Happy New Year! I hope you all are having a fabulous first week of 2020! I hope you’re crushing those New Year’s resolutions and making the best of this new beginning.
For me, I’ve always seen the New Years’ holiday as an opportunity to start fresh. If there’s ever anything I want to improve on, whether it be financially, physically, spiritually or mentally, doing so on the New Year always feels … easier.
Entering 2019 was exhilarating. I celebrated the last New Year with my best friend, her boyfriend and my boyfriend in our dorm by creating vision boards, listening to Beyoncé, and drinking champagne in my coziest robe. That night, we manifested our dreams, goals, and personal expectations for 2019. We reminisced on 2018 and imagined what 2019 held for us.
At the time, I was a part-time cashier and a full-time student, making $10 an hour but optimistic about my future.
2019 was a transformative year for me. I leaned into my faith more. I was able to travel. I landed two internships that gave me the financial stability to leave my part-time job. I became the host of a podcast. I graduated from college and started a job in my field not long after that. I moved back home and was able to spend more time with my family. I took care of myself for the first time and it felt so good. I learned so much about who I am and what I want. I grew and the relationships around me began to grow as well. 2019 was probably the best year of my 22 years of life.
Coming into 2020 was not as easy for me. The last few weeks of 2019 were emotionally draining for me. Even now, I’m not 100% sure what caused this. The excitement I felt entering 2019 just wasn’t there when it was time for me to say goodbye. I came into 2019 with certain expectations. I knew I would be graduating some time that year, I was already saving up for my trip to Peru, my relationships were good and I was ready to start living ‘grown and sexy’ after college. I had it all planned out. But for 2020… I have no idea what it holds. For someone like me, that’s extremely overwhelming. I usually have everything planned out or at least the gist of what I’ll be doing this year, but right now I got nothing. This may be the reason why it was so hard for me to say goodbye to 2019. When I sat down to write down my goals for 2020, I went crazy. ‘What do I want?’ ‘Where do I see myself?’ ‘What can I improve on?’ I wrote down everything I could think of. I ended up with a list of almost 50 manifestations for 2020. But when I was faced with the question ‘How will you accomplish this?’ I went blank.
One thing that I have struggled with is sitting on my talents. I am a creative. I wake up almost every day with creative ideas, whether they be big or small. But following through will always be my biggest downfall. This blog is actually a perfect example of that. This has been a project in the making for almost two years. It’s been imagined, reimagined and abandoned countless times. I’d like to say it’s just my ‘creative process’ but I don’t even believe that myself. To be honest, I think this all stems from one character flaw: my fear of the unknown. People will say, “Just go for it!”, but, for me, that is much easier said than done. Anyone that knows me knows I need a plan for anything I do. To me planning out my goals sets me up for success. I’ve never been one to act on impulse. After looking over my manifestations in the days approaching 2020 (over and over again), I came to the realization that the only way that any of the goals I set for myself in 2020 would come to fruition is if I did exactly that: act on impulse. I have to be full pedal to the metal in 2020. Waiting for everything to be perfect would be great, but it’s not realistic. Nothing will ever be perfect no matter how much we try.
So for 2020, I only have one resolution: Enjoy the process. Whatever the goal, work towards it and enjoy the process. The mishaps. The successes. The plateaus. All of it. It’s not perfect, but it’s all part of a much bigger picture. It may take a long time to see the full outcome but it’ll be so worth it in the long run.
