#68 Turning Seasons, Turning Tides

What’s your favourite day of the year?

My first instinct is Christmas Day; it was always a magical day as a child, and as an adult, it continues to be due to having all the family together. Next is New Year's Day, and I wake up very motivated and excited to set my goals for the year.

However, after thinking about it more deeply, my answer is today, the day the clocks go forward each spring. Why?

I struggle with winter. My mood drops, my energy level fall and I feel less creative, and this impacts upon all areas of my life, such as in my relationships.

With the advent of spring, a profound shift occurs. It’s as though I emerge from a long trance. I feel alive and optimistic; I open my eyes in the morning to see the blue sky and sun and smile.

Why should you care?

What I’ve just outlined is something I’ve been acutely aware of for at least ten years (I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on Seasonal Affective Disorder, and I began to understand better why I felt as I had growing up). I’ve written about it here before, too (link).

I have a whole raft of measures to help me in winter. However,  I often neglect to implement them until I'm already suffering. I get busy and forget things, highlighting the need for proactive planning.

This applies across all aspects of our lives.

When should I put a plan in place?

The best time to put a plan in place for next winter would be today. I’ve already stated that I feel great, so I should take this energy and use it now, especially given it's fresh in my mind. How unlike this I’ve felt for most of the winter. This leads me to my key point for this week.

The good times provide the best time to plan for the bad times.

In my case, it’s preparing for winter whilst in spring, but in other contexts, it could be:

• Wealth: Strategising for market downturns during periods of financial prosperity.

• Health: Planning for potential declines in the health of elderly loved ones while they are still well.

• Relationships: Anticipating and managing conflicts before they escalate, even amidst harmonious times.

But we don’t.

When things are going well, we assume they’ll continue. And when they don’t, we're taken by surprise. We have short memories, and we extrapolate the present to the future.

The tendency to overlook future challenges during periods of contentment is a common human trait. We often assume favourable circumstances will persist indefinitely, only to be caught off guard when reality diverges from our expectations.

Implementation idea

Put plans in place for inevitable events, even when they appear distant.

By acknowledging the cyclical nature of life and embracing proactive preparation, we can navigate future uncertainties with greater resilience and foresight.

Best, Alex Joshi.

On my bedside table:

• Non-fiction: Blood and Oil: Mohammed bin Salman's Ruthless Quest for Global Power (link). Fascinating; I read it in a day. I would love to get reactions to the book from my Saudi readership.

• Non-fiction: Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Dr Cal Newport (link)

• App: Blinkist —A book-summarising subscription service. While reading Slow Productivity, I wanted to get the key ideas from another of the author's works that he referenced, so I read the summary to quickly get the key ideas (link)

• Article: The Williams F1 team kept track of 20,000 individual car components in an Excel spreadsheet. Bad idea. (link)

• Article: Daniel Kahneman Obituary, NY Times (link)

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