After the insanely crazy and unexpected year that 2020 brought, I think everyone is more than ready for a new start. While many of us had to adapt and make the best of the past year, surely 2021 can’t be any worse. As with most new years, many of us make resolutions or set goals to lose weight, eat better, work out, save money, spend less time on electronics, and spend more time as a family.
Do any of these sound familiar? Since 2020 set the bar pretty low, we can definitely lower our expectations for the new year. However, we still need to set goals and have a vision for accomplishing something this year, so let’s be realistic!
Get fully dressed most days.
I think this is a totally attainable goal this year. Many of us spent our days in 2020 wearing pajamas, sweatpants, hoodies, and leggings. If you had to get on video calls, maybe you only got partially dressed. Let’s try to actually shower and dress in normal, presentable clothes from head to toe as much as possible in the new year. While I was teaching in person the majority of the fall, Christmas break really got me this year. I’m going to have a really hard time getting up and getting dressed and ready when school starts back at the beginning of January. This goes for my kids too.
Provide the family with three meals a day.
This may sound like a ridiculous goal, but do you know how hard it is to provide three meals a day for yourself and your family when everyone is working from home? It is really difficult. During virtual days last year, I forgot about lunch at times because all of us were so busy. Sometimes we were only eating breakfast and dinner with snacks in between. The days that I was able to prepare lunch, I felt like I was spending the majority of my days in the kitchen or I was told that I was being too loud. This year, if we have to spend some time working and learning from home, I plan to have quick and easy meals on hand so we can all actually eat three meals a day but also not feel like I am spending too much time in the kitchen or being too loud unintentionally banging dishes together.
Spend time as a family, but not too much.
While a lot of people usually set a goal to spend more time as a family each year, I’d say we are all over that at this point. Yes, it was really nice to have the extra family time last year, but let’s not overdo it in 2021. My goal for family time in the new year is to have a family night once a week. This could be a movie night, a game night, or just a night all together without screen time. An intentional family night more than once a week is going to be way too much this year.
In all seriousness, I think it is important to set goals each year, but since it has been such a wild ride, let’s just be realistic in what we want to accomplish this year. Surely, there is some light at the end of the tunnel as we say goodbye to 2020 and hello to 2021.
