Thank God 2020 is over and yet the good news is we made it and no matter what we were resilient.

Now off to conquering our iPhones and Androids – taking charge, showing them who the boss is and Axios writer Scott Rosenberg has the plan:

• On an iPhone, go to “Settings” then “Notifications.” (On Android, it’s usually “Settings,” then “Apps & Notifications.”)
• See the long list of apps? Turn every single one of them to “Notifications off.”
• Then, and only then, go through the list a second time and ask yourself, “Do I really need this notification?”
• If you do, turn it back on.

Phones have become so much of life and a pandemic that is conductive to staring at screens more often didn’t make it much better.

Our new digital goal:  Make the phone a tool that you control and not a way of life in which we lose control.

My NYU music business students spend part of their classes with me developing skills on managing fear, worry and anxiety and human relations.

They are already on their way to being successful in the music business, but will they be happy?  That’s a question for all of us to think about.

• Just as winning the lottery has proven again and again it does not live up to the fantasy, earning more money at work doesn’t always bring happiness.
• Isn’t it interesting? We go to college to learn skills that will make us richer but often don’t learn how to handle adversity or to deal with difficult people.

It is just as important to make a life as it is to make a living.

Alan Lakein, the author of personal time management book How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life  

He’s big on planning (“Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.Failing to plan is planning to fail.”)

He lists 61 ways he saves time – here’s a sampling:

• #7 — I remind myself:“There is always enough time for the important things”.  If it’s important I will make the time to do it.
• #16 – I’ve given up forever all “wait time”.If I have to wait, I consider it a “gift of time” to relax, plan or do something I would not otherwise have done.
• #27 – I do first things first.
• #31 – I ask myself, “Would anything terrible happen if I didn’t do this priority item”.If the answer is no, I don’t do it.
• #61 – I’m continually asking myself:“What is the best use of my time right now?”

I love Lakein’s famous quote:

Time = Life, Therefore, waste your time and waste of your life, or master your time and master your life.

Often the things that cause stress just linger and we wind up adding them to our lives.

So, we try everything from meditation to exercise, therapy to medication yet there is one way to make a dent in stress with half the effort and side effects.

People usually can’t recite the major sources of fear and worry in their lives.

They just pile stressors one on top of the other and admit to being stressed out.

• Focusing on a handful of top anxieties actually can make the quickest difference.
• Work getting to you? Work smarter and get more rest.
• Other people’s problems getting YOU down? Put a stop/loss on adding their stress to yours?
• Worried about the future? Stay busy as most of what we worry about never happens.

It’s funny – we know the things we like and try to work them into our routine as much as possible.

Identifying the specific things that are making us miserable allows us to do as few of them as possible.

The word friend has become corrupt in a world of social media likes and follows.

• Does anyone actually have 50 friends, or 100 or thousands? Or are they followers, interlopers, outliers?
• Imagine if you could see your friends in a lineup like the police use to identify suspects. Who would you choose out of that lineup?

Separating friends who you would readily identify keeps things real.

Knowing who deserves your time, interest and love is a big step toward valuing something that has become devalued in the digital age.

Bolstering friendships doesn’t take a police lineup, but it does involve making a choice.

“Better” and “important”.

Politicians, advertisers and just about everyone substitutes the word “change” even when people who want it find that they really don’t like change.

• But everyone loves “better” so not promising change but emphasizing “better” is a universal attention getter. After all, “change” is scary even if we want and need it.  But “better” accomplishes the same thing without the fear.
• Same for “in-depth”. It suggests substance and knowledge but few will stick around long enough to let the in-depth information sink in.  Few read in-depth articles or join discussions that require such an investment in time.
• Better to say “important” because everyone listens when “important” is followed by something that is actually “important”.

Length is not what makes something “important”, it’s the actual value.

Words matter because people respond to some and are repelled by others even if what they reject is the promise of something good.

Here’s a sample of how anxiety from within and from others can pile on top of each other and a way to put it in its place:

• A sickness adds concern for a loved one, bills pile up, a pandemic changes everything, health concerns on top of that, working at home, worries about not being good enough…
• Instead of accumulating things that make you anxious, give one away every time to accept a new one – don’t add more. Managing what’s left by staying busy and being grateful.

Just being aware of how anxiety creeps into our life, can prevent it from multiplying.

Don’t postpone joy until after normal returns.

• You’ll get out of practice
• Joy can be found even during tough times.

Every day is a new opportunity to practice being joyful.

Sports figures, authors and actors aren’t the only ones who can take advantage of their currency to negotiate a new deal or a new beginning.

• As the new year begins, take a long hard look at whether you are happy in your career before continuing on without a plan to change it.
• As in sports, ask “do I want to play another year in this career?” even if you are the business owner.
• Look for alternatives and spend some time to examine and pursue them.
• If what you’re doing now is your best path, continue on – consider it a one-year renewal, a contract with yourself. If not, take steps to find something different.

Always ask, what’s my value:  You are worth considering all options before continuing on to stay the course or seek the road not taken.

It’s useless to bet against someone because there is no upside.

It’s often done out of jealousy.

• When I was studying radio and television in college, I thought no one without a big voice could make it in media. I was wrong. At that moment in time big voices were in but later unique voices were also in demand.
• We wouldn’t place a bet on losing — or wait, it’s done in the stock market all the time. But with people you lose the moment you downplay another person’s chances.

The alternative:  believe in everyone’s ability to succeed and at the least you get satisfaction and at the best you make a connection that might be useful for the future.

• Why do we vividly remember every insult that is directed our way?
• Why do we then go on and believe them?
• And why do we keep repeating such nonsense?

On the other hand …

• Why not recognize positive input about us publicly?
• And use it to confirm the good things we already know are part of us.
• And why not repeat on an endless loop all the good and dismiss all the bad?

There is no law that requires us to participate in dragging ourselves down. 

The one gift you don’t want to forget this year is to love the person you are and stop helping the jealous and arrogant from getting into your head.

Life too often becomes a test instead of a progress report.

A test is a proficiency exam.

But making progress is more important and a better way to judge.

Fumbling with the latest anxiety is an inaccurate way to assess our ability to deal with it.

Any advancement or development toward dealing with anxiety inspires real time growth in handling the challenge.

You can fail every test in life if making progress is the way you grade personal growth.

“Along with the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometime”
Joe South, Rose Garden lyrics © Sony/atv Songs Llc, Bike Music

Every day, think of a way to remind yourself that there is hope of a better day ahead.

So the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles is a $100 million backup now after being benched for a lousy season.

It took more than his play to get him a seat on the bench but obviously the quarterback controversy is not going to increase Carson Wentz’ confidence.

His replacement, Jalen Hurts is a rookie who is seizing his chance to build his confidence.

Ironically, both will succeed.

Wentz will either earn his job back or regain his confidence on another team.

What’s important is that confidence never remains strong – it wanes and rises, sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly.

To think of confidence as permanent is to expect too much from ourselves.

When confidence needs a boost, work toward that.  When it is on autopilot, enjoy the ride.

To judge your self-worth by confidence that by nature ebbs and flows is personal abuse that can be curtailed by looking for another opportunity.

Go back five years and try to remember where you were, what you were doing, who you were with at the time, recall the good and the bad.

Then fast forward to today – who is in your life (are they the same people as five years ago?), did your fears come true all these years later (probably not but if they did, you likely feared the wrong things).

What is surprising about life today that you could not see then – In my life a move from west back east, a new university at which to teach, a health scare from a loved one – you get the idea – all unseen previously.

What bothers us most is fear thoughts – things that will never come true.  To dwell on them is a waste of time and life.

Instead, concentrate on resilience – the ability to recover from difficulties that we can never predict and therefore should not waste time worrying about them.

Become expert at springing back from life’s curve balls not worrying about what will likely never happen.

The Mayo Clinic’s Resilient Option program identifies four things that are science-enabled and confirmed to reduce life’s anxieties.

Gratitude – Mind off of problems, redirect thoughts to that which we’re grateful.

Mindful presence – Don’t just be there, be 100% focused on the present.

Kindness – It’s hard to increase stress when trying to be kind to yourself and others.

Resilient Mindset – The more I think about “me”, the weaker I become.  Upgrade to higher values.

Accepting that stress is a part of our life is helpful and focusing on these four remedies makes us more resilient.

Fans standing by a track as runners race to the finish line scream words of encouragement along with their cheers.

Even horses get loud positive reinforcement at race tracks – and we’ve even got our money on them.

But this is not how we encourage each other or for that matter ourselves.

Instead we offer words of advice, caution – sometimes fear to get us and those around us over the finish line.

If no one ever gave another word of advice again, it probably would be an improvement if those words were replaced with 100% full vocal encouragement.

Support, confidence and hope are more effective than even well-meaning advice, added pressure and fear.

If you want to be a better golfer, practicing the wrong things will not get you there.

Want to be a better speaker?  Imitating someone else is unlikely to help you improve.

Confidence comes not from emphasizing things that actually detract from self-esteem but repeatedly practicing them – nothing is too trivial.

• Constantly double down on existing and proven strengths
• Avoid practicing ways to improve faults – even to try and make them better – because it’s more likely that practicing to eliminate weaknesses will only make them worse.
• For help, seek out those with the skills necessary for meaningful improvement (you wouldn’t consult an accomplished public speaker to help strengthen your golf game).

I have a 96-year old friend.

She was a neighbor growing up in Springfield, PA and she is a loving, forgiving and relentlessly positive person.

So, here’s how she’s handling the pandemic in a senior living residence.

• Being isolated from family and even friends at her residence is unfortunate but temporary.
• She enjoyed Thanksgiving with a few family members by not comparing it to the previous Thanksgiving but to six months ago during the so-called lockdown.
• She’s almost old enough to recollect the last pandemic but says this one will end and things will return to normal.
• She oozes with gratitude and rejects doom and gloom; the type media outlets embrace for ratings

If a 96-year old can keep her chin up and look forward to 97, do you think we can reject all the negative news and believe along with her?

What is the best use of your time at this moment – that is the question posed by time management expert Alan Lakein.

Did you see that TV viewing has increased during middays because of all of us hunkered down and working or learning from home?

One way to look at things is – we’re in for a long winter quarantine.

The other way is to use the time to do all those things we never had time to do when life was normal in anticipation of our emancipation from this confinement.

Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire and we have a choice to start asking the question “what is the best use of my time at this moment”.

We can stew … or we can do.