My Word of the Year for 2020
It’s the first week of February, so I’m a bit behind all of the New Year goals and resolutions post. But once you know the word I chose for this year, you’ll understand why I allowed myself the extra time to figure it out. This post is going to be a long one, so if you want to skip to the end and find out my word now or hop over to last year’s post where I shared my four step process for how to for choose your own word of the year, go right ahead. Or if you’re interested in reading one full-time mom/part-time entrepreneur’s trip to burn out and back again, read on.
Reflecting on 2019
It’s not lost on me that I chose “Bloom” as my word of the year for 2019, and within days was offered a deal to write a faux floral craft book. Last year started out on a really high note! I had recently returned to work after having our daughter the previous summer and was excited and energized about the new possibilities and projects coming my way. But the story of my last year is not as triumphant as that makes it sound. I don’t want to sound ungrateful - 2019 was full of incredible opportunities and growth, and so many good moments with my family. But that’s not the full story and if you’ve been around here long, you’ll know that I’m not in the business of keeping up appearances.
It was about halfway through 2019 that I began to experience burn out. I had just submitted the first draft of my book manuscript and was diving back into interior design client work full-force. Around that time, I wrote and shared “My Secret to Inspired Productivity”, a method that’s helped pull me out of feeling overwhelmed and overloaded time and time again. But as the summer went on, there was something about this kind of burn out that was different…
The spring of 2019 was a difficult one for me personally. (I shared a little about that here). I was feeling loss and grief but having to push through because of things that were happening for me professionally. Then that summer, things became difficult for me professionally. Communication with my book editor began to unravel, although it wasn’t until months later that I found out why. I had overloaded myself with client work and was struggling to keep up even though I was getting more childcare help than usual since school was out. I had a difficult experience in my design business that left me feeling drained and defeated. All the while, I was a primarily stay-at-home mom with a baby who was growing into a toddler - a transition that I struggled with more than I’d like to admit.
All of these thing came to a head in August, when my husband had 3 weeks of job training on the other side of the state, near the end of which my childcare help would be drastically reduced because school was back in session. It was just too much. My confidence was shaken by the challenges I had been through. The optimism I’ve worked hard to cultivate over the last several years felt painfully out of reach. I was beyond burnt out - I was depressed and battling through each day.
It wasn’t until the fall that I allowed myself to have what I really needed. A freaking break. This time last year, I had settled on “Bloom” as my word of the year. What I think 2019 taught me the most is that nothing blooms all year round. That needing time to recuperate doesn’t negate my accomplishments. That needing time to rest doesn’t mean that I’m not being productive. Human beings aren’t designed to go-go-go, to hustle relentlessly and make progress in a predictable, linear, upward trending fashion. Sure, I felt a little like I withered and died towards the end of last year, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t bloom. And maybe, that’s the natural order of things…
So where does that lead me to for this new year? This new decade?
It took me until halfway through January to feel like I was ready to unpack 2019. Then it took another couple of weeks before I could really put into words why when I pulled out my journal and followed my year-end reflection prompts the the word that emerged was:
S U R R E N D E R
I do a lot of things and wear a lot of hats. I’m sure anyone who is a mother or a business owner - or both - can relate. I thought I had whittled down all the unnecessary bits - Kon Mari’d my life to the point that I should have been able to make it all fit. And in a perfect world it would have. But alas babies grow, creativity shifts, expectations go unmet and things fall apart before they can come back together again. That’s the way of this beautiful, messy, wild life. I can keep doing the things I love to do, but only if I accept that I have to do them slowly. Only if I stop believing that I’m the exception to “you can do everything - but not all at once”. Because all that’s doing is forcing me to push against this stage of life again and again instead of welcoming its magic.
I’ve allowed myself more grace in the last couple of months than I ever have before. It hasn’t been comfortable and I’m still not sure I deserve it. But I’ve been down the other path, and the only place it leads is burn out. So I’m going to stay the course.
I’m going to believe that expecting less from myself doesn’t mean that I’m waving the white flag on my dreams. It means that I’m surrendering to a simpler, happier way of living and being in this season.
I have a lot of goals for this year, but they look less like hitting a certain income goal and more like investing in my community and building relationships. Less like being as productive as possible with every scrap of time I have and more like creating whitespace for rest and play. Because what I want most for this year is to feel peace at the end of the day, knowing that I did my best and that what my best is will likely look different each day. I want to know and believe deeply that what I am doing right now is more than enough.
Photo by Savannah Smith Photography
