For the past few years, I’ve been doing a word of the year each year. I like having this as a part of my goals for each year, but the word of the year is a different idea to me than my goals. The word is more about an overall theme where the goals are slightly more specific. Sometimes the word is an idea of something I know I want to do and it’s a reminder to focus on that and sometimes the word is something I know I will need to work on but is already something in my life.
For 2021, my word was patience. I picked this word because it seemed obvious to me. At the end of 2020, vaccines were just getting started and it was a big unknown for when I would be able to be vaccinated. I had heard rumors it might not be until the summer and I knew that as much as I wanted to get back to aspects of my normal life that I would need to wait. I knew I would need to practice patience with getting vaccinated and going back out into the world. 2020 was difficult for me with being so isolated, but at the same time, I had kept myself safe and healthy. And even if I was seeing others going out and doing things, I would need to be patient until I felt like things were safe enough for me to do the same.
I also knew I needed to be patient because I felt like I had lost a year of my life. I know many people felt the same way (now it feels like I’ve lost 2 years, but that’s a different topic) and there were things I had as goals for 2020 that I couldn’t do because of circumstances outside of my control. I needed to be patient and understanding with myself and not feeling like I was where I wanted to be at that time. I still feel like I’m somehow behind in my life, but I am still practicing being patient with that idea.
I really think overall I did a pretty good job with using my word as my theme for 2021. There were a lot of things I wanted to do but had to wait longer than I would have liked to. There are plenty of other things that I want to do now but I still haven’t brought them back into my life. It’s a weird time right now because we are still in a pandemic but it also feels like we have a small percentage of our normal lives back. We are in this in-between time where some things are back and we have to make personal choices if they are ok for us to do or not. I have been patient with myself with allowing myself to still feel a bit fearful and being ok with avoiding things. And I’ve been patient with others when I ask someone if they want to do something and it’s not something they feel comfortable with yet.
Being patient isn’t something that I will stop working on since I will have a new word for 2022 (which I will be writing about soon). I still need to practice patience quite often and remind myself that it’s ok that things are not going as quickly as they did before or how I want them to go. I still hope that things will be getting better soon because it seems like we had a small taste of what things were like before and now some things are back to how they were at the worst time in the pandemic last year or earlier this year. I have worked on keeping myself safe and healthy for almost 2 years of a pandemic now. There’s no rush to move past this and take unnecessary risks. So I will just keep being patient and taking things day by day as I need to.
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Having Patience (or My Word For 2021)
Reflecting On My 2019 Word (or Did I Trust Enough Or Too Much?)
Finding Balance (or My Word For 2020)
Under 90 Days Left In The Year (or Doing A Bit Of Reflecting)
2021 Check-In (or The Year Is Halfway Over)
My 2021 Goals (or Preparing For A Year With Lots Of Unknowns)
