2019: My Year of Yes

Jan 10, 2019

I am not a huge fan of New Year’s Resolutions. There’s just something about them that leave me feeling icky and uninspired. Can anyone else relate? As 2018 rolled in last year, I knew I wanted to do something other than set the same old boring resolutions that I wasn’t going to meet. Instead, I chose to use a word that I wanted to embody that for that year. Some of you who have been around here awhile might remember from this blog post that my word for 2018 was “Community.” While I feel like I let that word (and myself, and you guys) down a little at the end of 2018, my overall feelings towards choosing a word for the year instead of making resolutions are positive ones.

So naturally, I chose to do the same thing again this year. Because of the last few months of 2018, when I sat down to chose a word for this year, I knew that I wanted to challenge myself a little bit more. After all, if you’re not challenging yourself then you aren’t really growing, are you? I have a really bad habit (thanks anxiety) of saying “No” to things even when I may really want to do them.

That’s why my word of the year for 2019 is: YES.

Why I chose this word and what it means to me:

Like I said, I chose the word YES because I knew saying it would be a challenge. Saying YES to going out with friends when my hips and back are aching from this pregnancy? Definitely going to be a challenge. Saying YES to leaving the house once the baby gets here and I’m literally a mess? FOR SURE GOING TO BE A CHALLENGE. Saying YES to putting myself and my blog out there without letting fear of success or failure stop me? We already know the answer.

I know it is going to be hard. That’s why I am choosing to take this challenge now instead of waiting for a time when life maybe slows down (although, does it ever truly?). I want you to stop and think for a minute about all of the opportunities, experiences, nights out with friends, that you said NO to in 2018. Looking back on those times, how many of those NO decisions do you regret now? When I was reflecting on 2018, I realized how many opportunities I had found some excuse to say NO to when I should have been saying YES. The thing about regret is that it is a feeling you can’t shake. You can’t get those decisions back. So this year, when confronted with a YES or NO choice, I’m going to choose to say YES, unless it is something that is going to put too much strain on myself, my family, etc. I challenge you all to do the same and I challenge my family and friends to hold me accountable for this throughout 2019.

So in 2019 here’s a few things I want to say YES to:

Posting pictures that aren’t necessarily perfect on Instagram because let’s be honest Instagram has been a total struggle for me since getting pregnant. Between fighting a lack of inspiration and the algorithm, I’ve pretty much just stopped posting all together. So I want to post more of what I feel like, focus less on how aesthetically pleasing my feed is, and work more on connecting with YOU guys on there.
Spending more time with friends, having people over for game nights, etc. is at the top of my list, before and after baby comes. When Justin and I got married I envisioned us having people over for dinners, and game nights, and football games. It’s safe to say we haven’t done that at all and we’ve been pretty crappy at inserting ourselves into the community here. Since we’ll be moving to Alaska in 2019, this may be the last opportunity we get to spend with some of our dearest friends for a while and I don’t want to waste anymore time saying NO to doing these things. So if you’re a Fort Benning peep, stay tuned for a dinner/game night invite!
More spontaneous adventures with my husband when he asks if I want to do something. Justin is always coming up with crazy ideas of things that we should do and I typically shoot them down. This year I want to start saying YES to more of those, even if it means stepping seriously outside of my comfort zone.
Not shying away from opportunities that may be a little scary when it comes to blogging, YouTube, and social media. If you caught my last post about ending my impromptu hiatus, then you know what I’m talking about here. This year I really want to work on standing up for myself and my writing and standing behind it no matter what.

Now, if I’d like to tell you that I have a plan for how I’m going to tackle this word for the year but I would be totally lying to you. But I hope that by sharing this we can all work together to achieve our words of the year for 2019.

Do you have a word of the year for 2019? Share yours below!

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