5 life lessons I’ve learnt in 2023

The end of a year can be a reflective time for many of us, and before we even think about setting personal goals, family goals, or even mum specific goals, it can be a good time to think about any life lessons we’ve learnt.

Thinking about life lessons, or things we’ve learnt about ourselves, can really help us to continue behaviours that we value, or stop behaviours that we don’t like.

Over the past two years I’ve written about the life lessons I’ve learnt, which I’ve decided to do again this year. If you’d like to read my previous ones, here are my 2021 life lessons, and my 2022 life lessons.

I hope that by sharing the life lessons I’ve learnt this year, you may decide to look back at your year as well to see if there’s any life lessons you’d like to take with you into 2024, or if there’s any you’d like to leave behind.

Here are the 5 life lessons that I’ve learnt this year.

School mum friendships can change

Late last year, and into early this year, I had some issues with a school mum friend that I made at Ryan’s old school, which led to the friendship ending.

The end of the friendship made things extremely awkward on the school grounds, but it was just what I needed to finally get Ryan to move schools mid year, which I was putting off.

The type of friendship that I had with the mum, and the way it ended, has really changed the way I socialise with the mums at Ryan’s new school.

Instead of forming friendships with them, I’m pleasant to them, make small talk, and even have some I just say hi and bye to, and I’m so much happier for doing so.

I don’t ever want to be in the position again where there’s awkwardness between myself and another mum at school, and I don’t ever want my friendships with other school mums to impact the experience that Ryan has at school.

So for me being pleasant to school mums, and staying away from gossip and drama is how I’m going to continue to be during my boy’s school years.

Downtime can be productive

I was listening to a podcast the other day and one of the hosts said that she likes to be productive in her downtime, which was a lightbulb moment for me in a weird way.

It was weird because for some time I’ve known that I love to get things done in my downtime, instead of using the time to relax, which is what I often associate downtime with.

Instead, in my downtime I love working on this blog, and hearing someone actually say they like being productive in their downtime almost gave me validation that yes, downtime is to do whatever makes you happy.

So, a life lesson I’ve learnt from this, is that if I want to be productive in my downtime, then that’s okay. Downtime means different things to different people, we shouldn’t think we need to spend it in a certain way.

I need to be more patient with my family

I really want to, and need to be more patient with my family in 2024 and beyond, which extends to family who visit from Australia.

This year I learnt that we never know when the last time we’ll see someone is, and this is something that I want to remind myself of when I’m with my family.

Rethink home days

I love a home day, luckily so do my boys, which is why I need to stop feeling guilty about not taking the boys out when we have one.

During our home days we all spend time doing things we enjoy independent of one another, and instead of feeling guilty about this, I need to realise that we all need time to ourselves, and time to relax from a busy week.

So next year I’m going to schedule home days into our weekends more, and instead of feeling guilty about time I’m not spending out of the house with my boys, enjoy the time we have together, doing what makes each of us happy.

Enjoy days out

When we do go out I want to enjoy our family quality time together by having fun and making positive family memories, instead of worrying whether or not the boys are being too loud, or what we have to do when we get home.

I hope there’s some life lessons here, or some things that I’ve discussed that are things you may like to change next year, or that have reminded you about the life lessons you’ve learnt.

What have you learnt this year?