Two days ago, I had to share my individual and team goals at my new (big girl) job. After struggling a little bit with how I wanted to start SJ’s new year (besides tweaking some things with the site), I figured I’d share my word and goals for the year, like I did last year.
WORD FOR THE YEAR: Expectations
Having expectations (quite literally the bare minimum, including people doing what they say they were going to do) was the root cause of most of the disappointment I felt last year.
So, to fix that and have a better year in 2023, these are my goals:
goal one: go into every new relationship with NO expectations
I’m definitely not trying to repeat the six-month emotional downward spiral I had last year. Towards the end of the year, I began reflecting on why that happened, and I came to realize I put this expectation on a relationship that wasn’t ready for it. Upon my ah-ha moment, I realized I did that to a lot of relationships last year, new and old, family and friends. Somewhere in my head, I figured people would follow their word and pull through for me the way I do for them.
This year, I will work my dang hardest to stay out of my head about every new person I meet. I don’t want my mind to wander and don’t want to struggle with attachment again; last year, my attachment anxiety was at an all-time high. Not this year. Absolutely not.
Furthermore, I will work towards not yearning for verbal validation of what any relationship is. I simply want the wind to take me wherever I’m meant to be with whoever I’m meant to be with in that moment.
goal two: develop a better relationship with… my hair
The bigger the afro = the more the ends split = the more I want to shave it all off and start all over again.
I know nothing about having and maintaining healthy, thick, 4c hair. I know nothing about hairstyles I can do with the length of it (especially since I just got three inches cut off). I talked a little bit about this in Weave: A Confidence Booster.
This year, I am devoting myself to learning. There’s so much to learn in a new environment, and since I feel a heck of a lot better here than I did in Tennessee, I am so ready to invest in learning and helping my hair (but I’m still getting braids come spring).
goal three: keep working towards not feeling like a burden
Honestly, this goal speaks for itself, and it’s a deep one. There’s so much more I can say about this, but I think it would be better in its own separate writing.
I don’t think I can completely stop feeling like a burden this year, but I know I can make a lot of progress. It’s going to be a little hard without my therapist (I’m hoping to find a new one this year).
I’m at a place in my life where I can be free, and now I just need to be comfortable and confident with who I am as a person. Something that makes this hard is I more than likely won’t know who I am until I’m towards the end of my 20s.
goal four: be a better friend (even from a distance)
Listen.
I have a problem where I hang out with my friends and quickly begin to overthink about how bad of a friend I think I am instead of being in the moment and paying attention to what they’re saying, which equates to me being a bad friend.
Did somebody say thought spiral?
Yes, I agree with you. I need to get out of my head… and I might need to stop hoping for verbal validation that I am not as bad of a person as my brain tries to convince me I am.
This year, I’m in my go-with-the-flow, self-improvement era, and I will be eliminating the expectations I have for others and focus on the expectations I have for myself.
