15 Things To Reflect On This December

The goal is to be able to spend time with yourself and enjoy the company. Every year you're going to get massive value. If you go through this list and give yourself a couple of minutes to think deeply.

Here are 15 things to reflect on this December. First up, what a year it's been. Quickly go through the year, month by month. And what were the highlights of each? Put it in writing if you have to. This refresh forces your brain to move those memories from the cache of short term, soon to be forgotten into the longer term side of things.

It's easy to think about the year that's gone by in a blink of an eye until you realize just how much you did this year. And some of them are cornerstones to who you are and who you are becoming. You went through another year. You did it. Not only have you survived, but you added some value to the memory bank.

Treasure it because these memories you kind of take for granted right now will grow in value over time. But more on that in a second. Then there's how far you've come from where you grew up. The little version of you would look at the present version of you and think you're the coolest person in the world.

This reflection forces you to remember the days when what you currently have were the goals you were hoping to someday achieve. Think about your childhood. Think about the struggles. Think of the little home you grew up in and how far you've come. Think about every toy you have right now that you earned on your own.

Think about how much life has expanded. How much your room to maneuver, to move, to experience. What was your life 20 years ago? What is your life today? Dig into some of your old photo albums and this gap becomes evident. Do it with your partner or family. It'll bring you all closer together.

How your life is changing year by year. The last five years have probably been the biggest transformation you've experienced in your life. You feel more mature. You feel wiser now. You look back ten years ago and realize just how much of an idiot that person was, and you can basically track how you've evolved year over year.

Don't worry about that idiot. They were smart enough to get you here today and probably ten years in the future you'll look back on today in the same kind of way. Every year is supposed to change. Even just minimally, you're supposed to discover more about yourself. More of the world.

People make the mistake of thinking the world is fixed and they're the ones constantly changing when in reality it's the other way around. The world is changing, and your default is trying to stay the same. Find the balance and change with it. Never miss a good opportunity to change yourself.

Another thing to reflect on is how old your parents are getting. Here's a brutal question: How many Christmases do you think your parents have ahead of them? If our analytics are correct, less than 30. If you see your parents once or twice a year, the picture becomes pretty grim. You'll only ever hang out with your folks about 50 times.

And that's if you're lucky and if they still remember who you are. We know that parents can be difficult. They're from a different generation. Their worldview was shaped by a world that's different than the one you live in. But be kind to them. If they're not totally toxic, forgive them if you can do it for selfish reasons.

If you have to, drink a beer with your dad, talk about life. Cook a meal with your mom. Give them grandchildren if you'd like to, and let them relive the happiness that children bring because this time they get to do it without the pressure of the world on their shoulders. Tell them you love them, even if you're not the kind of family that says that all the time.

It's important to you that they know. Who do you plan on becoming next year and how will you do it? Like with riding a bike. Your life will go where your eyes are looking. You need a vision for your life or others will force their vision onto you. So take this opportunity to think about the incremental steps that you can take toward it.

Do it purposefully, think deeply, and you'll come up with a plan that's realistic. The goal is progress, not perfection, because progress will stack up. It's not the achievement of the goal that's worth celebrating, but becoming the person who's able to achieve those kinds of goals.

Progress is done daily. It's reprogramming your mind to force your body to work in your own self-interest. Everyone dreams of their life being extraordinary, but very few make it a habit of adding a tiny bit of value to every day. And we get it. Okay. Investing in yourself is expensive.

It requires time and effort. It forces you to give up on other parts of your life in exchange for something you're not even confident will work out, especially for you with your background. But that's not how this works. And we can prove it because other people use a tool you're not using right now.

Make a commitment to do a one-time investment. $99 in yourself and make a promise that you'll give it 10 minutes every day for the next 12 months. People just like you are earning more, becoming happier. And they found peace by using the Alux app. Go to alux.com/app right now and get yourself a yearly subscription.

You're literally getting over $1 million worth of actionable expert advice that slowly reframes your mind in ways that you can measurably improve by month to the apps already paid for itself. So give yourself this gift, my friend, alux.com/app

The friends you still have in your life and the ones who have left. There is a certain point in life when you go from adding friends to removing friends. Some of you are probably already at that point right now. Not everybody is meant to be with you the whole ride.

Not everybody grows the same way or wants the same things as you do. People change either by choice or by neglect. They drift apart, then move in different directions, and it's okay to let them go. You're at a stage in your life where you no longer need the superficial.

You no longer need to pretend to put on a mask. You need the real thing. And most people won't be able to be real with you, but a few will. So treasure them. Give them your love, your energy. Help them and they will do the same.

Take this opportunity to go through the more important friendships you've had in your life. How few of them are still with you today? Pull out your phone and text them. All right. Let them know you appreciate their true friendship. It'll make their day and it'll solidify your relationship even more.

One day, these will be the good old days. Zoomed in. Life is a tragedy. Zoomed out. Life is a comedy. Time puts things into perspective. It reveals more of the truth. But truth comes at the cost of already being beyond the moment.

So what's your feeling right now in the present? Be it good or bad, will only be revealed to you as truth later on in your journey. 20 years from now, you'll look back on today as the good old days when you were still young, when you still had that fire, when you still had it in you.

Now, mentally, we're asking you to make that trip into the future, into that body of yours. 20 years older than today, and almost as a guarantee you'd wish you had another chance at that age you are right now. So go through life with that mindset.

With the mindset that today is 20 years better than it will be in the future, do this and everything changes. What added life to your days and what took energy away? It was a long year indeed, and although your Energy Cup might be close to empty by now, there were some moments that added life and some that took energy away.

The more you're aware of what depletes you of energy, the more you're able to spot it in the wild and avoid it. This is a trained behavior. If you constantly feel low, stressed and anxious, it's because you lack the training required to navigate life in a smoother way.

The great thing is this exercise of splitting things, people and events into adding or subtracting energy forces you to face the truth of how you're structuring your life so far to an even greater thing is that once you have this info, it's actually pretty easy to dodge the unpleasant and gravitate toward the good.

That one time you wanted to quit this year and you're glad you didn't. Throughout the year, there's one moment where you really wanted to quit, wasn't there? It was humbling, hard, and you felt tired, exhausted, and simply wanted the world to stop and leave you alone.

Some of you know exactly the moment we're talking about, but what did you do? You kept going, right? You're here today looking back on it. You are beyond it. It's a thing of the past. Meaning that you're strong enough to get through something like that and still keep going.

Life won't test you often, but when it does, it will throw more to you than you think you can handle. Figuring it out. Pushing through, doing what needs to be done builds you up. You're now the kind of person who doesn't quit despite how hard the world tried to take you down.

And the great thing here is the law of averages. Now works in your favor. Life has to pay up for what it tries to do to you. So negotiate wisely. What's a one investment that you can get in before the end of the year while everyone else is thinking about how to spend the money in December?

We want you to think about how you can become richer long term. Instead of buying gifts that people won't like or use, instead of buying another round of Christmas decorations. Make one decision that impacts the rest of your life with those year end bonuses coming in.

Find an investment, something you can flip for profit. Buy a studio apartment that will be rented out. Look for a small piece of land in your hometown and buy it as a gift for yourself and your family. Buy yourself tickets to a class that accelerates your growth.

Or buy a piece of equipment that will allow you to charge more for your services starting next year. You'll blow through the money either way, if the cash you have will make you richer or poorer. It's a decision you have to make right now.

If you don't have the cash to do anything big, invest in yourself. Get a subscription to our app by going to alux.com/app Or at the very least, order a book that you've had your eye on for a while. How do you want your family to go through life?

Here's something you wouldn't expect. Flying first class isn't worth it if your family are laughing back in economy the same way. You should have a vision for yourself. You should have one for your family, too. What's your relationship with them going to look like? What do you want your partner to be like?

What do you want your life together to be like? What do you plan to do to see? Brothers, sisters, Parents? What do you want your contribution to be in their lives? Do you have the power to alter their destiny? If not yet. What if you did? Would you retire your parents, pay off their mortgage?

Put them on a cruise to see the world. You start in your own home and then expand outward. Is anyone struggling with illness? Could money buy a cure? There is something that we call the losers of victory. It's when you technically win at whatever game you're playing, but you have no one to share it with.

How can you say you won at life when the people you care about are struggling or in pain? One of the saddest outcomes in life is ending up alone in a mansion. What was the biggest waste of time this year? You put in so much time, effort and brains into something that literally went nowhere.

You made no progress. He just wasted resources. Admit it. Be honest with yourself and call it like it is. You need to stop or try again. Starting fresh, this time with all the new available information. The worst thing you can do is to keep going the same way you have so far.

This is actually called the sunk cost fallacy, where because you've already sunk too many chips on this bet, you'd feel stupid walking away despite it being your best option. What people usually do is try to bluff their way through that position, and statistically that's where you end up with nothing.

The way you win is by being clear-headed and making as many rational decisions as you can over the long term. You force the odds in your favor by making the right call over and over again. Don't waste time. Don't waste the bullets in the chamber.

What's the one negative thing you stopped doing this year? There are only two ways to make progress and increase the profit of life. One, you increase the outcome. More action, better actions, higher returns. Or two, you remove the toxicity. You rid yourself of one bad habit after the next.

So look back on your life and figure out if there are any bad habits that you've quit this year. If you did, give yourself a pat on the back, apply the same strategy again next year. Make it a thing that you do. If the answer is nothing, well list your obvious bad habits and use this list as motivation for the year coming up.

At least by this point, you'll know what's holding you back. And I like. So you should also take some time to reflect on the unpredictable good that awaits. This is absolutely the best part of life, just how unpredictable and amazing it is. Many of the good things you have in your life, you've had to earn struggle and work hard for.

But a handful of them just happened to fall into your lap. This is not the law of attraction or anything like that, but the universe enjoying its process of ethereal randomness. The idea that your next big break is just around the corner, that walking into that next coffee shop might allow you to meet your future partner.

Somebody dropping off a wait list now means you're first in line for something great. Life is unpredictably amazing if you choose to see it that way. And everyone who does experiences the unpredictable randomness of good things and knows exactly what we're talking about. For those of you who haven't.

Keep going, my friend. And keep your eyes open. It'll shock you when it eventually happens. And finally, how things have a way of figuring themselves out. If you trust the process and yourself. You know, this year. Some days were great. Some were honestly pretty bad.

But you've been able to figure it all out in the end. Although problems won't solve themselves if you put things into motion, it's just a matter of time until they work themselves out. The point we're trying to get across here is you don't need to know the full plan to get started.

You don't need to have all the answers to begin. You don't need the full set of equipment. You don't need everything you think you'll need to start. You'll just start and figure it out along the way. Once you acquire figure out ability as a skill, you're no longer scared of the future.

You embrace it with whatever it decides to bring because you are now confident in your ability. How confident are you right now that you can do it? How did you do it in the past? Think about it. Everyone experiences this list differently, and one of the 15 tingled something and you didn't it.

Which one of these reflections hits you deeper than the rest? Let us know in the comments. And since you kept watching until the very end, of course. Here's your bonus. Start a new tradition since you can count how many birthdays, summers and winters you have ahead of you.

You've got a great opportunity to root something of value in a tradition. You know, overall, our generation has kind of played the role of a rebel scoffing at tradition left and right. But now we're all slowly maturing and realizing there's so much value that we've been disregarding.

So play into tradition. If you don't like the existing ones, no biggie. Start a new one. Here's a personal example of what we are doing. Once a year we do a full family trip somewhere exciting. This includes everyone old and young.

We are in a fortunate position where we can afford to subsidize some of their costs or even pay for the full trip. We found that people are happier if they pay their fair share and fair is what you tell them is fair. The goal is just to have them there altogether.

We find happiness in seeing them happy or enjoying things they never expected they would. As a generation, we are lacking this sense of community now more than ever. If you want to hold on close to those you have in your inner circle from low cost camping to chartering a yacht in the south of France, the price is irrelevant as long as you get everyone together.

That's a secret. Few people know you'll get more out of sitting in economy with your extended family than you'll get by sitting on your own in first class. So find your traditional box or borrow ours. As long as you do it consistently, it gets especially interesting once the group starts changing over time with nieces, nephews, grandchildren, husbands and wives.

Now, if you're willing to give this a go, we'd like to start a new tradition with you, my friend. Every year in December, we'll come back to this video and go through it again and again. If you do, write the word tradition, plus the year you're watching the video, and let's see how many of you do this.

Three years in a row, starting right now.