If 2020 has taught me anything is that we don’t take enough time to reflect. Before we had time to stop and thing, we were all doers, here to check a box, and then move on without another thought. I spoke at a design educators conference [online] this summer and it got me thinking even further about how little time is built into school that allows for reflection.

We may intend to do it, but life moves so fast, it’s necessary to carve out the time to pause and reflect. It’s not only therapeutic, it helps put things into perspective. It can make us realize that even a year that felt like the world was on fire still holds a lot of power to help us learn and grow.

One of the biggest way I was able to travel was thanks to London Writer’s Salon. I started “commuting to London” (via Zoom) on April 6th and haven’t missed a week day since. I share a Zoom room with 100-200 familiar strangers where we write together. It’s a community, but also a place where new friendships have been formed. The majority of writing I’ve put into the world (including my pieces for 99U) were birthed during those hours.

2020 was really about exploring ideas. I’m surprised how much of this I achieved given I really struggled to read anything during the first lockdown. (See forthcoming post, where it turns out I almost read as much as I did last year despite everything.) One of the biggest ways I was able to explore was thanks to CreativeMornings virtual FieldTrips. I was invited to host one early on (I made people draw maps on bananas and it was AMAZING!!). But I learned about all sorts of things from mindset to manifestation, got into jounaling, and so much more.

This year I also started morning pages (freehand journaling 3-pages each morning as coined by Julia Cameron). So much of it was thanks to Writer’s Hour and hearing stories of those who swear by it. Most of the time it’s just a brain dump, but sometimes it turns into a blog post.

Journaling also gave me time to reflect and realized I’m taking away a lot of insights from the year that I want to carry forward.

The wildest thing to me is that 2020 may just have been the year I most succeeded with my living my word to its fullest and leaning into my goals! It may not have looked how I expected, but I not only launched workshops, I fully embraced the work I do, turning an intimidating hope into a full blown reality.

I can’t help but think some of the “creative constraints” that limited our distractions actually were an asset for me. It’s a good reminder that sometimes by focusing on less makes everything much more achievable. And that feels much better than feeling like you failed. (And even then, I bet you still made progress or learned some key lessons to carry forward.)

I think the other benefit was that I went with a word that I already knew was me, but what it allowed was for me to dive deeper. It gave me permission to be curious and explore new things. The goal with these words is to set yourself up for success, listen to your intuition, and run with it. I also love when a word can have multiple meanings and interpretations, only expanding the amount of possibilities.

Here are some posts from the archives to get to get you thinking and reflecting:

So what’s my word for 2021? It’s evolved a few times but I landed on AUDACITY. I’m really excited about it and it feels like a natural next step of what I’ve been working on. (I love when a word just FEELS right.) But that will be for another post…

Stay tuned, in January I’ll be announcing my next round of MAPPING YOUR PATH 3-month workshop that will start in February…. Sign up to be the first to hear.

EXPLORE: Looking back on 2020