootcamp.

and having to create a brand and to understand how you build an educational product, how do you sell it, how do you pack it, like how do you make a product that's meaningful? So now I'm in this journey of understanding

Yeah, actually how to build an educational product. This is it. And also I'm not a good seller. I'm not sure if I'm a good brand builder. Maybe I was very good at building a personal brand so far, but I'm not sure if I'm able to build product brands and so on. So this is an important challenge that I'll be facing next year. Oh, I'm sure you'll do great.

Just let me keep my five cents here. Thank you. We'll see. We'll see. I don't know. And another one is something that I keep coming back to because I have to repeat this a lot to myself because it doesn't come natural. It's actually becoming a more mindful and stable person if you want. So just like you said, I think we're,

we're very much on the same page. We have a lot of similar points in our personalities, and maybe this is what got us drawn together into building this podcast and so on. And, and all the good communication we've had from the very beginning. I think that just like you said, I'm always running, doing things more and more and more and wanting to do this and that and, and, and having a lot of drive and energy levels. But I think that at the same time, this is,

will be exhausting longer term perspective. And I just need to learn in 2021, how to slow down, how to quiet down, how to accept that I'm not reaching milestones for a while. Nothing's happening. I'm not, I'm not evolving for six months. Is this dramatic? I don't know. Maybe it's not. Maybe I should just embrace it. Maybe I'm evolving in other parts of my life.

interior life if you want so yeah just being more mindful present slow down and disconnect being able to disconnect i think this is my the most important lesson that i'll be reaching for um

um in 2021 and I will probably fail so this is my haha moment uh at the end of next year but I have to I have to do it for my daughter and for myself yeah and talking about the the learnings also and it's again as you were just saying like it's also matches with you very well it's one thing which I'm trying to also do for a very long period of my life

And it's to learn to not to be too stressful, to kind of chill out. It's something that I've realized in 2020 that I cannot stop stressing out on things, even small things, not important things, but I can help myself. I'm too nervous. I'm paying too much sort of importance to things that are not important if I zoom out and look at

at them maybe in a few years from now. It's, it's, there are small things, but they let myself to be vulnerable and basically they get in my way. And that's the worst part of it. They don't allow me to be productive sometimes or be creative sometimes or be inspired. They take away, they kill my day sometimes. And that's just bad. And I realized this, which is usually the half part, you know, of the solution, but, um, I still can't do anything about it. And I,

I'm honestly trying. I don't know how. Maybe I will need some help and some support at this, but I need to learn how to not stress out about small things. Small things even like posting a new post on Instagram and posting it doesn't go viral or something. Small things like, or today you do the workshop and it was unsuccessful. I'm being very frustrated about it.

or I don't know, I get refused about some project or something. So small things that are not important long-term, but I'm so used to and I so want to celebrate every achievement and everything I put my energy into that every small sort of

makes a toll on me and that's bad because you can't always win you also need to learn to sort of fail and um stressing out doesn't help at all so this is something i need to work towards a little bit more and also maybe they have things more under control um you

Yeah, this is hard, but we'll see how it will evolve later on. And two more goals, which are more tangible and practical. One is to basically travel like a lot. That's what I want to say. I don't have a baby, but I have a dog. So that could be a little bit of a problem, but we will see.

Honestly, right now I feel like my dog is my baby. It's taking all the time, all the free moments. As soon as I will leave this room, it will steal all my attention until the end of the day. So I don't know, but I still want to travel a lot.

um and also as we go this apartment i want now to start renovation so it's a lot of creative energy also into making it your own and um making it you know your favorite apartment that you want to come back and always you know feel happy at home here so it's also another sort of project or evolving that i want to put some energy into but uh those small things are more tangible and i hope that um

those are more achievable at least than, than for example, stopping to stress out. Yeah. Well, I want to continue on that note of, uh, the, the, the, what you've mentioned that you're struggling with stressing over small things and, uh,

suffering over very minor fails and so on. And I always thought that I have an anxiety disorder and my therapists all confirmed that I do have an anxiety disorder. So it's a generalized anxiety, but it's being generalized. It's always all over the place. So I'm stressing, just like you said, over very small things that I have to do is my to-do list.

Actually, my to-do list always has, I don't know, 20 items and I'm stressing over each and every one of them. Even making a call to make an appointment is stressing me out.

So I also struggled with this my entire life. I've been in therapy for a couple of years. It kind of made it better, but it's not gone. I think I have to learn to embrace it and live with it and accept that this is how I function or I function for most of my life. And it's going to be hard to reframe things, to reset myself, if you want, reprogram myself.

But I think that I would take this point, take this, I don't know, common pain that we both have, the anxiety problem, and maybe expand on it a little and think about the fact that 2020 was a year where I think even the most...

um peaceful for people felt certain level of anxiety because of what was happening in the world and i think that 2020 was the year for anxiety because also the media was pushing us with a very um it was a bombardment if you want to i don't know bad news it was it was overwhelming and i think that even if you are i don't know doing yoga every day and

practicing meditation and so on, it's impossible that you haven't felt at least a minor level of anxiety. And maybe this is something that we should be all talking about more in the public space and also in the designers common grounds, playgrounds. We could be talking about how this year has taken a toll on us, impacted us on a psychological level and being in a constant state of anxiety can be very draining and

yeah we pay a price for for 2020 but if I were to draw a conclusion right now it's that it was a horrible year a very beautiful year at the same time for myself on a personal level at least it's a good perspective on life itself I mean there's there's always really bad parts but there's also good

good parts to it so yeah this is the conclusion i'm pretty sure that it's even good that it happened that you know in a few years from now look back at it and think like oh wow that year that year we will all think that at least it taught us something and it impacted us in in some in some levels we will just need to take some time to understand how exactly

But I think it's good that it happened in a way that we now know what we're capable of. And also, we all have learned a lot in this year.

So now we know what to expect from the worst things. Not maybe the worst, worst things, but we know what it could be. And without having this year, we might just not appreciate some good moments, beauty of normal things, like going to coffee with the friends or traveling to the nearest city. So it's the year that would probably make us think a little bit more about and appreciate more small things, I guess, in our lives. I think we can wrap up this episode

Interesting episode, definitely interesting and definitely quite reflective episode. And I'm really happy that we have it. This is probably the most reflective episode we have so far. And I do think we should probably have more of those in future episodes. Especially we should definitely cover the topic about anxiety and emotional or mental health a little bit more.

again, as we did it in the previous episodes, but I think it's a big topic. So thank you so much, everyone, for joining. Thank you for tuning in and listening to this whole episode. And thank you for surviving the 2020s, I guess.

we did it we did it yeah we should this is an achievement itself you know it should be on the top three actually there's four achievements for everyone at least surviving 2020 is one of them and I'm hoping that 2021 would be will be more gentle with us so thank you all and bye bye bye see you