My New Year's Resolution and Goal for 2021

I’m not quite sure how to even begin a post about New Year’s resolutions while we’re still in 2020, because let’s face it- no matter what the resolutions or goals we made for this year looked like it’s highly likely that they didn’t turn out the way we thought they would.

Kate here, and today I’m (cautiously) sharing my main resolution and goal for 2021. Even though 2020 has been the bad boyfriend that will now make me forever cynical about relationships going forward, I’m still choosing to believe in love (not sure what garbage teen movie metaphor I’m going for here but somehow it makes sense to me?)

I wrote a post mid-2020 reflecting on the resolutions I had made for this year and how I hoped to adapt them to the ‘new normal’ (so sick of that term and very ready for it to be retired), and I think despite the uncertainty that’s still very much in the air right now I feel OK setting goals for 2021 knowing that not only is adapting to change pretty much always inevitable, but it’s also something that’s doable.

Lately as I’ve been thinking about my goals and hopes for next year, it’s helped me a lot to remind myself that while I definitely haven’t done everything perfectly with respect to keeping my 2020 resolutions this year, I have been able to adapt them to this new reality somewhat. And I guess it seems like just knowing that we have the ability to be malleable when circumstances don’t turn out to be what we expected can help us let our guard down and be more honest and bold with creating new intentions.

I’m definitely the type of person who tries very hard to avoid disappointment as much as humanly possible, so it’s really tempting to just forget about making any resolutions for 2021 until this whole pandemic thing is behind us. It would be so much easier to just avoid setting goals that could end up ultimately getting delayed or distorted the way so many of our goals have in 2020.

But if 2020 taught me anything it’s that waiting until everything feels ‘normal’ again is just not going to work. It’s not how life works, and at the end of the day it ends up being a huge waste of time. Before the pandemic, we probably all had an illusion of control over our lives to some degree (I know I did), and what this season has really done more than anything is highlight the fact that we really never know what tomorrow, next week, or next year is going to bring. We didn’t know then, and we don’t know now.

We can’t put our lives on the back burner while we wait for things to settle down back to a level that feels ‘normal’ enough for us, because depending on what we define as normal we might be waiting forever. If we don’t give ourselves the space and permission to dream, ideate, and set goals when things are uncertain and scary, we’ll end up spending so much energy trying to protect ourselves from getting hurt by unexpected change that we’ll miss the very real opportunity to use that time and energy to think about and work toward what we really want in our lives.

So honestly? My main resolution for 2021 is essentially to “do it anyway” - whatever “it” is. And to be clear - I definitely don’t mean “doing” in the sense of going out and doing stuff that’s not recommended or safe mid-pandemic.

What I mean is that I want to stop worrying so much about whether or not something is going to work or be a huge success and just try it. I want to stop being so concerned with how people are going to react to whatever it is that I’m about to share, be it a dumb photo on social media or a huge project that I’ve poured my heart into for months, and just share it. I want to have the courage to be vulnerable enough to just try the thing - whatever it is - without knowing if it’s even got a 1% chance of working.

One of the main things I’m pushing myself to “do anyway” is boldly create intentions for this year, and to make them as specific and measurable as possible. They might not work out, and they might be aiming too high. But I’m so sick of being afraid to set a goal because I can’t guarantee that I’m going to reach it with 100% certainty. So here’s to dreaming big in 2021!

How are you feeling about goal setting and resolutions during this crazy time? What particular intentions are you making for next year??