Year’s results. How to end a year?

Blog Listen to your broccoli year results

“I can’t see these posts full of year’s results and conclusions from my friends. When it’s gonna stop?” I have seen more of these posts in my Facebook feed than posts with year results and achievements. And you?

I read about different ways of summarising your year and achievements with a lot of interest: mini questioneers (person of the year, book of the year, film of the year, purchase of the year, failing of the year), detailed conclusions with numbers (those were a minority), year in images, year in a movie, list of completed things, list of unfinished things, just a list of something.

And I thought that I have to convert all these energy around into something and chose three rituals of finishing the year for myself:

Letter to yourself in the future

This is a task that very often you receive if you attend self-development trainings and this is something I always want to skip because it is either too complex or too silly. But there is something in this Christmas and New Year period that makes this task a mix of ritual, metaphora, attention and support to yourself and additionally the universe is absolutely all set for irrational things during this period.

Also, it is very useful for me, for a person who is always forgetting what was the wish I wrote on a napkin, burned, put the ashes into a glass of sparkling wine and drank (note: this is a New Year ritual spread in Belarus, not sure it is universally known:)) as it helps me:

  • to at least remember myself at that moment and to remember my wishes.
  • to allow me to look back to point A and assess my progress as I am in point B

And yes, we leave in times when there is a service for everything: you can write and send yourself an email today and get it after a year back in your mailbox.

Year of gratitude 

How many times did you start to keep a diary of gratitude? As many times as I did? (Note: okay, not sure it is a fair question. But in the Russian speaking community it is considered that keeping a diary of gratitude is an must and a key to open the universe to yourself, okay in female Russian speaking community).

So how to end a year if you could not this famous diary of gratitude? Of course, with gratitude! To a year or to selected people that amused / impressed / were important for you. Once I was very envious because of my colleague who at the end of the year gave nice looking chocolate bars to her top 10 people of the year. This is very elegant and nice, especially if it is not a formality, but a real thing.

This year for the first time I sent the postcards with a meaning: to a my Dutch teacher, who gave exactly what I needed at the exact moment, to hosting provider who answered my beginner questions, to friends who continue to inspire me.

Блог Listen to your broccoli | Итоги года

A Year in Photos

There should be some excuse why we have all these photos in our smartphones. That’s why we have to go through all the photos and choose 2-3 photos for each months that contain reference to an important moment, emotion, remind of an atmosphere that your experienced. Do not chose pretty ones, they are for another album. This one is about your path.

So why do that?

Firstly, you will need these yearly albums when your memory will start to weaken. You have an easy reference to what happened and when. Everything in one place.

Secondly, you will have a documented answer to a question ‘What I am spending my life on?”

Thirdly, this is it. This process of selecting process is your summarising of the year’s results – you see what you did and what was important and not important, and what you want to repeat?

Listen to your broccoli. How to make 5 mistakes when choosing a name for a blog?

Как выбрать название для блога | Блог Listen to your broccoli

 

Suffering from not knowing how to name your blog or coming up with a blog name within seconds and registering it within next seconds and after that never posting anything there – these are probably two most popular scenarios and I experienced both of them.

How to come up with a blog name – first attempt

Please look at that – Blog WithoutABlog. This is a blog created on wordpress that I created very quickly but never wrote anything there. I thought how funny it will be to use the name of the blog in the blog posts’ phrases. For example: “I don’t where I would write all of this, if I would be without a blog’. But this blog name was prophetic, I was still without a blog.

Next time I spend more time thinking about the title. It was absolutely unclear how to come up with a name, but it was absolutely clear that it should not contain any pretty word.

How to choose a name for a blog, when it is nothing to chose from

I was reading up all types of advice on how to avoid mistakes in naming my blog, I was going through different words that were coming to my head and the same time realising that spending time on making up a name is that most useless thing that means just avoiding working on the content. I ended up with couple of options:

  • Glass and Wood
  • Tea with nothing 
  • Solo with everyone 
  • Anna is writing

All of them were okay, but none of them had a story behind.

How to find a name for a blog when it is right in front of you

And I find myself writing the following words while discussing the book of Anne Lamott ‘Bird by Bird’: “and this is such a nice option to name a blog for somebody’. And only a week after that I thought – why I am not naming it like that???

This is a printscreen of the discussion where I am writing about my impression on the book: there is a funny moment in the book, where the author refers to a situation where a psychiatrist advises to his patient – listen to the broccoli, it will tell you what to do with it (how to cook it). His idea is that in any difficult situation, when you do not know what to do, what to write, you still have this quiet voice inside yourself, you have just to hear it. Sounds strange, but funny. 

This title (Listen to your broccoli) has several disadvantages:

  • this is a name in English for a blog in Russian (yes, originally I did not plan to create a English version)
  • while spelling it it is very easy to make several mistakes (I am still misspelling the word ‘broccoli’ myself)
  • the name does not fit on smartphone screen
  • it creates associations with topics which has nothing to do with the blog (bio food, healthy lifestyle, cooking)
  • I have to explain it (always!)

However that last one might be an advantage! Who knows:)

Название блога | Блог Listen to your broccoli
Название блога | Блог Listen to your broccoli