2021: The Year We Don’t Set Goals

So, it’s time to say our goodbyes, farewells, and hope-to-never-see-you-agains to 2020.

I feel as though we say this same sentiment every year:

But we all know 2020 was different, and many of us are timid to step into the new year.

Like all new years, we greet the calendar’s fresh start with similar expectations, what-ifs and the excitable fear of not knowing what comes next. But after a year like we just had, one full of curveballs, I’m not so sure the countdown to the new year feels quite the same as years past.

I think 2020 taught us who we truly are, as individuals and as an active piece of this puzzling life. It took all of our plans — our vacations, annual events, weekly routines, and fresh resolutions — just to say, “Nah. Not this year.”

We got pushed around by a threat we could not see, and unfortunately, it continues to threaten us almost a year after it arrived. We were pummeled by natural disasters, statistics of the ill that continued to rise even when we really thought they would stop, and a pre-existing political divide that only got deeper.

I’ll be honest: 2020 hurt. It stung. And sometimes, it felt like a never-ending dose of salt to a wound that never fully healed.

Here’s what I think:

• Slow down.

• Let go of the impossible expectations you usually push onto yourself every January.

• Remember what we learned last year — that we are not invincible, that connection (especially over distance) is a lifeline.

• Acknowledge how far you’ve come, how it felt to take responsibility for the safety of others, the way you collapsed under the heaviness just to stand up again and again and again.

• Listen to your body this time around; stop pushing your mind and heart past their breaking points by trying to convince yourself you can do it all, even in a pandemic.

Make 2021 the year you don’t set goals. Make it the year that you were grateful — for the tiny moments of joy you discovered in unlikely places, for what never left your side in a year that tried to take it all away, for the times you learned to be present because nothing is permanent.

2021 can be your year. But what does that mean to you? We entered 2020 ready to crush our goals, but we might’ve forgotten the most important goal of all: To live in gratitude for where we are in life, right now.

For the first month of the year, join us for a Month of Mindful Mantras. All month long, I’ll share my most coveted values and what is most important to me in life as I center myself for the year to come. Follow our Instagram to follow along, and share your own Mindful Mantras!