Tag Archives: trust

Finding Balance (or My Word For 2020)

I’ve been enjoying setting a word for the year over the past few years. They seem to work well as an idea for a theme for the year and they usually help me discover new things about myself. But these words also seem to be decided as a reaction to the past year’s word. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, but it’s the way that it’s been happening. And my word for 2020 was chosen because of how I feel after my word for 2019.

My word for 2020 is balance.

I picked this word for so many reasons. First, I liked the idea of how the year 2020 looks balanced to me and it seemed like a fitting word. That’s not the main reason I picked it, but it did help me when I was narrowing some options down.

The most important reason why I picked balance as my word for the year is it is something I have struggled to find in so many aspects of my life and I need to work on figuring out. I have struggled to find balance both physically and mentally. I feel like I write about having highs and lows so often and it usually is about how I’m not balanced in my life.

I want my schedule to be more balanced. I go through phases of being overscheduled and overwhelmed and then those lead to times of being bored and feeling isolated. I need to figure out a healthy balance of being an extrovert and an introvert so that I don’t have those swings back and forth.

I want my finances to be more balanced. This is related to my goals of working on my budget and job-hunting, but I can also do things besides that. I need to work on being more aware of exactly how much money I am making and what it needs to go toward every month. I don’t want to have to stress out about paying for things, but I also know that I can’t do everything I want to do. I don’t have that much financial freedom, but I have more freedom than I have had before and I want to make sure I don’t mess that up.

I want my physical self to be more balanced. I know my eating disorder is not necessarily something I can control, but I can find more areas where I can control it. I feel like my workouts have been a huge tool in finding balance, but I can find ways to include food into that too.

And the reason why I originally thought of having balance as my word for 2020 is because of how I felt after having trust as my word last year. I wrote how I might have trusted people too much and that led to me being hurt. I need to find the balance between being open and allowing others into my life but also not giving people trust they haven’t earned yet. This isn’t easy to do because in order to allow for relationships to grow I have to take a leap of faith and give them trust. I can’t only trust someone when they have shown they deserve it. But I also can be a bit more cautious and wait a bit before trusting someone as much as I have in the past. Hopefully, I won’t be putting trust in people that don’t deserve it as much this year as I did last year, but I think being able to know when to give trust has to come from finding a balance in the relationship.

I’m excited about this being my word for the year. Whenever I choose a word, I have an idea of what it will mean for the year and what will come from it. But then at the end of the year, I’m always surprised by what growth I have made in my life because of it. Right now, I think of balance as one thing. By December 31st, I will probably think of it as something different. And the lessons that I learn because I focus on finding balance will be things that I can’t imagine just yet. But I know they will be good and I can’t wait to share in a year what happened.

Reflecting On My 2019 Word (or Did I Trust Enough Or Too Much?)

With the year wrapping up, it’s time to look back at what goals and ideas I had at the beginning of the year. My next few posts will be covering different aspects of this and I was debating about what I wanted to start with for the past few days. But I decided that I wanted to start with my word for 2019.

As a reminder, my word for the year was “Trust“. This was an important word for me to choose for so many reasons. My main focus was that I wanted to be able to put more trust in others because I knew I had closed myself off. I also knew that I wasn’t always thinking the best of people and I hated that I didn’t have that as a mindset anymore. But I also wanted to work on trusting myself and what will come. So much of that needed trust was about what others thought of me or saw in me. I wanted to trust that I was worth it, even if I struggled with that thought.

This ended up being the perfect word for me for this past year because I had to put a lot of trust into many different people and situations. And for the most part, I would say this was a positive experience for me. I was able to have belief in friends that I might not have given them before. If someone said they would confirm something with me later, I didn’t stress too much about it wondering if they forgot about me. Of course, I wasn’t perfect with this and I did sometimes worry that I was forgotten, but I decided that I could wait the situation out before automatically thinking that I couldn’t trust or believe them to do it.

I also had some trust in my job situation and while it hasn’t gotten to a place I want it to be, it’s much better. I feel much more secure in my main day job and I think I’m in an ok place with the other job. I will be refocusing my job hunt again starting next month, but I don’t stress as much as I did before with all the issues I’ve encountered with work. Even with my customers making complaints about things that are out of my control, I am able to trust that my bosses know what is really happening and that my job isn’t at risk.

But the biggest place that I knew I wanted to put more trust in my life is with dating. I wanted to believe that I could trust someone with my feelings and that I didn’t have to always be on guard. And there were several times that I was able to be open and comfortable when I don’t think I would have been that way before. It never worked out the way that I wanted it to, but it wasn’t always bad. When I was open and honest with someone and they tell me that they don’t want to see me again, it hurts but I also don’t have regrets because I know that I was my real self. And putting that little bit of trust in others was necessary for me to be fully in my date and not putting on an act or hiding too much of myself.

But as I expected it might happen, putting this trust in my dating life did also backfire at times. I gave people trust who didn’t deserve it. Or I gave them more trust than I should have and I needed to be a bit more protective of myself. I allowed a few guys to take that trust and use it against me. And it hurt a lot when that happened. I wish I hadn’t allowed myself to trust that way and it made me question if I was being too naive or letting someone take advantage of me. But I have realized that these guys were going to betray me no matter how much or how little trust I gave them. I had blinders to who they really were and that wasn’t necessarily my fault. They only showed me one part of themselves and I gave them that trust based on that. And while I do regret giving them that trust and faith, I also know that if I hadn’t done so that they still would have done the same things that hurt me and I probably would feel the same.

Looking back at the past year, I do think I put more trust out in my life and that it was a worthwhile thing to do. I think I needed to do this to find new boundaries and ideas with myself and how I think of others. Even with the few regrets I had, I know they have made me a better and stronger person and has allowed me to see how I can put trust out there without putting my emotions at risk. This was something I needed and I think that it made the year better for me. And I know these lessons are ones that I will continue to do in 2020.

I won’t be revealing my word for 2020 for about another week, but I have to say that having “Trust” as my word this year helped guide me to my word next year. I love it when these words of the year connect and help continue my journey. It just feels so perfect and meant to be.

My 2019 Word (or Finding Trust)

Another post about the start of a new year! This time, it’s about my word of the year. I’ve been doing these for the past few years and I really love the time I spend trying to figure out what word I want as my theme for the year. I feel like I’ve always picked words that are around the general idea of being strong or tough. This year, I still think the word is about being tough, but it’s also about being gentle at the same time.

My word for 2019 is trust.

This is a word that is not just about what I need to feel about myself, but what I need to feel about others. With my year of being fearless this past year, I put myself in situations that were unfamiliar to me. I allowed myself to be open to possibilities and that didn’t always work in my favor. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just what happened. But I think because of my history and things that have happened in my past, I struggled to let things that happened go. Just because one person hurt me doesn’t mean another one will do the same. I’ve struggled with this many times in my life, but I think it was highlighted by putting myself out there more this past year. And I want to fix that.

I need to learn to trust people around me. I need to learn to allow others to help me when needed and know that they will do the right thing. I’m trying to surround myself by all amazing people so they can help me build that trust, but I know it’s going to be hard. I’ve said to my bosses in the past that because I have lost many jobs before that I’m always terrified that I’m going to be fired. I still have that fear, but it’s gotten better. I need to apply that same mindset to other aspects of my life.

But this isn’t just about learning to trust other people. I have to learn to trust myself too. I need to trust that things will work out for me. I’ve been working on that idea with my job hunt, but I know that I have so many other parts of my life where I don’t feel positive that things will go my way. One good example with this is dating. I’ve matched with so many men since I started online dating. A lot of times, I’ll message with them for a bit and then I never hear from them again. I didn’t want to delete those conversations because I was worried that maybe they would reach out again and realize they couldn’t. I need to trust that if that guy is the right guy, they wouldn’t leave me waiting for a message back. I’ve occasionally done clean ups of my matches and gotten rid of people I didn’t talk to, but I still kept some that probably should have been deleted. And the other day, I finally did that. I wish I had counted how many matches I deleted, but I know it was over 100. I still have a bit of fear in my head that I screwed up something, but I’m trying to remember that if it was meant to be I would be matched with them again.

I have a feeling that while the idea of the word trust is to be gentle in a way, it will end up making me tougher. Hopefully I will be able to drop people and things that are not worthy of my trust quicker and I can put my energy to those who are trustworthy. And I’m sure as the year goes on I will have more feelings about what trust will bring to my life and I’m excited to see what focusing on trust will result in.

And as I have in the past few years, I got the MantraBand with the word trust on it so I can wear it to remind me about what I want to focus on.

I also love what it says.

To trust is to know and have faith that there is a divine plan in every moment in your life. Let go of what you cannot control and trust the process. Be present and experience life as it unfolds. Trust your journey. All is well.

I feel like that sums up what I hope a year of trust will bring to me.