2021 is here, 2020 has passed. The year 2020 marked so much change and growth for me. I became a mom and learned a new type of love, I connected with lots of family and friends, and I grew my professional repertoire. However, if I’m being totally honest, 2020 was a sad year for me. I’ve never felt less like myself and it was flooded with fear, questioning, not feeling like I’m doing enough, and dropping the ball on things for me (For example, this blog… It’s been since Summer since I’ve written!). You may be able to relate to this.
In the few months of 2020, I read a book called You Can Have It All, Just Not at the Same Damn Time. This book talked a lot about priorities. What are your actual Priorities (with a capital P)? This section of the book when Romi Neustadt really got into it caused me to stop in my tracks. I stopped at this section for a little over a week wandering in a state of desperation about what my Priorities were. I’m pretty sure I even googled, “How to identify your priorities.” All this to say, I eventually did some reflection, journaling, and allowed myself to think freely about my life. In doing so I was able to centralize my needs, what my goals were, and ultimately determine my top three Priorities that would allow me to move beyond much of the self-doubt, self-flagellation, and insecurities of balance (or lack thereof) I felt in 2020.
In the spirit of community, I’ll share my Priorities with you.
- I make healthy decisions. This doesn’t mean that I never eat a carbohydrate or don’t eat cookies. This means that I commit to moving my body for 30 minutes each day and ensuring I’m asleep by 9pm each evening to allow my mind and body an appropriate amount of time to recoup. It also means that I do not skimp on exercise. In the balance of work, life, and motherhood, it was easy for me to ignore and skip exercise to my own detriment and to the detriment of my marriage. Making healthy decisions means that I must exercise for my own health and my ability to be a contributor in the relationships important to me.
- I am building an online community through this blog. Now dear reader, this may seem interesting to you given I haven’t written since summer. However, when I took a step back through reflection and prayer this blog tugged at me. It sits on my heart. I know that my voice is one that is of necessity in this world and one that has the power to encourage and incite action from those who are either like-minded or those that are in search of a down-to-earth, hard-working mama and career-minded tribe who loves food. So here I am in the first month of 2021 writing and alongside it putting a plan together to squash my fear of social media combined with complete and utter ineptitude at how to use social media, and actually share notquitetraditional.com with the world.
- I am an engaged wife and mother every day. I have personally found, as with most things in my life, that I’m really good at going through the paces and sometimes just that action alone is enough to generate success. Unfortunately (or fortunately), whichever way you look at it, that has not been enough by a huge measure when it comes to being my husband’s wife or my son’s mother. When I let myself down in other aspects of my life, this suffers. When I do not prioritize myself with “me time”, this suffers. To be an engaged wife and mother every day does not mean I do all the things. Rather, it means that I do not deviate from my work schedule, I prioritize my time so that I do not become resentful, and I suggest family activities each weekend in or out of quarantine.
As I’m sure you have, too, I’ve seen a ton out there about goal setting, goal getting, and resolutions. I’ve never been someone to set new year’s resolutions and I’m always someone setting goals – achievable or not. So for me, this new year and the gift to start again is truly about keeping myself in check and aligning to my Priorities each and every day. If you’re a goal person, awesome. Set them. If you’re a resolution person, cool – good luck! For me I’ve come to realize that I can have 100 goals and 100 resolutions – the things I’m going to do – but if they don’t truly align with my Priorities, they’re going nowhere fast. More importantly, if I allow myself to prioritize goals and resolutions which do not really serve me to run my life, I accomplish basically nothing other than regret and confusion as to why I cannot move forward. This year I’ve committed to measure up to my priorities and evaluate my decisions against them. We’ll see where this takes me! Cheers to 2021, friends!
