With the start of the new year upon us, I am writing down my goals for this next 365 days. I already know that there will be significant changes that happen during this year so I am being realistic and flexible with myself as I plan. However, this year I am instituting better structures for me to keep to my goals and check in on my progress.
2021 can be your year! ✨ I am starting a new series, where each Monday we have a motivational Monday chat! Here at @theavianangle, this platform is all about finding inspiration and inspiring others as a community!
This first talk, I’m featuring the Rachel Hollis podcast where she talks moving into 2021. She begs the question, what do you want to do to feel good and live your best life. In our #motivationalmonday talk, I touch on the lessons she shares in her podcast. And you guys – I listened to this podcast 3 times, 3 times!! – it was that inspiring to me!
A few lessons she shares:
✨ take time to journal and process, let go, and release to help understand yourself in living YOUR BEST LIFE!
✨ review your calendar and ask yourself what was worth your time and what was a waste of time, money or energy!
✨ make sure your days and weeks include things that make your feel good (going for a run, getting a massage or pedicure). Use colors in your calendar or highlighters if you use a planner. Make sure the color you use for personal rejuvenation/pleasure is sprinkled throughout your week to keep you motivated!
We close our chat with the message, you have the power to break down 2021 into bite size pieces to accomplish your goals. 360 days, 52 weeks and 12 months to fill your cup with all this things that inspire you!
It is hard to summarize this year. I have seen a lot of posts titled, “See ya, 2020” and “So Long to 2020”. Rather than dismiss this last year as a dumpster fire or black hole, I am trying to find the light in what was a very dark time. This year included a global pandemic, political challenges, and social injustices. I will be the first to recognize how incredibly hard this year. I am saddened by these dark times and I am missing my family and friends; I am missing being active and more engaged in my community; I am missing just going to a damn bar for a cocktail. Those are things I should and am fortunate for, because they are so incredibly insignificant compared to the losses that so many others have experienced this year. All we can hope for in 2021 is that there be recovery for those who have lost so much.
In practicing gratitude, I am so beyond thankful that this year I remained healthy. A small but mighty feat for a year like this year. I not only remained healthy but I also gave birth to our first daughter. In any given year, giving birth would be a miracle. This year, it felt like a miracle and a half. We had tough year economically but I am thankful for my job. I am thankful to have had time to invest in my handmade craft business. Being quarantined also allowed us to be at home and to work on several home projects. All in all, 2020 was a pretty low year. But I am so thankful for these simple blessings in my life.
It is not surprising that my top nine of 2020 reflect my home, my sanctuary. Between today and tomorrow, it my not feel so different – we will still be quarantined at home. But it is within our hearts and our minds that we must navigate the days ahead of us. May 2021 bring us recovery but also ability to exercise peace.
Pretty much every year I commit to new years resolutions, and 2020 was just like every other year. I committed. I wrote down the things I wanted to stick to, I even wrote a blog post about it. For a quick recap, my 2020 guiding principles and goals are below.
Since 2020 has been such a different year, I felt it was a good time as any to be able to hit a refresh on this year’s goals and to re-envision what I am prioritizing most these days. To do this, I decided to create a vision board one evening and it was such a relaxing way for me to centralized around the phrases and photos that I genuinely gravitated to. (Below is a picture of said vision board). Rather than dive into each icon on my board, I wanted to focus on one of the first phrases I saw and cut out…”a year of identity”. Its funny how the world works in mysterious ways right?
I really felt that this was the start of a good vision board and refresh because that phrase really is how I have envisioned this year. I started the year with a trip to my beloved city, Paris, and family reunion in Switzerland. It was even more of an amazing trip because I got to bring my husband there for the first time. My French/Swiss heritage is such a part of me – my identity – most people that know me, know I am that francophile friend. In the early months of the year, we found out that we were pregnant with our first daughter (I wrote about it in a blog post here and again here)- again such a huge change in our identity as just a married couple to becoming parents (yikes, were we even ready for that?). Then COVID happened…and I think we all went through a somewhat identity crisis with being isolated from our family and friends for months on end. In the middle of pandemic, I had the opportunity to make a move and change jobs to what I have always considered my dream job. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity and it has been so wonderful and worth pursuing – again a big part of my personal investment in my career identity.
While this year has certainly brought in a lot of changes for us all, I have to reflect on the fact that this year has also provided me with so much fulfillment when it comes to my individuality, professional development, and our identity in becoming parents – in particular, me becoming a mom. As someone who is a type A planner, this year has been nothing short of unexpected growth. But I find the more I prepare rather than plan, the more I am able to ‘go with the flow’ and fall into my own identity with every season of change. I have intentionally left spaces on my vision board for just that – filling them in with the delightfully unexpected. From here, I will finish out 2020 looking to this vision board for the daily inspiration that fills my soul.
2020 New Year Guiding Principles:
1. Intentional
2. Quality
3. Creative
2020 New Year Goals:
1. Health: focus on moving every day. Workout 2 to 3 times per week. Feel better about my body and health.
2. Read: make time to read 1 book per month.
3. Write: blog 2 to 3 times per month.
4. Organization: clean out my entire gmail, google drive and accounts by the end of the year.
5. Create: develop inventory for Etsy Shop and collaborate with 5 partners over the year.
6. Home Renovation: ensure our entire house is cleaned up and organized by the end of the year. Complete at least 7 of the 10 projects on my list (some are not essential projects but rather ones that would be extra).
