What 2020 Taught Me

Every year in late December I perform a ritual of sorts. It’s not the kind where I get naked and sacrifice a goat during a full moon–it’s slightly less entertaining than that. I make a nice hot cup of coffee, put on some good music, pull out my journal, and then spend about an hour or two reflecting on the past year. I review the goals that I had set the previous January, the people I’ve met, the gifts, the challenges, and the changes in who I have become.

By scheduling uninterrupted time to review the year I create space for insights to flow that would’ve otherwise remained hidden behind daily distractions. I am able to bring awareness to any progress I’ve made or regressions in growth or mindset.

This year was an interesting one for sure. 2020 grabbed the whole world by the dick and gave it a firm twist for good measure. It shook us to our core and tested our limits, giving us a reality check like we were playing professional hockey and getting slammed into the glass partition of realization for how little control we actually have over our lives. This leads to one of the first lessons of the year...

1. The only things we actually have control over are our attitude and effort.

Put in another way, all we can actually control is the meaning we give something and our reaction to a situation. Most of us chase happiness through external factors. Everything needs to go the way we want it to (or at least, not the way we don’t want it to) in order for our cold, little hearts to feel the urge to smile. For most of us achiever types, we may have convinced ourselves that by strategically planning and taking action we have a say over what we experience when in reality all we actually have is influence. Even if we plan something perfectly, there is still an innumerable amount of things that will force us to tweak our plan. If our happiness is reliant on everything going our way then it will be impossible to be consistently happy.

So what is the solution? Practicing the art of detachment. Releasing your emotional reaction from the external factors, choosing to accept the moment as it is, and then recognizing that you can’t change what has already taken place. The beauty is that you can change the past just by shifting your mindset a tiny bit. Choosing to see the empowering meaning in a situation instead of the cry baby victim version of the story will give you the clarity needed to see that it is a gift and then decide what you need to do about it. Is the moment calling on you to grow or learn? Is it calling on you to find the good or the humor? When looking back, I’ve found that every problem I’ve ever experienced has had a tremendous lesson hidden behind the mask of total shittiness. If I ignored that lesson and just saw it as a problem, it would later repeat itself in some other form, amplifying in intensity and disruptiveness so that I would have to pay attention to it and grow.

2. Separation equals suffering.

This one can be attributed to Tony Robbins. I’m a fangirl of his and this wad of wisdom has impacted me over and over again, in the sense that I always forget about it, suffer, and then am reminded of the impact of connection. When we separate ourselves from others and just focus on the pain we are experiencing, it tends to make us hurt even more. We get caught up in the mind and loop crappy renditions of reality until we feel completely alone in our suffering.

This past year I had two miscarriages after struggling with infertility for a couple of years. The extreme joy followed by such crushing disappointment felt like someone hulk smashed my uterus, dragging my heart down with it. I did something out of character when I found out there wasn't a heartbeat. I immediately sent an email to a handful of friends and family who had been aware of my unsuccessful pregnancy journey to date, telling them the news and how devastated I felt. I reached out when the pain was still vulnerably raw and exposed.

Typically, if I experienced some sort of extreme hurt, I would suffer in silence for weeks before opening up to anyone about it, giving myself time to come to terms with it on my own so that I didn’t have to show people I was weak (aka how I deemed myself when I was consumed by sadness). The outpouring of love, honesty, and support I received took my breath away and I felt like I was already starting to heal. When we separate ourselves and cut off connection with others, it harms us and intensifies the pain we are feeling. This healing connection can also be achieved when we focus on helping someone else when we are in pain. After the miscarriages, I went on a random act of kindness binge. I would anonymously buy people coffee, pick up litter, send a friend a book I thought they’d like or donate to causes I cared about. By shifting my focus outside of myself, my problems started to dissolve. It made me feel less alone and like I was adding value through kindness.

3. Perform honest reality checks on the timeline of goals and dreams.

For almost ten years, my husband and I dreamed of moving to one of our favorite places on earth–Lake Tahoe, CA. It felt far off and unobtainable at times and in January of 2018 we decided to create a timeline pushing us to shit or get off the pot by January of 2023. That gave us five years to make our dream a reality. This past year, amidst the pandemic and first miscarriage we honestly assessed what we wanted to do with our lives. Moving to Tahoe was still high on our list, which led to the question, “What are we waiting for?” It was something we desperately wanted so why were we waiting another couple of years before this random deadline came to an end? When we really looked at it, we saw that fear of big change was the culprit and that if we prioritized moving sooner we could pull it off. So we got a real estate agent and started looking. Within the first day of touring houses, we made an offer on a place that felt more like home than any of the other 34 houses I’ve lived in my life (I’m an unofficial expert mover and nomad at heart).

When we take a thoughtful look at all that we want to do, be, have, and contribute before we die, we can adopt a strategic view of when we want it by. Oftentimes, we lump big dreams into 5 or 10-year goals without considering a plan to get there or questioning why we chose that obscure timeline. If there’s something you really want, pause and ask how you would pull it off within one year if you had to. Is it possible? Maybe. What is keeping you from taking action and giving it 100% of your focus? Fear? Money? Time? If you had a gun to your loved ones’ head, could you pull it off? Probably. If anything, you’d do everything in your power to get it done and that can take you much farther than you think.

By taking the time to have an honest conversation with my husband about our priorities and goals, we ended up accomplishing a long time dream in a matter of months. Now every day that we wake up in our new home, we rise from our bed with immense gratitude for making a dream a reality. It’s completely changed our lives.

2020 was a tough one, but it was also absolutely beautiful. It may take a while for you to be able to see the gifts and lessons that were hidden beneath all of the challenges, but I promise that if you actively look for them, you will find them. When you do, you will start to notice them everywhere, and that act of noticing will completely transform your life.

Wishing you a Happy New Year and a joyful 2021.