Focus of 2021

Happy New Year, folks! I hope everyone had a safe New Year's Eve and a restful start to 2021. The new year inevitably brings about the conversation of new goals, resolutions, and intentions for the new year, which can be quite overwhelming. Honestly, 2021 is not going to be a year for me to ~do big things~ or make massive changes. I have been feeling so burnt out for such a long time that the idea of giving myself hoops to jump through or goals to meet really causes me unnecessary stress instead of motivating or exciting me to become a better version of myself. I really need to take a year (maybe more) to reevaluate what makes me happy and what will bring me peace when I've felt so much turmoil for so long. So this year, I want to focus on a few things without setting myself a specific goal. Here's what I'm envisioning for myself in 2021:

Self care - This is priority number one for me. The end of 2020 was another pretty rough patch for me mental health wise, and holding it together has been really challenging. I need to focus on what feels good, and be okay with whatever that is. If it's more alone time, great. If it's exercising more, great. If it's getting off of social media for a while, great. Overall, I just want to take the pressure off of myself. I have enough external pressure (good and bad) to meet certain expectations, that putting additional pressure on myself is not a smart idea mental health wise. I just want to take it easy this year and figure out where I'm at. Feeling less foggy would be an excellent bonus to 2021.

Creativity - I got a fantastic new sketchbook and marker set for Christmas, which made me think about how my crativity has been put on the backburner for years. Drawing and painting was once so important to me, and I have been so out of practice for so long. So with my new sketchbook, I'd like to dedicate time each day (or as often as possible) to drawing in it, with the overall goal of filling the sketchbook by the end of 2021. I hope this will help with finding my creative self once again, and improving on my (very) rusty drawing skills.

Running - I'm really happy with how my running has transformed in 2020, and I'd like to continue on the same path. I'm still aiming for a sub-5 marathon and I hope to achieve that this year, but I think my ultimate focus in this realm of my life is to keep dedicating time and effort into becoming a better runner overall. I'm in a good place as a runner currently, and I'd like to keep it that way through this year. 

Reading - Probably in direct response to my mental health, reading toward the end of 2020 also took a back seat and I am reading far less than what I have in past years. I'd still like to make sure I'm dedicating time to reading, and am setting my reading goal for 2021 at 52 books, or one book a week. This is MUCH lower than the goals I've set for myself in the past, but in the spirit of taking the pressure off of myself, I think that this is a very reasonable thing for me to achieve this year!

Movie watching challenge - This is probably the closest thing I have to a ~resolution~ or a goal for the new year! It's kind of a running joke in my life of how few movies I've seen, especially movies that most other people have seen and consider to be really important films. I don't really consider myself a movie person, as I tend to prefer watching short-form entertainment, like TV shows or YouTube videos. I had the idea a few weeks back of crowd sourcing a list of movies and trying to watch as many as I can to up my movie knowledge and find a new appreciation for this form of entertainment, so that's exactly what I'm doing! I have a list of over 100 films in a spreadsheet (and growing every day as I receive more recommendations) and my goal is to watch at least one per week, coming out to at least 52 movies watched in 2021. I'm really looking forward to this project, and will be updating you here each month on what I watched!

What are you focusing on in 2021?