Like many people, I find the holiday season magical, exciting, and stressful. Those weeks are full of unique experiences, celebrations, resolutions, and milestones. The week leading up to New Year’s Day encourages us to reflect on the current year and plan for the coming one. As someone who loves to plan, it’s my second favorite part of the holiday season.
Last year was about career exploration, personal growth, and non-stop learning. Balancing multiple schedules and scheduling clients meant using a planner. I relied heavily on Google Calendar, but I wanted something more intentional and structured, so I found a new planner and added it to my Christmas List. I made lists of skills to learn and books to read. I evaluated my balance between work, homeschool, and personal life and changed my availability to reflect some priority changes.
When January 1st arrived, my planner was set up. The skills had been prioritized, books selected for January, and timelines for content creation were planned. Everything was ready and I was prepared for whatever was coming my way. On January 3rd, I felt so accomplished: I had written a rough draft of a blog post, returned phone calls, and started organizing my tax paperwork. I was happily checking off my goals for the day when a notification from a friend stopped me in my tracks, “When you have a few minutes to talk, let me know.”
After finishing my errands for the day, I called him. He informed me that a mutual friend had died unexpectedly and he thought I would want to know. The rest of the day was a blur as I went through the motions of checking schoolwork, running kids to their activities, and mindlessly playing a phone game. All of my momentum was gone. The rest of the world was continuing to push into the new year, while I sat frozen and numb. I spent most of the next few days rewatching the TV show “The Good Place” between waves of grief.
So, here we are. Today is the 16th of January. I’m 3 pages into a book that has to be returned in a week. I’ve already double-booked at least one event, even with my planner being updated and checked fairly regularly. This blog post is being re-written since it seems disingenuous to post the one I wrote on January 2nd about tackling the new year. I’m not where I thought I would be and while I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about it, none of those will change the reality of my situation. The truth is that no matter how much I plan, prepare, and wish it to be, I cannot guarantee that everything will go the way I expect.
January 1st is an arbitrary day at the end of a busy season that marks the beginning of my year, but it’s not the only day I can start anything. My plans won’t wait until January 1st of next year, so instead, I’ll start this week. Tomorrow will be setting expectations for the week with one or two small goals. Then, I’ll block some time this week to re-work those larger schedules and deadlines. I’ll get there, eventually.
So what can you do if your year got off to a less-than-stellar start?
- Pick a day to begin. If you need accountability, inform someone else of your date and plan.
- Break those big goals into smaller steps. For example, your house won’t be organized overnight. Maybe, pick a small area that will make a big impact or one that can be completed in half an hour or less.
- In a similar vein, choose one goal to work on at a time. If you change everything at once, it’s hard to determine which parts are effective and which ones need some adjustments.
- Aim for growth, not perfection. Aiming for perfection can lead to burnout or frustration.
- Build in time for rest, reflection, and re-balancing.
- Progress isn’t linear, so find support – Whether your support comes from a spouse, friend, co-worker, or online group, you will need someone who will celebrate your successes, listen as you work through a challenge, or encourage you when everything is just the WORST.
Finally, we all need space for self-compassion and understanding. Some days will be great and others will be a challenge. Those days may require that we choose between the self-compassion to take a break or the understanding to push forward. The struggles we face often create opportunities to learn something new, choose paths we might not have chosen under the best circumstances, and see perspectives and experiences that would otherwise be ignored. While it may not make the current situation better, at least we’re better prepared for similar circumstances in the future.
Does that mean I’ll just suck it up and do what I need to do in the moment? Perhaps. If not, there are always infinite possibilities to do it tomorrow.
If you need an accountability partner for 2023 (the original or the re-do), let me know.