But with the vaccine rolling out—I know a lot of people getting the shots, thank goodness—we can all drop the survival mode that we’ve allowed ourselves to be steered by for the past year. You may not have realized it, but think about when you’ve last been proactive about anything other than setting regulations on an in-person meeting.
Maybe this is just me, since I’ve been living with a high-risk person for the whole of quarantine and have only seen my friends outdoors in masked visits. But now, with hope for the future, I can think ahead to plan vacations, events to make up for all the birthdays and celebrations that I’ve missed, and even reintroduce game nights.
With all the fun coming up, I don’t want to let slip the personal goals I have in place. For each person, that success and satisfaction may be a different end result, but the means of getting there can be the same.
Set goals. Keep reminders to yourself about what you are working toward. Maybe these are little goals, deadlines, or big goals. Since I write constantly, my goals are to keep the novel ideas at the forefront of my mind so that I can easily slip into character when I have spare time to write. So often, I lose so much time trying to realign myself to the goal of the project and feeling overwhelmed, that I lose precious time in attaining.
Keep to-do lists for even simple things. This has helped me tremendously. I am a to-do list lover. I would forget every single thing I ever had to do if I didn’t write it down. I personally use post-it notes, white boards (one on my fridge for groceries since I always forget as soon as I’m out of the kitchen and one in my office for work), and an excel document. I have tabs for finances, for family e-mails so I don’t have to spend half an hour digging up everyone’s correct e-mail, for all the online orders and the link/tracking numbers (especially helpful over holidays), for the books I want to read, and for a glimpse at the week and what I have each day. I don’t just schedule things that must get done, I schedule self care as well. Be proactive about what you might need, it has personally saved me stress and anxiety and helped me sleep without lying awake trying to remember what I forgot.
Eat healthy. A year ago, I switched to a vegetarian diet, and I feel there are a lot of misconceptions about why I did that. I did it for two main reasons: to help the environment/planet and to be more aware of what I was eating. Being vegetarian has made me be more proactive with what I have in my fridge and what kind of meals I am eating. People have said to me, “I might start eating vegetarian seeing that you lost weight doing it.” Eating vegetarian doesn’t ensure weight loss. It wasn’t about that for me. It made me more mindful about the protein, iron, carbs, and vitamin C that I am eating. It made me more energized to follow through on working out. I also started drinking a lot more water to help my focus, reduce headaches, and stay energized. Being mindful about food and intentional about water can keep you focused and productive.
Remember to give grace at failures. I feel that I say this all the time, because I feel that I fail myself all the time, but success isn’t about eliminating failures, it’s about incorporating what you learn from those failures and ignoring the doubts and desires to quit in order to keep applying yourself and achieving.
We’ve been so busy making do with what we have, but now we can dream again. We can reach for what we want. Don’t let that hope slip away. Strive to be satisfied following your passions. We’ve got this!