2021 Year End Review
Trigger Warning
This post mentions depression and anxiety. If these topics are triggering for you, click here.
As another year comes to a close, another blogger cliché rears its ugly head in the form of a ‘year-end review’. I am no different. I like these types of reviews because it forces you to look back and re-evaluate what you want to bring into the new year (and leave behind). It’s also a chance to pat yourself on the back for the things that you accomplished which is always a nice boost to the old self-esteem.
In this post, I’ll be going over three things I want to leave behind, and three things that I want to carry over into 2022.
What I Want to Leave Behind
1. Bad Relationship with Food
Pre-diagnosis (if you’re not caught up on my Crohn’s journey click here), I had a really unhealthy relationship with food. I ate one or two meals per day due to stress, depression (namely seasonal affective disorder, SAD) and anxiety. When I have a lot of stress, I tend to hyper-focus on a task and I will literally forget to eat. There were times where my deadlines were so tight that I would only eat one meal a day, only because someone reminded me to eat. It was particularly bad in the winter months because I would make excuses to stay inside and rely on whatever I could find in my desk for food (usually instant noodles). Because I wasn’t eating enough, I would go home exhausted, unable to make lunch for the next day, and the cycle would repeat.
2. Prioritizing Stress
For much of my adult life, I have prioritized stress. I would work myself into complete exhaustion and ignore my body’s limits because pleasing a boss, client, or friend was more important than my own wellbeing. As a result, I have felt burnt out for at least the last few years. I rarely have time to do things that I enjoy and I feel like my mental health has been on a constant rollercoaster of ups and downs, never stabilizing for long.
3. Rushing
I don’t have as much energy as I used to (which is a part of Crohn’s disease). I may never have the same amount of energy as I had before my diagnosis so I need to get used to my ‘new normal’. Initially when the doctors were giving me the do’s and don’ts of Crohn’s, they explicitly said that I needed to slow down, which is a foreign concept to me.
So I went back to normal life, not thinking anything of it until I had to get ready for an event. I didn’t give myself enough time to get ready so naturally I started to rush. My stomach immediately started cramping and, the next thing I knew, I was doubled over with sharp stabbing pain for minutes at a time. This now happens every time I rush, so my Crohn’s acts as a nice physical reminder of my time management ineptitude.
Crohn’s aside, I have never had great time management skills and it does contribute to the other two bad habits mentioned above (not enough time to bring food, rushing around increases stress etc.) so it is something that I want to work on and leave behind in 2021.
What I Want to Bring Into The New Year
1. Prioritizing ‘Me Time’
I’ve been getting more into self-care as part of my Crohn’s journey and I’ve been having a blast. It’s been great to indulge the creative part of my brain. I recently dove into the Cricut world and started to create and design (hint hint for 2022) with different products and mediums. I also recently took up apartment gardening which has been very rewarding. I want to prioritize ‘me time’ so it’s no longer a once-a-month or a once-a-week event, but part of my everyday life. I also want to emphasize that ‘me time’ can be scheduled but it doesn’t need to be the same task every time. I’ve liked the ability to choose how I want to spend my ‘me time’. It could be reading, journaling, a face mask, playing piano…or watching TV. The variety keeps it enjoyable and less task-like so I’m more inclined to keep up the habit.
2. Better Balance
I have never been able to balance work, life, school, etc. very well. I’ll put too much effort into one basket and then there’s not enough for the others. Or I overcommit to one and then I can’t keep up with everything else. Scheduling has helped in the past to help partition my time but I have found it difficult to keep a schedule for the long term.
This year I am going to give scheduling another go, but this time I will allow myself to try different methods and build in time for failure. I feel like that’s a key component that isn’t talked about as much. With balance there are both successes *and* failures; if you only budget time with the notion that it is going to work out perfectly the first time through and it doesn’t…you have to take time from another task to keep up and it’s a domino effect.
3. Prioritizing Boundaries
I don’t know if it’s a millennial thing, but I am horrible with setting boundaries. Whether that be work/life boundaries, boundaries with friends/family or even with myself. I have been a people pleaser for most of my life and it almost always comes at my expense because I feel like I don’t have a choice or things would be worse for me if I said ‘no’. For the new year, I want to practise the art of saying ‘no’ but I also need to reset my boundaries and exercise choice.
I chose these three things to bring into 2022 because it’s better for my health, but also because, in prioritizing myself, I feel like I will be living a more fulfilling life. I have a lot of goals for this year (more on that in my goals for 2022 post) and, in order to accomplish them, I do need to put myself first and make sure that I am happy and healthy.
It’s OK to be selfish with self-improvement if it makes you a better version of yourself.
I hope this inspires you to do your own year-end review! If you want to see my 2022 New Year’s Resolutions, click here.
