I would say this year has been a roller coaster and it has, but I don’t believe there are actually words to aptly describe 2020 for anyone. When 2020 came I was so excited. I had so many plans and I was going to make it a year that counted, little did I know it would, just not quite in the way I expected. In final post of this roller coaster year, I’m sharing my 2020 reflections
How I Expected The Year To Go & My Plans
During the summer of 2019, I was thinking about how I wanted 2020 to go, I wasn’t necessarily washing my hands of the year, but just looking forward to how I can make the most of my time when the new year came around. I thought about what I wanted in several aspects of my life and the work I was going to need to do to get it done. I was also devoting time to considering if and partly if I wanted to relaunch the blog at all. When I decided to relaunch my blog and refine my focus for it, I was excited about the possibilities. The weeks flew by as I started making plans for that as well as writing down other things I wanted to do, but that was okay, I just had to stay focused and celebrate any progress I made toward the end of the year.
Around this time last year, I was ending my break from blogging and working out design and content details. I had just started volunteering and I really liked the people I was helping. There were a lot of lessons I learned in 2019 and I know I grew as a person. I had my blog, I had my list of things to do and skills I wanted to learn. I was ready to make the most of 2020 in several aspects.
Covid-19 cases started in various locations, but it wasn’t local for me. I watched it on the news, concerned like the rest of the world so I used my hand sanitizer more and that was that. When the new year came around, I continued volunteering, working toward my blog launch, and reading articles on the field in which I earned my bachelor’s. There were parts of my plans that were moving forward and I knew it was going to be a great year, the weeks rolled by and I was making progress, then the pandemic became local and everything changed.
The Pandemic & Lessons Learned
When the pandemic hit the country last year, I became vigilant about using my hand sanitizer, but I didn’t think much about it past that at the time. When March ended and April started, my area of the world was pretty much closed, I had stopped volunteering and people were wearing masks everywhere, the number of cases kept climbing.
The new reality or new normal for lack of a better word was scary. I spent most of the first few weeks working on my blog among other things, but I just didn’t have the same enthusiasm for them at times. I spent much of that early time contacting family and friends, especially if it was overdue since we were all at home. Life with social distancing, hand sanitizer, and face masks was different and at times it felt like the days rolled into each other. One day my mom asked me what impact this all had for me? What lessons did I learn? I wasn’t sure how to answer at the moment, but as time went on, yes I had an answer or two.
- Make Time For Those Important To You
- Your Mindset Matters
- Don’t Be Afraid To Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone & Try Something New
As they gave the daily reports on the pandemic, the officials often talked about how even though this terrible thing was happening, they had time to sit down and have conversations that otherwise might not have happened. I set up weekly calls with friends and family and it was good to be able to have conversations past the quick “how are you?” and Netflix recommendations. At this point, as I’m writing this post, we’ve been having calls for a few months and it’s been fun. I just wish it didn’t take something like this for us to slow down and connect with people.
Your Mindset Matters
This was probably one of the biggest lessons for me. I’ve always had a pretty positive mindset toward my life, yes, even given the challenges that my disability brings into my life. However, I never took the time to focus on mindset, work on improving it, and staying positive. Some of the groups that I’m a part of on social media, focus a lot on mindset and after making an effort to not only focus on it, but improve it, I notice a difference in how I react to situations and deal with obstacles to a goal. In my opinion, with a positive mindset and methods to help you keep that way when dealing with challenges, you can accomplish your goals easier and reach for the next one. A positive mindset is for me, really the first step in accomplishing anything. One of my favorite quotes is from Netflix’s Walk. Ride. Rodeo.
Leave Your Comfort Zone: I learned so much more than these three lessons,, but if I wrote down all the lessons this post would feel endless for both of us.
New Experiences In 2020 and Moving Forward To 2021
For the first half of the year, I was focused on how things changed and I’ll admit I let that affect my focus, but after shifting my mindset or working on it and remembering the goals I set for myself last year, I got to work. I worked on my blog, took certification courses, and attended virtual events. I learned so much including more about myself specifically through trying new things when it came to my trying new things and I had the chance to think about the type of person I wanted to be.
In this coming year, I want to build on everything from my blog to the growth I’ve made as a person. I want to set new goals and challenge myself so that hopefully when 2022 comes around, I can say I did the most that I could with the previous year. I’m still working on what some of my goals will be, whether it’s learning to cook a new dish or a new professional skill, or something in between, I don’t know yet, but it will be fun figuring that out.
Well, that’s the last of my 2020 reflections. I’m excited to see what 2021 has in store for me, I hope overall the world is better and healthier and that we can find our way to whatever this new “normal” will be.
Happy Holidays Everyone!
Kimberly
