Reflecting on the Past Year & Prioritizing Self-Growth: My January Newsletter
💪 💆♀️ 🌍 📝 ❤️ 🎉 💕 ⏭️
A month of awareness
For the past month, I’ve had some time to just reflect. To give a ‘lil summary, I thought about the past year quite a bit + started prioritizing the things that matter, just finished up with exams, spent time with family, and realized that January is a crazy birthday month! You’ll have to read the rest to find out the details 🎶
Hey hey! If you don’t know me, my name is Amrita Ghag, a 15 year old based in Toronto, Canada passionate in all things Nuclear Fusion ☀️ and AI 🤖. As I'm getting more and more into the two fields, I’m super open to any opportunities/experiences!
With these monthly newsletters, I’ll be giving little snippets and blogs on what I’ve recently been up to! Subscribe if you wanna learn more ;)
Reflecting on 2023 💪
This is something I very much needed. The new year felt like my time to have a fresh start and think bigger…. but I needed to reflect on 2023 if I was ready to make change. Reflecting helped me think of all the things I could improve from 2023 & how, but also what I did right and enjoyed, making sure I prioritize those things. But what should you do?
Shoutout to Aatik Chopra for this new way of thinking & his thoughts on it:
“New year resolutions don’t work; instead of leading to growth, they can lead to frustration & guilt. Instead, we can learn from our past self and design a life that maximizes your ability to do great work.”
Okay so how do we learn from our past self instead? With a Past-Year Review (PYR).
It should be done December 31 or January 1. If you want to grow as a person and live a happier life, there shouldn’t be any excuses for doing this.
Listen to the short podcast ep (+ read the blog) to follow the exercise. “Treat it as a ritual; set up some tea and light a candle - create an intentional ambiance.”
Personally, it helped me understand the negative things of 2023, and how not to come back to them. Then, it helped me with the positive things, and prioritizing them for 2024. I found this much more effective. In the past, my new year resolutions consisted of the same things: eat better, get good grades, watch less tv. But every year, I find myself writing that same list, with no change being made.
Instead of that, why not grow from your past self, to make your ideal future self? At least for next year, try this and see how much better it is than setting the same unintentional goals.
Also recommend doing a post-mortem of the past year. You would be conducting a post-mortem on the past 365 days by addressing a few of these questions:
- Challenges and Solutions: What were the main challenges encountered, and how were they addressed?
- Goal Achievement: Did you successfully achieve the main goals set for the new year, and were there any unmet goals?
- Quality and Satisfaction: Overall, how satisfied are you with the past year, and what could be improved?
Trust me: this is 100x more effective than just mindlessly writing the same old resolutions each year. Conducting a PYR or a post-mortem, or both, will make you reflect deeply on your year… making you a stronger person.
I mentioned I wanted 2024 to be a new era; for prioritizing the things I value, and how exactly to reach them. The first thing was me having to let go of some negative people in my life, realizing they were anything but good to me. I really needed to spend time with my family more, these are the people who have and always will be by your side.
I’ve been working to make 2024 a year of self-prioritization. Doing the things that I need to do for my own growth, and stop trying to please others / seek external validation.
Setting my Priorities Straight 💆♀️
I’ve been mentioning so much that I haven’t been prioritizing the right things, my energy was going towards unimportant things. Through my PYR & post-mortem, it helped me understand that I want to focus on self-growth and self-care.
I’ve started with the basics. Working out, eating right, going for walks and getting fresh air. I’ve been listening to many more podcasts, in hopes of trying to better myself; and have a recommendation for this month 👀🧠.
I’ve wanted to know what I could do to improve memory & learn things faster, given I had exams this month. So of course I had to ask Huberman! The title of this podcast is “Understand & Improve Memory Using Science-Based Tools”.
I 100% recommend listening to the entire podcast. But in short, here’s what the podcast’s about:
Explaining the mechanisms where different types of memories are produced in our brain
How to leverage the amount and timing of key neurochemicals + hormones to improve your learning and memory abilities
Multiple science-based ways to do this; including repetition, caffeine, emotional states, deliberate cold exposure, sleep, meditation, and the role of vision
Finally, how exercise and other associated hormones can improve cognitive ability and memory formation
Additional info: Describing unique aspects and forms of memory such as photographic memory, extreme facial recognition, and déjà vu
Alright, so how else can I prioritize myself and self-care? I’ve mentioned before, but I really started hanging out with people who actually care for me & support me. Friendships, or rather any relationship in life, is about giving and receiving energy. If you’re not doing both, it’s a one-sided or toxic relationship. I had to evaluate some of my own friendships and ask myself if this is really what I deserve? Everyone deserves better than that, so if you feel like you’re being treated poorly, or are with people who don’t make you feel great, do what’s best for you and what feels right. Friends should support you with whatever you decide to do, and help you in bad times.
And, I’ve put a lot of thought into starting my mornings off right. It’s pretty cliché, but if I’m prioritizing self-growth / care, starting my day off the right way is 🔑. It’s been a pretty consistent schedule of me waking up early (average around 6am), and getting started with work. I try to start with the most daunting tasks; not only because I just want to get them out of the way, but also to build that discipline of getting hard s**t done. After a walk, a workout, stretching, or coming back from Taekwondo, I’ve implemented taking cold showers. I built it up from 2 mins to 6-7 mins, and I haven’t seen a hot shower in so long 😭.
I continue with work, and try to end my day off with reading. I love Sapiens, but it’s been taking forever because of how little I was reading before, but I’ve made more progress now. Finally, I’ll wind down to bed and try to get my 8 hours. But somewhere between when I wake up and go to sleep, I’ll be with my family or talking to my friends!
Passion Projects 🌍
I’ve been feeling very stagnant right now, in terms of working on my personal projects. Life’s been hectic with exams, but now I have the time to get back into those projects. At the beginning of January though, I published a research paper to bring together all my research, knowledge, and work I’ve been putting into my fusion x ai project.
…. but now it’s the end of an era. Since the summer, I’ve been dancing around the idea of ai x nuclear fusion, but finally decided to start working on it in October. The past 3 months were nothing but me trying to get content out, talking to experts in the field, and trying to navigate my way through all the difficulties. It was hard having to pivot a few times, but seeing this paper and all of my work feels really amazing.
But I did end up mentioning how this is the end of an era.. or at least for now. I’ve been in the fusion game for almost 2 years, but I’m looking to expand my horizons and optimize for exploration 💫. I’ll be researching into some new fields… but maybe I’ll just come right back to fusion if it’s my true calling ☀️
Buuuut, I did accomplish something else very recently! Since around October, a group of wonderful people: Opemipo Oduntan, Beatrice Milasan, and Abdur Sajid , have been working on a submission for The Earth Prize 🌍.
The Earth Prize is a global $200 000 environmental sustainability competition for students! We’ve worked on a solution for textile waste in Kenya, and after hours of work each week, have finally submitted! Wish us luck for the next elimination round and hopefully we make it 🙏
Exams 📝
Right after winter break, I’ve been prepping for school exams. It’s been a very busy month, trying to grind away at studying… but I’m finally done and can breathe again!!! I had a science, math, and business exam, all of which were between 75-150 mins ⏰
It’s so relieving that they’re done though. It’s kinda bittersweet that I’ll have different teachers, with different classes, learning different topics… but at the same time I’m ready for that fresh start. Now, I want to share some of my thoughts on my experience with these exams.
First is that I didn’t realize how much time studying & preparing for exams would take away from my passion projects. I had originally thought that I would have maybe some time on the weekend or whenever to chip away at least an hour of work… but I was very wrong. Instead, I found myself studying for hours on these topics trying to memorize everything; because once you learn something in September, it takes a long time to re-learn it. I also just found these courses to be very content-heavy, and they required a lot of understanding.
But, I think they went okay! One thing that helped me was developing a study routine and work ethic for exams and tests, and testing out some effective study techniques. I never had exams last year, and a part of me is actually glad we had them to prepare for grade 11 exams, because they do not look fun 🤕
You’ve for sure heard this a million times, but I really want to emphasize that exams do not define you. You can’t control the difficulty of the test and what’s on it, but you can 100% control how you approach it and how you spend your time. Focus on those things you can control, and work hard. At the end of the day, take it as a learning experience for next time; you’ll fail a thousand times before you succeed.
Family-Time ❤️
My family are the people who love, care, and support me. Everyone has different circumstances, but find those people who care about you, and can call family. For me, and I never thought of it like this, but my family has always been there for me.. I can’t even think of a time when they weren’t.
My PYR and post-mortem included a lot of positive things about my family, and spending more time with them, so I knew that 2024 should be a year with more family time. My parents and siblings have always brought a smile to my face, and help me when I feel my lowest…. they’ve never given up on me. I was missing out by trying to go to my room, or opt out of a family activity… but I’ll tell you that these are the relationships that matter the most.
I’ve slowly started being more open with them too; whether it’s about school or friends, they are my support system and deserve to know when something is wrong! We’ve been spending more time together, going on lunch dates, and watching movies 🍿. Aaaand, January was both of my parents’ birthday month, so we celebrated a lot!
I was missing out in 2023 and don’t want 2024 to be a repeat! Even if there are days we can’t hang, I’ve been mainly prioritizing bonding and connecting with them… not keeping secrets, and knowing they’ll always be there for me ❤️
Highlight of the Month: Shanzeh’s Sweetest 16 🎉 💕
Wow, I didn’t realize how big of a birthday month January is! This month one of my amazing TKS friends, Shanzeh Haji, celebrated her sweet 16th with family & friends! It was such a beautiful night; she and everyone else looked gorgeous! The party room was so nice: it had yummy food, deserts, and cute decor 😋
It was also really great seeing some of my other friends and reconnecting with them after not seeing them for the past couple months. We caught up and, after hours of driving through a Canadian snow storm, made it alive!
I realized that these are the people who uplift me, and make me feel like I belong. I feel loved and included, and they’re all great people! Bonus: we all danced a lot on the dance floor 💃 🕺 🪩
Now What ⏭️ ?
What can you expect next month 🕵️♀️?
PIE Challenge 🥧
The PIE Challenge is through the TKS program. I mentioned last month we’ll be starting it in February, but looks like it’s changed to end of February! It’ll still be a full month, of us working on problems in a selected industry, and finding solutions to them! I’ll be working with some amazing people… but stay tuned to know how it goes!
Exploration 🔍
After some thought, I’ve been meaning to pivot from fusion. Exam season was no joke though! I couldn’t get a lot done during that time, but now I’m ready to get back into things and optimize for exploration. I want to explore more fields and some of my other interests!
Starting off fresh 🧘♀️
I’ve been working towards a year of self-growth + self-care, starting my 2024 off fresh. But… I’ll also be starting a new semester in school very soon! It’ll be a change, but I’m more excited than nervous! I want to start off right, so stay tuned for that :)
Photo-dump of the month because you just can’t have enough 😋
Thank you so much for reading my monthly newsletter :) That’s it for January, but stay tuned for February! I’m always looking for feedback + recommendations, so feel free to contact me! See you next month!
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Absolutely love this Amrita! This reflection was so thoughtful and I’m really excited to keep seeing your growth in 2024 💕