What life are you creating this year?

What is your story for 2021?

​It’s easy and cliché to say that 2020 was a difficult year because it obviously was. However, I watched countless people stand up and wrestle 2020 to the ground no matter how formidable of an opponent it seemed.
 
This happened on a large scale. Walmart, Amazon, and toilet paper companies all had to re-organize how they did business at a breakneck pace or people wouldn’t have been able to get the basic necessities that make it possible to sustain our lives. They did it.
 
The government, in conjunction with the pharmaceutical industry, turned around a vaccine that is rolling out in completely unprecedented time. Those vaccines are rolling out to our society’s most vulnerable as I write this.
 
Those are the big stories that we all watched unfold in the news every day.
 
Unless you are also a coach, you might not have seen as many little victories in the lives of our friends and neighbors as I have.
 
 I got to work with countless clients as they started businesses, jumped into new careers (sometimes by choice and sometimes by necessity), rebuilt their romantic relationships, created art and music, and started over against what many would call insurmountable odds.

Back at the beginning of the pandemic, an old client of mine had me on his podcast and asked me what “advice” I would give people as they navigate this new world.
 
In response, I gave the answer that I would give on any day. The same lesson I learned from my teacher Tony Robbins.
 
Control your story, your strategy, and your state.
 
People who “won” in 2020 are the ones who found empowerment when others felt stripped of their power. They were the ones who got resourceful while others focused more on their lack of resources. They were the ones who developed mindset of “the happy warrior” who always start with gratitude.
 
The one thing I got wrong was how quickly our world would go back to normal. I thought we would snap back relatively quickly, but it’s looking more and more like we will be dealing with political and cultural fallout from this pandemic for much longer than I could have imagined.
 
Which begs the question to all of us, how are we evolving? How are we rewriting our story and strategy to adjust to a world that might never be the same as it was in January of last year?
 
Whether there is a pandemic or not, many people have lived their lives in reaction to the world around them. Maybe they were in good times. Maybe they were in more challenging times. Living in reaction to the situation – wasting away in passivity – is an easy default setting in humans.
 
If you’re reading this, it’s because you’re interested in something more. You know there is a better version of you out there. Maybe you’ve started moving towards it, or maybe you’re still stuck in your old patterns but beginning your journey of seeking something new.
 
Take a few moments to write in your journal exactly what you want to change in your life. Think about your career, your relationships, your body, your money, your spirituality, or any other area of your life, and write down exactly what you want out of every zone of your life. As you write and limitations pop into your head, disregard them for now. Just create your life on paper.
 
 *photograph is courtesy of Natasha Fernandez