2022 and the Thrive Project

When I reflect on the past year, all I can think about is how I played small. I let things happen to me and around me and let my emotions take control over most situations. I started resenting people and situations and then burying it deep inside me so that it didn’t impact day-to-day interactions but the reality is, letting it fester just lead to an intense defiance. I set goals and let them go quickly. I attributed defeats to a general lack of caring about the issue or event itself. I didn’t like where I was or what I was doing but I didn’t do anything to change it. I was comfortable in the chaos and uncomfortable with things that usually brought me peace and clarity.

I felt a lot of anger and frustration.

And I either took it out on people close to me in order to drain the emotions or I just avoided other people entirely for periods of time. I looked forward to weekends or vacations so that I could “disappear."

When I dig a little deeper, I realize that I started feeling insignificant and let a lot of my dreams and goals go to the back burner so that they wouldn’t get in the way of my general intolerance of myself and my feelings. I crave control and as we all know, it’s been pretty difficult to have much control in a lot of situations in the recent past. The appearance of having your shit together started being harder and harder to maintain and eventually, I just stopped. Stopped posting, trying to motivate… just stopped. Because I just didn’t have it together. It’s okay to feel that way sometimes… but getting stuck there is not okay.

But then I got sick.

And I realized, after months of feeling awful, multiple doctor visits, blood work… that I didn’t like me very much. I didn’t like how I felt and I didn’t like feeling like I was letting people down and that I wasn’t being myself or the person that I knew I was. I didn’t know how I had gotten to that point and I didn’t know how to get out of it.

I think sometimes we bury ourselves in things - whether it’s work, substances, exercise - in order to avoid the real issues. I was over 120 days into a run streak when I was finally told that the daily running was a big factor in why I kept getting sicker and if I didn’t stop high impact exercise immediately, I would likely have a stroke. I had made something such a big part of my identity in order to feel some significance again and it was, quite literally, the thing that was hurting me. So when I finally realized what had happened to my body and started taking action to fix it, the mental clarity I started feeling was something I didn’t even realize I had missed for so long. Most of those feelings I talked about earlier in this post started to dissolve.

The defiance, however, was and is definitely there but I think it’s more of a stubbornness for things I believe in and care about. :)

2021 was hard. I know it was hard for a lot of people in a lot of different ways. But being comfortable isn’t a reason to stay stuck. We have to grow and change is such an important part of that. I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions because most people fail within the first few weeks of the year. I think setting goals is great, but they have to have a timeline and an end date so that we can feel some sort of finish or success. There has to be a motivation to stick with something even when things get hard.

In 2022, I’m determined not just to grow, but to thrive. So, I’ve created the Thrive Project. Modeled after my friend and mentor and her growth journey in 2021, I’m going to pick a different challenge each week for 52 weeks. The challenges are things I plan to do daily and will be mental, physical and financial in nature. I’m super excited about this and I know it’s going to make a huge impact throughout the year. And I know it’s going to be hard. I feel like I’m finally in a place to face things head on; I’m in a place to not only be who I was before but to be better.

You’re welcome to join me! I’m going to document this journey here and through email. You can follow along at http://www.ThriveProject.live. I’ll share the challenge of the week on Sundays and will start on Mondays!

I hope you had a safe and happy New Year's Eve. Best wishes to you for a wonderful 2022!