2021 Can Be a Do-Over Year
I had a rough 2019. No, you read that right. 2019. Some changes happened in my organization that required a ton of time and energy to be spent on tactical logistics that we had not planned for. The second half of the year got derailed and as I got to about November I was feeling exhausted and depleted. But I also felt that all the work had actually set us up for a better future and I was eager to get started on a big plan for 2020.
I’m guessing you know what happened next.
We navigated 2020 and got through it. In fact, 2020 ended for us with some real bright spots in a way that seemed to auger a better future in 2021.
Despite that I found myself again feeling a bit depleted at the end of the year. And while good news at the end of 2020 was giving me some renewed energy and hope, there was still a lot of trepidation coming into January. And grief. The holidays marked a year since we’ve seen my parents. My kids were particularly distressed about that.
I usually love making plans at the end of the year. In 2019 I bought the Big Life Journal New Year kit and we even brought our printouts to Florida to plan as a family. I bought the 2021 version but they sat, untouched, throughout the two-week holiday as the four of us sat at home, one day melting into the next. What was the point?! My 2020 goals and resolutions were still sitting there, taunting me.
And then, of course, the first three weeks of January 2021 felt like 2020 had not left us. I kept joking that it felt like December 38th. (I’m sure that’s not original.)
But as we come to the end of what is, normally, a go-away week for us, I feel the darkness lifting, just a little. I feel a new burst of energy coming.
So as I head into the last week of February I’m reminding myself of three things:
1. 2021 can be a do-over. We didn’t make progress in 2020. THERE WAS A PANDEMIC. It’s okay. (And we did make progress, despite that.) We can pull out the plans, goals, resolutions and whatnot from 2020 and make that the 2021 plan. It’s okay.
2. We can begin now. There is no magic to January anyway. The year can start now. Or on March 1.
3. And if the plans we make on next week or next month go sideways, as they so often do, we can, as Brad Feld regularly writes, Simply Begin Again. And again. And again.