MY SECRET RECIPES TO FACE THE UNCERTAINTY IN 2020 & 2021

Do you feel 2020 is a short year? Suddenly, we are in the last month of 2020.

2020 must be a quite memorable year for most people, I have learned so many new things and experienced so many new feelings during this short 2020. Some of my memorable things were having a sudden farewell to my dearest friend due to COVID-19, making a big decision to jump out from my comfort zone, and spending more time with my families. This year, I also try so many new things to replace my longing for traveling, such as growing some plants and finally going to the kitchen exploring my new hobby (baking & cooking).

Well, how about you? how you spend 2020 and what are memorable things for you this year?

One word that we face continuously in 2020 and probably continue to 2021 is “UNCERTAINTY” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of us must have canceled our holiday plans this year and many alterations have been made for our daily routines called new normal. We cannot make certain plans for any gathering events in the near future as we still cannot see the end of it, even WHO also stated that “Vaccine Approval Does Not Mean End of Pandemic.”

The uncertainty has always existed even before this pandemic situation; however, it is more accentuate now as all people facing the same uncertainty condition altogether, and it's related to life-death matter. On normal days, uncertainty simply like we are wondering whether our favorite street food stall is open; whether it will rain; whether the new restaurant has yummy food; whether the traffic would be bad; and so on. Those things are actually making life more dynamic if we see it positively.

I have my secret recipe to overcome the uncertainty during this year. There are 3 steps as follow:

• MAKE DECISION

as soon as possible to make it more certain → to spend more time with families.

• NEVER REGRET

the decision was already taken → of course less time with friends but no regret for this.

• PRACTICE GRATITUDE

for my inner self & invisible hands that support me → I say thank you to myself for staying safe & keeping sane till now, also not harming other people for being a virus carrier.

The last step of my secret recipe is the most crucial one and help me to pass 2020 and hopefully can do the same magic for you also in 2021. Above is just one set of examples from my experience in 2020.

Let me tell you a story of my career days which relates to my secret recipe:

FIRST — MAKE DECISION

Everyone must have memories of taking a big decision in their life. How was it? How did you feel before & after that decision? For me, it’s thrilling at first but also satisfying.

The path that I had taken or had been given not always the easy way. The decision-making process is another thing that would be too long to describe here, so I will just jump to the story after the final decision.

This story begins with the first big decision that I made to end my uncertainty of being unemployed. As a fresh graduate, we were faced with so many options and pathways, but none can give us direct certainty. First thing first, I need to make a decision on which path I will take, and this decision was quite a dilemma. I remember my younger self-thought that the world of digitalization & automation will become the trend in the future, thus I made a decision to start my career as an IT Auditor in PwC. This path was not a normal one, imagine that I was majoring in Accounting but working majorly related to the IT thingy and even had to perform audit/review. This decision was a tough one and really left a big impact on my career life.

SECOND — NEVER REGRET

As I mentioned above, the path that I took was not normal, so as expected, I started in a very hard way. At the early stage right after making the decision, of course, the expected result won’t come instantly, and fear was coming & growing instead. Many contradictions came from both external and inner voice. People around me & even my family were against my decision and blaming me for the hardship that I faced by myself. However, thanks to my stubbornness, I kept moving forward, TRY TO NEVER REGRET, and defended my inner self who already took that decision.

Fear was kept growing altogether with hardship. What I can share about how I suppress the fear is that I always focused on the present moment (those present time) and did the best I could for what’s on my plate at that moment. Instead of overthinking and blaming my inner self, I kept faith that this hard path was worth it and my kind of investment for my future self.

THIRD — PRACTICE GRATITUDE

As far as I walked my career path, I believe GRATITUDE is the key to my “satisfying” feeling in making those decisions. As I mentioned above, fear always came first, and through the process & hard work, satisfaction will come along after that. The good investment (hard work) will always bear fruits, then here comes the gratitude feeling. All the hard works were paid-off, so it felt satisfying in the end and I radiated gratitude to my inner self and to all invisible hands who support me.

Looking back to my hardship with IT thingy, in the beginning, has brought me here today. All big and small decisions made in between were all intertwined and built my credibility as a career woman. Thus, here I am now writing this article as a Head of Internal Audit in PT ALTO Network.

I always believe that Everything Happened for a Reason.

For all those bad, good, sad, happy, absurd, or magical things that ever happened in our life; we are the ones who choose how to see them. Up till now, I am still learning to keep practicing gratitude to my inner self. It really helps me to cope-up with this uncertain situation. As also quoted from my last-watched drama, “We need rain and snow for plants and delicious fruits — like this tangerine — to grow!”, and so does the beautiful rainbow that needs rain to show up.

Now, how about you? Have you checked your pending decision? Start making one today! Don’t use uncertainty as an excuse to keep pending your decision and don’t forget to say thank you to your inner self for staying safe & keeping sane through 2020 😊

Facing 2021, 2022, 2023, and so on, one thing for sure is that our body will get older, but the question is whether our mind also gets more mature along the time? For me, those 3 steps of my secret recipe above hopefully can keep feeding my mind to get more mature together with my body that keeps growing older.

Adding 1 more thing about the decision, some of us might think hard about how to not regret the wrong decision. For me, there is no wrong decision even if it leads to failure. I remember the quote from Malcolm Forbes: “Failure is a success if we learn from it” thus it was also a rain before the rainbow.

[NEVER] REGRET only comes from the status quo or not making a decision, so MAKE DECISION now for 2021 about your goals, strategy, priority, and so on. Plus, don’t forget to keep PRACTICING GRATITUDE for every single blessing that we got for example fresh air, sunshine, job, family, food, and so on.