This Is The Only Resolution I'm Bringing Into 2021

Wow, it's hard to believe that 2020 has officially ended and we have entered the new year. I'm sure you are sick of reading about new years resolutions and seeing new year posts that promise better days ahead. For many of us, it's hard to believe that this year will be much different than the last.

I normally blog about my New Years Resolutions, and this year, when I sat down to work through my goals for 2021, I found myself drawing a blank. Having been in this routine of working from home, never seeing people outside my household, and having no forseeable "life events" for the next 365 days, I was absolutely stuck.

I'm sure there are a lot of 2020 college grads who understand what I'm saying when I say I don't have anything new on the horizon. The fact that the past 16 years of my life have had guaranteed grade changes, planned activities, graduations, and milestones has me realizing that this may be the first year in my life where I truly don't see anything notable coming up. Post-grad life strikes again with its ambiguous, time-bending ways!

Then a thought struck me: this is an incredible position that I am in right now. Absolutely no true reason to think ahead or look down the road at what's to come, and nothing to plan. Ironically, there is nothing I need to accomplish (and as an enneagram 3, that feels like a black hole).

This has been a real challenge for me; not knowing what's coming next, not being able to make plans or think about all of the exciting things coming up on my agenda. I recently took a look at my calendar from when I was in school. My days were stacked, usually from 8 in the morning to 10 at night. I took classes, worked multiple jobs, found time to spend with friends and squeezed school work into the in between. I always felt lucky to have a 20-minute block for lunch. The only days that were without plans? When I was occassionally home for holidays and breaks.

Then I get to mid-March 2020, and all of a sudden, the pages are completely blank. This was utterly shocking and at the time it felt like a break, and slowly, without me noticing it, it became my new normal. We were promised that this would not become reality, and a lot of us have rejected the idea that it is by pretending things are back to normal.

When I came to this realization that there was nothing riding on any resolution I may have, I began to think about the past 9 months and how they have directly changed the course of my everyday life and happiness. I'm blessed to be working and staying in a consistent routine, and although there are lots of other things I'd like to be doing as well, I'm simply stuck. And I have been for quite some time. While a lot of people may have found things gradually going back to normal over the last few months of 2020, I can honestly say that my routine looks nearly identical to when this whole ordeal started back in March.

So this is what I've decided: my only resolution in 2021 is to let go of the things I cannot change, and only focus on what is in my control. Having always been a planner and a futuristic thinker, I always had something on the horizon to strategize about or look forward to. And unfortunately, that's no longer my reality. I am simply taking things day by day, looking for the simple joys, and trying to be okay with that. It's almost like I've gradually experienced a complete shift in how I can approach not only my every day, but how I think about my future.

There is very little in my control at the moment. I'm in charge of attending meetings at work, feeding myself, and choosing what to watch on TV every night. I don't know when I can receive a vaccine, I don't know when I will travel again, and I don't know when I will genuinely feel like I'm at ease, because if I'm being honest, I haven't been for the past 9 months. Because I can't control 99% of what is happening in my world right now.

So, with all of that being said, in 2021, I will focus on what I can change and what I can choose for myself. I'm choosing to invest time in planning and journaling, because it gives me some peace of mind. I'm choosing to spend more time making content on my social media channels, because it brings me joy. I'm choosing to micro-manage things like how much water I drink or how many times I leave my house in a week. And while that sounds like a sad existence compared to the things I was doing this time last year, I am in control, and that's all I can ask for moving forward.

Happy New Year, stay well!

XO Kate