Lessons from 2017 that made me stronger

And things I refuse to do in 2018

8 min readDec 31, 2017

Yesterday my friend Arslan Atajanov helped me to set up my blog. Finally, I got my hands on it giving myself an objective for the upcoming year. I just want to have one place to keep my thoughts neat and organized. Medium, with all my love, is not the best place for organizing things.

www.chengeerlee.com. If that doesn’t sound beyond odd then I don’t know what is. I never thought I would have a personal blog. Right now it is just a Wordpress shell but I will work hard to beat it into shape.

As we were sitting in the library with Arslan, drinking our grapefruit tea, I asked him if he writes New Year Resolutions. He replied: “Why would I need to do it? I know what to do. I just need to work hard.”

That’s the difference between the men who want things to happen and make things happen. The decision. The internalizing of the knowledge that everything already happened the way you want, you just need some time to materialize it.

Here is the thing about New Year Resolutions. Many workout junkies complain that it is impossible to find a parking slot in January because all of those who promised themselves to get into shape swarm into gyms. In Russian we call these people “подснежники” — “snowdrops”, people who are like flowers rise from the snow in the winter to look pretty in the spring.

The truth is — we all know what we gotta do. We all know what kind of work has to be done, which negative habits have to be ditched, which relationships have to be cut because they drag us down. We all know that we need to get this body trained, we need to have that book written, we need to make that business work. So what’s the point in those New Year Resolutions?

I would say, they help you to track who you were back in the past. I used to write my ambitious goals on the paper, and then at some point, my life turns 180 degrees ruining all of the plans and forcing me to adapt and make new ones. I know that what I will write today, tomorrow will change dramatically so instead I want to focus on my lessons — lessons of 2017.

Lessons of 2017.

I write these notes to myself and maybe you, my accident reader, will find something in it. I hope it will inspire you to write your own list of lessons of the past year. Please, share it with me. I would love to read it.

Ok, here we go.

Health

Working out every day may exhaust you. Learn how to take time and rest.
Keep experimenting. Learn about the variety of activities out there. Try them all, let the practical ones stay.
Muscle mass is good-looking but energy consuming. Big muscles eat a lot. The bigger you are more food you have to process. Eating = aging.
Fasting = rejuvenation. Give your body 1 day every month to completely rest from food.
Stay lean, eat clean. Endurance and longevity are the primary objectives for 2018.
Implementing cold showers in the routine is the discovery of the year.
Sleep! 5–6 hours of sleep every day are not enough to recover. Bad for the brain!
Take care of your skin. Sun cream in the summer is a must. Wind protection cream in the winter as well. I know you don’t give a damn about the looks but if you don’t take a better care of yourself you will soon look like an elephant’s ass. No one wants to be friends with an elephant’s ass.

Relationships

Partner.

Don’t try to argue with your woman! Again! Just shut up. This is just a waste of time.
Spend 30 min of quality time with her. No distractions. Eye contact. It does real magic to a relationship.
There will be moments when you will feel like she is not appreciating your efforts. She does. Selfless service is the foundation of love. Keep it up.

Friends.

Send them voice messages in the gaps between your activities. Let the people you hold dear know that you love them.
Stick to the people who want to stick to you. Work hard, provide your best service to them, and elevate them. Invest in these relationships, foster them, they will become your lifelong treasure.
Let go those who want to go. Thank them for the time they shared with you and let them go.
People will betray you. People will turn away from you. Love them still. Even when someone stabs you in the back try to understand their motifs. If you can, never use their motivation as a starting point for your own logic. If you can’t, forgive and move on. Elevate your consciousness to another level.

Parents.

Go home. It’s really time to visit them. You are young and everything is still ahead of you. The time with parents, on the other hand, just fades away. It will never be back. Don’t make yourself regret. Go home.
That’s a tough lesson to comprehend, but don’t help your parents financially until you build a solid savings foundation. Parents are OK with money for now but you have to understand that you will never be able to save the lump sum of money to invest if you keep sending all of it home.
Share their wins with them. They look more for your appreciation than you looked for theirs when you were a kid. They need to be sure they succeeded as parents. Let them know.
Finish every conversation with sincere “I love you”. You never know which one will be your last.

Yourself

Take it easy on yourself. Sometimes you are too intense, too demanding. It becomes an obstacle because it also makes you unforgiving. You are flawed. That’s ok. Embrace it. Amplify your strengths, eradicate your weaknesses but do it at a calm pace. Life is a marathon, not a sprint.
Perfectionism is imperfect. Strive for doing your best but don’t obsess about it. As long as it is 80% functional it is functional. It will do the job. Don’t waste time polishing the details. The “compound effect” is more important, let the volume build up.
Meditate. Write. Read. Observe all of your thoughts and emotions. Do not engage! Just observe. This is the foundation of mastery. Create environments where you will learn more about yourself. Deploy solitude.

Environment.

Place yourself in the places with people that already have what you want to have. I have an intent to be better at writing — I follow the best wordsmiths on Medium and Quora, I read books. I have an intent to improve my endurance and teach my brain to solve kinetic puzzles well — I placed myself in a rock climbing club. I have an intent to create time to do more stuff — I placed myself in the serenity of an early morning. Place yourself in the setting where you have no other choice but to undergo the desired transformation.
There is a huge difference between swimming in a crystal clear mountain lake and swimming in a bog. Relocation is an objective for this year.
Change jobs. It will help to meet new people and further improve your skills. Treat your colleagues nicely, you never know when you will need their help.

Career.

You know what to do. Just do your job and do it well.
Focus more on your strengths. Use them. Work on weaknesses in the free time.
In the meantime — create content that will help others in their journey. Don’t be afraid to be candid and frank about your flaws and misfortunes. People who are also genuine will always appreciate it. A fool is not the one who makes mistakes, it’s the one who persists in claiming that he is infallible.
Have a long-term strategy. Find some minutes every day to contribute to something that will become your legacy. Keep an eye on automation and AI.

Money.

Earn.
Save.
Create passive income.
Invest.

Personal growth.

Find mentors.
Read more!
Do things you have never done before.
Declutter. Get rid/don’t buy all of the stuff that doesn’t contribute value to your life!

Brightness of life.

Travel more. This alone will be enough.

Spiritual life.

Commit to meditations. This alone will be enough.

Hello, 2018!

Come at me, bro. I am ready. There were many quakes that swayed me from one path to another. I learned a lot about myself and I know that the upcoming year is going to be awesome.

In 2018 I refuse

I refuse to care about things that are out of my control. I will focus solely on the things within my circle of influence. I will dedicate all my energy to become the force of a change I want to see in myself. I don’t undergo the transformation, I am transformation.

I refuse to care about the people who turned away from me. Instead, I will open myself up to new awesome kind amazing relationships full of exciting opportunities that are coming along my way.

I refuse to care about the money. I will do what I do and I will do my best. The world is abundant and my worries just juice up the scarcity mindset in me. 2018 will be the richest year ever.

I refuse to care about the negative feedback. I will listen only to people who are better than me i.e. achieved in life things that I want. People who hate do not create much except for the noise.

I refuse to care about the voice of my “inner impostor.” The doubt has always existed and it will exist. But it is my reaction to it — that’s what defines me. My mindset puzzle pieces finally fell into places:

The process is the goal.
~James Altucher
There is no failure. A failure is an inherent attribute of the process. ~Nicolas Cole
The journey is the reward.
~Steven Jobs

With all these things in mind, I surrender myself to 2018.

Happy New Year! 🎅

I know that you set up big goals for yourself and regardless of whether you have decided to make them public or not, keep in mind — you are destined for greatness. Forge yourself into someone you will be proud for.

Let’s stick together on our journey to the new year of our success. Hoorah!