To say the least, 2020 was a year of chaos. But as the year closed we began to see the light. A new president-elect, a vaccine for the global pandemic and a turning point in which people and companies are seeing the end. But how do we move forward when we have just come out of a brutal year? Taking the lessons learned from 2020, here’s how we can:
Create goals & be ambitious
Around this time each year every company, influencer and motivational speaker is telling you to create goals. Usually, these goals end with buying a series of products that they themselves have produced. The advice here comes free with no additional products necessary. Do not be afraid to create goals because of the uncertainty on what is coming next. Instead, be bold and ambitious with every goal that is made. And when the opportunities arise to check them off, grab them without hesitation.
Last year, I was continuously thinking of all the moments that were passed up because it “was not the right time.” Let this year be different. There is no right time to take the internship or start the small business or change the major. Life is always going to give you reasons on why not to take the leap. It is on us to take the chance and do it with absolute confidence.
Appreciate all the moments
Last spring I was meant to graduate from college in front of my family with my friends and diploma in hand. Instead, I graduated virtually in my childhood bedroom with my pajamas on in the midst of a global pandemic. 2020 was the year that all the big moments were taken away from people. The graduations, weddings, championship games, jobjob promotions and the beginning of life and the end of it. It was stolen and the world had left us to pick up the remains.
It was in the letdown that I realized the potential. In the next year, appreciate the small moments. Without those, the monumental moments would be nothing.
Let 2021 be the year that life is lived in between all the small moments and the appreciation is as if you are experiencing the big ones.
Remember that comparison will kill your joy
Some accomplished much in the midst of a global pandemic and others simply survived it. The truth that we must accept into the new year is that comparison will kill your joy. We all coped and handled this year differently.
The standards of success and accomplishment have progressed into oblivion. We are left with ourselves, so do not spend that time punishing yourself for not being more or doing more. Life gave a series of curve balls and you still stepped up to the plate. Whether that was getting a job, accepting the loss of one, continuing with your education despite the increasing number of reasons not to or anything else. You showed up in a moment that absolutely nobody would have blamed you not to.
Do not waste time comparing to what others have done or what their lives looked like. If you spent the year binging Netflix series and not writing a book or learning how to bake bread that’s okay because Netflix had some pretty great content this year.
Acknowledge the change
The clock strikes midnight and all of our problems do not simply go away. There is still a pandemic and time needed to get the vaccine out. The expectation of social distancing, limited capacity and wearing masks still exist. Moving into the new year we need to acknowledge that our livelihood and normalcy have changed.
We made it out of a year that nobody thought we were going to go through and if all you did was make it out that is okay. Acknowledge the shift in the dynamic of what we considered life to be. Then be bold enough to create a new normal and way of life this year despite feeling as though you could not.
2021 is not about getting back the moments, memories, accomplishments or plans. You survived the hardest times that the world has faced in several decades. 2021 is about moving forward from the ruins and rubble of this previous year and shaping what seemed broken into a new beginning. Entering 2021 will be a series of seasons from healing to renewal to rediscovery.
