A Personal New Year's Note

Good morning ladies and gents! Welcome to 2020!

How was last year for you? Maybe it was awesome! My 2019 sure was. Then again maybe your year was hard or sucked. That is okay too, it’s a brand new year to move forward into!

Today’s post is about learning to move forward, move on and claim what you truly deserve.

To give a little back story, from 2016-2018 I was pretty much a depressed, workaholic wreck. There were good days but many more bad than good in my mind. I lost weight, gained weight, my health was all over and my anxiety was through the roof. Towards the end of 2018, I decided I needed to make some changes. I needed to move my focus from taking care of all my friends and family to doing some self-care.

In 2019 I approached New Year's resolutions in a whole new way. I put my focus on eliminating the things that were bringing me down, instead of adding more things to do, which just stressed me out more.

I eliminated my extra workload. The things I could delegate I did. I also quit doing more than my share of the work both at home and on the job.

I put a focus on my health. Namely my eating and exercise habits. Smaller portions and I learned a new skill! Indoor rock climbing. Between the two I lost 20lb! And have been maintaining that weight for just over five months now.

I also decided to get back into reading, albeit in the form of audiobooks since I don’t actually have time to hold a book in my hands with my lifestyle. I read 38 books in 2019! About 30 more than I read between 2016-2018 combined.

I practiced saying no to people who wanted to pull me every direction I didn’t need to go, and instead used my time to lift myself up and move forward in a direction I wanted to go.

Where did all this lead me? In July I met a man I didn’t think would ever exist. We met through a dating app. Because we had listened to the same books we hit it off in conversation! Meeting in person we did breakfast and, indoor rock climbing. Six months later, we are going steady, share audiobooks, still go rock climbing, and I have the time to do all these things because I have already delegated some of my work and taught my friends and family that I will say no when I need to. If I had met him in 2018 I would not have been ready. Most likely we wouldn’t be where we are today.

Moral of the story: Do self-care! Learn to say no to drama and yes to things that matter to you. You never know what changing into who you want to be might attract.