I’ve had a blog post on my mind since 2021 started. It’s May, now. It seems a little late to be publishing my first post of the “new” year, but here we are. If 2020 was the year of being broken, 2021 is the year of putting the pieces back together. There’s a lot to share about our life in in 2020. What happened, what didn’t. Hopefully I can make some more time to update a little more regularly, and post some of the lessons I learned last year, but for now, I want to focus on 2021, and the future.

In January, after a few weeks of deliberation, I decided that my word of the year would be PERSISTENCE. I’ve had a word of the year since 2015, and I felt like I needed and wanted to pick one again. Persistence felt right. I recently told a friend that I wouldn’t call myself a quitter, but I’m not a follow through-er. When things get hard I often use that as an excuse to stop (or start) doing other things in my life. Sticking with things is hard for me (is it easy for anybody?) and I wanted to change that about myself. I’m resilient in some big aspects of life, but in the smaller things I felt like I couldn’t get it together. I needed and wanted to work on my willpower.

So.

Persistence.

And then, in February, an opportunity I had been subconsciously wanting basically fell into my lap. I started weight lifting 3 times a week with an amazing trainer, surrounded by other women who have similar goals to mine. Not only did I start to lift, I found a fitness family. These ladies have quickly become some of my best friends. I have found a safe place, a place where I belong, where I can sweat and cry and bleed and push myself with others in the same boat cheering me on. Sometimes I feel a little dramatic trying to tell people about it, and I don’t even have huge changes to share with you, but it has made such a difference in my life.

During my life, I’ve often wished my rate of change were faster. At the same time, I’ve always known it’s my fault, for not following through, for not being consistent with my efforts. That was part of my decision to make persistence something I truly wanted to work on this year. Going and exercising 3 times a week creates the structure I have been so badly needing. It gives me somewhere to go, with someone who’s got my back and knows what I need to work on and how to do it. There’s no guess work on my part, no excuses I can make about not knowing how to do a movement – I can show up and focus on putting in the work, with the knowledge that I’m doing it correctly and in the best way. It’s hard to go 3 times a week, and it doesn’t always happen, but I go, and I show up. The persistence I decided I wanted to develop and focus on in 2021 has quickly become a focus in my life because if there was ever a time I needed to practice persistence, it’s now. And there are people waiting on me. And I don’t want to let them down. But beyond that, it’s made a difference in me. It’s hard work. But it’s worth it. It’s fun and challenging and makes me feel good about myself.

I dubbed 2021 the year of persistence. The year to finally get my act together. To stick with something for longer than a month. So far, I have. I’m getting stronger. My nutrition is slowly getting better and I have less time off the bandwagon, as it were. I feel like now, in my 32rd year, I’m finally evolving and growing into the person I always have wished I could be. It’s only been 3 months, but between both the progress and the friends I’ve made, I see myself in it for the long haul. And I am excited.

Persistence. Here I come.