It is the last day of 2021. I can’t believe this year is almost over. I am going to admit that this year was not very exciting. I worked every single day this year, except for my birthday and I was not focused on having fun, so I am ready to say goodbye to 2021. I am kind of happy that this year is over because I am so ready to start the first new chapter of my new life. In this blog post, I am looking back on 2021 and the few things that happened.
Goodbye 2021
As I said, 2021 was a pretty boring year. In the first half-year, everything was closed because there was a semi-lockdown. So the only thing I could do was work, go to the supermarket and read books. Now I look back, I think how crazy that sounds. I followed the same routine every single day for at least 5/6 months. I was not living my life. It was pretty boring actually. I could have done fun things while everything was closed. So I regret that, even though I don’t regret reading those books. But I could have made my life a little bit interesting.
My fear of needles is real so when I could my first covid jab, I was so nervous. I had to travel pretty far, but I still decided to take my bike to that place. It took me 1.5-2 hours to get there. But it was still worth it. The first time I was there, I decided to spend some time in nature after getting my jab. That place is just a lot of nature. They even have a tower where you have a great view from the top. It was a bit scary though because the top was made of glass. But it was also super cool. I would love to go back one day.
I also had a lot of goals I wanted to achieve. I still have my vision board of 2021 next to my bed. But honestly, I did not achieve all of those goals. But you know what? That is okay and I will just use this vision board again for 2022. While I did not achieve my goals, I learned so many things about life and myself.
Before 2021, I was constantly stressed, wasting time on Netflix and social media, I was pretty lazy during the day, I did not take action at all. I think I could say mentally I was a mess back then. In 2021 I stopped wasting too much time on Netflix. I now only watch the things I want to see. This means, I only watch one episode a day, but most of the time I only watch some Netflix on the weekends. I put my mental health first and started to make sure I was feeling relaxed. At the end of the year, I decided to put ‘having fun on top of my to-do list every single day. Because in my opinion, that is the most important thing in life. You don’t want to be on auto-pilot every single day and just survive. You want to live and be happy. So now and then I take a minute for myself and find out how I am feeling and try to lift my mood a little bit.
So right now, I am pretty happy where I am now (mentally). I notice it is improving and I guess I needed that. Maybe this was not the right year to chase after my goals, but I think I needed this year to improve myself and my mental health.
Other things I did in 2021:
As I said I did not do a lot of fun things, especially now in the first half of 2021. I only started to focus on having fun just a few weeks ago. But there are still a few things I enjoyed this year.
I-Reading a lot of great books. I read maybe 2 or 3 books that I did not like. I know what I like.
– Went shopping at Primark in the afternoon. Does not sound like a big deal but when you realize I struggled with panic attacks and anxiety before, you know it is a big deal. And I am proud of myself.
– Did not buy a lot of plants this year but I got a bonsai tree from someone. This person almost let it die, there were barely any leaves on this little tree. But I can say, it is growing a lot of leaves right now.
– I started a new TikTok account. At first, I had no idea what I wanted to post about so I just simply followed the trends. But I think I finally know a little bit I want to post about. You can find my TikTok account here.
– Start taking care of myself. Every day I start the day just doing things for myself: exercising (dance work-out), those basics things I do every day like using sunscreen etc, trying to improve my sleep routine and quality.
– Allowing myself to have fun. I always learned that you should be serious about life and work, but eventually I was so focused on achieving my goals that I was not enjoying the journey. I always get the feeling I have to be productive and I can’t have fun. So I worked on that.
– Gave me two weeks off from my part-time job. In the two years, I’ve been working at my part-time job, I did not take a vacation. But recently I decided to give myself a break from work during the holidays. So the weeks before and after Christmas I took some time off from work.
– I found a better way to work more efficiently. This way I experience a lot less stress, which is pretty nice. Before I worked on all of my social media channels every single day. Now I have a separate blogging day, a TikTok filming day and a day for taking Instagram pictures. Life is a lot easier now.
How was your 2021? What did you achieve or learn this year?