A time to reflect.

I still don’t think that I’ve fully wrapped my head around the year that 2020 has been. I’m not sure I’ve processed what’s happened, I don’t think I ever will.

Despite the chaotic year this has been, we’ve somehow made it to the end…

On New Year’s Eve last year when I set my goals for 2020, I decided that I wanted to get better at writing. So I set myself the challenge of posting here on Medium and amazingly, I’ve done it. This is the final weekend and final entry for 2020.

I must admit I missed one week but apart from that I’ve posted every week. I think not travelling and staying home due to the pandemic definitely helped.

Whether or not I’ve improved is a question I can’t really answer because that would be up to the reader but I do feel that I’ve improved when it comes to forming sentences and how I structure things as opposed to just vomiting words onto the page and seeing what happens.

When we reach the end of a year, we always tend to look back on everything that’s happened and make an assessment on how much progress we’ve made. This year has been good, given the circumstances but I know I’ve got so much room for improvement…

I think that’s the eternal optimist in me but I know that there’s always another level I can push towards. The evidence is in the fact that there are people doing better than me in life, therefore there has to be another level I can find.

This year, I’ve shown glimpses of what I can do but the aim for next year is simply to build more consistency.

Life is weird right now, it has been for most of this year but as I’ve talked about multiple times in numerous posts, life is what we make it. There are elements we can’t control but ultimately we have control. There is no point whatsoever in trying to blame external forces on why you’re not progressing.

When the election was happening in the US back in November, I saw a post on Instagram that said

“No matter the election result, winners are still going to get up tomorrow and win.”

I’ve thought about that quote a lot since first reading it. I think if I was going to rank the quotes that I’ve read in 2020, this one would be at the top.

Life throws so many problems and stumbling blocks in our way but it is up to us to keep going. There are so many things in life that seem like they will have a major impact on our lives when they really, they don’t. There are so many external circumstances that people think are stopping them from getting to where they want to be in life but in reality, they’re just not taking control of their own situation.

Control the things that you can control and pay no attention to anything else. We only have so much energy we can give to each day so make sure you’re choosing the right things to give energy to.

As we head in to 2021, who knows what’s going to happen but let us focus on nothing more than ourselves and the things we can control. Set your goals and go after them with a tenacity that is off putting to most people.

Life is what we make it, folks.

I’m not sure I’ll be writing every single week next year, I may move to monthly or twice monthly so I can write some more in-depth pieces.

Enjoy your New Year’s celebrations.

See you in 2021.