My Word of the Year for 2021

I should be writing my Bachelor recap of the week right now, but sorry Bachelor Nation, that’s going to have to wait. Because sometimes, some days, my fingers just need to type about whatever they feel like typing about. Yes— I do believe my fingers do the writing, not my brain, because I swear to you I have no idea what’s about to come out until my fingers press the keys. Sometimes I’m super surprised by them. Nutty little fingers! I fully believe my everyday brain lives inside my skull and my writing brain lives in 10 little pieces within each fingertip.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’m going to do with my time in 2021. As many of you know, in the last 365 days, I:

• Gave birth

• Wrote and published a book

• Lost 70 pounds of baby weight

• Tackled the adoption process to become a waiting family, eagerly ready to welcome Baby #3

• Read 20 books

• Nursed my infant for 11 months

• Potty-trained my 2-year-old

• Organized every inch of the house so that The Home Edit would be proud

• Cooked almost every meal of 2020 at home (ordered in/ate out less than 10 times)

Anyway. Yeah. It’s been a big one with lots of hard work and new habits formed and consistency.

CONSISTENT.

That was my word for 2020. I wanted to be consistent, with small wins every single day. I approached all of my goals with teeny tiny easy-to-reach mini-goals for each day:

I only wrote 500 words a day, M-F. No weekends and no overachieving on my 500 words. Just 500 words. Small. Tiny. Until I wrote 80,000.

I only worked out 3-4x a week for 30 minutes. I ate whatever I wanted (except sweets), but only in small portions. Simple. Not overwhelming. Seventy pounds down.

I spent just 15 minutes a day cleaning out drawers. Donating clothes I don’t wear. Getting rid of anything that didn’t fit into a designated spot. Until our entire house became orderly and efficient.

I could go on and on…the consistency of nursing Jo when she used to take 1.5 hours each time she wanted to eat by never making plans (lol but really). The consistency of reading 1-2 books a month to stay inspired. Consistently and persistently checking box after box to complete the adoption paperwork, classes, and interviews. Consistently making a dinner list for the week on Sundays and always beginning to cook at 3:30-4:00 p.m. until it became habit and the thought of ordering in didn’t even cross my mind.

I was consistent in how I helped our kids learn to sleep, consistent in quality time with my husband by refusing to work or do anything except hang out with him once the kids go to bed, consistent in doing laundry each morning…consistent in every area of my life.

I’m SO HAPPY. Consistency has brought me joy and excitement and dreams-come-true. It has given me confidence and a new appreciation for how to accomplish big things. It’s served my mental health tremendously. Consistency is my friend, and because of it, I have new habits that will carry with me from this point forward, so it’s truly the “word of the year” that keeps on giving.

BUT. I’m choosing a new word for 2021. I’ve been thinking about it for about a month now. I don’t want to lose steam with my goals by any means, but I also want this next year to be more about focusing on a feeling rather than results. The results of this year absoLUTELY brought about lots of tremendous positive feelings (confidence, joy, satisfaction, to name a few)—so I don’t think you can just pick a feeling and will it into existence. Consistency in our thoughts and behaviors is the true magic. Still…I want to focus on the way I want to feel and then find behaviors that lead to that feeling this year, rather than the approach of nailing down a behavior (consistency) and seeing what feelings it happens to bring about.

With that in mind, after weeks of toying with different ideas and searching my heart, I’ve decided on my word:

CALM.

I want 2021 to bring about more calm in my spirit. I can still be eager in my passions—and I do have big plans for 2021!—but I want to bring a stronger sense of calm into my life. Living in Alaska definitely helps, with the scenery and the slower pace and the isolation. But this year I was a wee bit crazy. I pushed myself super hard to reach my daily goals no matter what. Being consistent isn’t always easy, and often I’d have to flex some serious mental fortitude to stay on top of my goals, which was AWESOME. Those muscles are so much stronger now! But now that much of what I’m doing is habit, I look forward to finding ways to slow my heart rate and my mind instead of them spinning out of control while I excitedly and wildly became the poster child for productivity in 2020.

So, how do I plan on implementing more CALM into my life? I don’t really know! I’m starting out with a few ideas—none of which include yoga—which I’ll list below. But I look forward to identifying moments that I don’t feel calm as they come, and coming up with practical ways to find peace. Here’s how I’m starting:

• Reading 2 books about the enneagram in January. I think the more I recognize that the way I’m wired isn’t a bad thing—my intensity, my planning-nature, my anxiety—the more I’ll stop feeling stressed about why I’m this way and instead lean into my strengths. When I don’t feel calm, it’s often because I’m frustrated with myself.

• If Aaron does something that upsets me, I need to get better at leaving the room for awhile to regain some composure. I was really good at doing this for awhile, but recently I’ve given into my natural inclination to want to solve problems in the moment, which rarely works out the best when it comes to calm, not-overly-emotional reactions and conversations.

• If my kids are driving me mad (because children are crazy, God love them), to take the same approach as with Aaron. I need to separate myself— even if I can’t physically, to at least separate myself mentally. They will not die if I go radio silent for 10 minutes while I manage myself and remain more calm. I’m truly the kind of person whose inside warps to match how she behaves on the outside, so if I act more calm—if I work on silence until my frustration has passed—then I’ll truly feel more calm, too. This is not universal for how everyone is wired, but I’m definitely one of those people who can will real feelings into existence by first pretending.

• Identify moments of struggle and make clear rules for myself. I’ve mitigated certain things that frustrate me by doing this in the past, so I want to do it more. For example, I 100% don’t get on the elliptical until Jo is fully asleep for her nap, because inevitably if I start while she’s still wiggling, she’ll poop and never go to sleep and I’ll have to get off the elliptical mid workout to change her and put her back down and then I’m super annoyed…so I’ve learned to not even start until she’s fully asleep. It’s a hard and fast rule I have for myself now. I want to make more of those.

• Putting up a cute sign in my house that says “CALM” to remind me that’s what I’m going for.

Obviously there’s plenty more I will be doing and that I’ll figure out along the way, but for the sake of not boring you to death, I’ll stop there.

What’s your word for 2021? Do you have one? Share it with me! I look forward to another year of being intentional with how I grow and live life in a way that brings me the truest joy.

PS- My friend Ashli Pollard is a big proponent of words of the year and got me into them, so shout out to her for the perfect boost of new year motivation that doesn’t feel like a new year’s resolution bound to fail.