For weeks I’ve been challenging myself to think of what my new year's resolution should be for 2022. Nothing really came to me, not because I don’t need to make some improvements in a few parts of my life, but I think it’s because the idea of new year's resolutions just don’t work for me - and I'd bet the statistics would show they don’t work for lots of other people either. Here’s why, I’m guessing: Humans are not robots. We are not binary. I am many things and I can do more than just succeed or fail. There is a lot of space between doing the thing and not doing the thing. For instance, starting the thing, it being too overwhelming on that day, quitting the thing, and then starting the thing again - that’s an option that the traditional model of a new year's resolution just doesn’t allow for, but that sometimes life requires of us. As a mother of a full-blown threenager, manager of people at work, aspiring public speaker, blogger, survivor and a bunch of other things that I don’t have names for, life has to be fluid, flexible and allow for the interruptions and stops and starts that those roles sometimes present. So moving forward I am setting new year's intentions, and I am going to share them with you - you all can be my accountability partners:
Raise my voice less at home (a.k.a. Be a more patient mother). To follow that up, I intend to also give myself grace, when I eventually realize this is harder than it sounds and needs to be a gradual growth process.
Practice not internalizing other peoples’ reactions to the boundaries I set for myself or my daughter. End Stop.
Trust my instincts as a mother, manager and entrepreneur. Learn to differentiate when it’s the broken speaking versus the brave. Hear the difference between the trauma and my true inner self.
Cultivate the instinct to verbally stand up for myself - in the moments when it’s appropriate - instead of later, after having time to justify what I know is the right thing to say. This is a hard one, because things are always easier in hindsight.
Read more. I’m an awful reader - it puts me to sleep, literally. But there is so much I want to consume out there. My goal here is to read more, but also to read more for pleasure and not just for knowledge.
Master something new at work. Make myself more marketable at the next level.
Tell my daughter when I am happy. Sounds simple, but she easily recognizes and labels when I am sad or dealing with something hard. I want to ensure I am also showing her and labeling what happy looks like - without modeling that she is the only thing that brings me happiness…that would be filled with pressure for her.
Work out.
So, as you can see, my intentions are lofty, complicated and vary depending on what part of my life I am targeting. I hope you can join me in naming some intentions for your life in 2022, without allowing the first time it doesn’t go well to be considered a failure. Try. Try Again. Right? Happy New Year to all those who are Broken & Brave and striving to always be more of the latter.
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