Easing yourself into 2021
I’m a big goal setter. It helps me keep on track, especially when my anxiety can make me feel like I can’t achieve anything sometimes. So having a few steps in place makes me feel a lot better about the bigger picture. But last year, many of my goals went out of the window along with plans. Like the Jamaica holiday I’d be saving up for during the past two years, attending my friend’s baby shower, and genuinely seeing people who meant a lot to me. With the uncertainty of the tier system in the UK and you know, the whole world being in a pandemic, setting goals for 2021 almost felt impossible.
So how could I welcome in a new year in the same optimistic and ‘planner’ way I always have, when everything is spiraling around us with new lockdowns and no certain date of ‘normality’ returning. Well, I thought about five steps that might help you drift from overwhelm to seeing things clearly with your goals too.
1 Goal Setting - But less pressure
Each year I set myself both personal goals and career goals. Usually, they both contain a mixture of achievements I want to have under my belt, projects that I’ve let fall under my radar that I want to complete, and also new things to try to develop myself and grow.
However, during the first lockdown last Spring I tried so many things! Cross stitching, Weaving, Online courses, Yoga, Mindfulness, you name it I tried it. So for 2021, I did struggle to think about what else was out there that I could safely try from home. So I turned to vision boarding via Pinterest, finding ideas that suited the type of year I wanted to have and thankfully being shown other ideas that could be good too. More on that in the next step.
Plus, I didn’t just think about home activities. Despite the future being uncertain, I wanted to ensure I popped in some goals that I would more likely achieve when restrictions are hopefully lifted and the world looks a little more familiar than it currently does.
But most importantly, I’m not putting pressure on myself. If I don’t achieve as many things as I thought in the first few months of the year, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. After all, the main goal for this year is to keep myself happy and healthy in both mind and body.
2 Vision Boarding - But sensibly
Relating to goal setting, when I sat down at the end of December and thought about what I wanted to achieve this year, I really struggled. Was there any point in thinking about a holiday? Planning my 30th birthday party? Scheduling when our next film festival would be? It felt draining and planning a whole year at home did not fill me with motivation.
So I thought about the last quarter of the year, October to December. I thought about all the things I may be able to achieve if the world pivots by that point. Nobody knows if these plans and ideas I have for those months will go ahead, but my mind certainly feels a lot better just having some hope that I can have some in-person plans by then.
Vision boarding has been bashed around like a silly thing to do by many people, but it’s something I’ve always worked with for my film’s production design, to event planning, to decorating my first home, and now for my 2021 plans. There are amazing tutorials out there for it, I took part in a course where they advise you to split your page into two, where you fill your first half with personal goals, which then dictate your career goals on the other half. Ensuring that you’re putting yourself first, before your work. For example, I wanted to work on a nine-month project that included travel and long hours, but I also wanted a new puppy to join my family, I had to decide which was more important. (Don’t worry, I chose the puppy.)
3 Putting Self Care First - But understanding what you need
Self-care can mean different things to different people. Spending £100 during an online shopping session can be soothing for someone, whereas taking a walk without your mobile phone can be better for someone else. There’s no right or wrong way about self-care, it’s about what best suits you.
For me, I’m ensuring I’m scheduling self-care into my to-do lists and calendar as much as I’m scheduling meetings, report writing, and research. If it’s on my daily tasks, I’m more likely to take the lead with it. With isolation being hard on the mind, I’ve been joining group yoga and meditation sessions too, which have really helped me keep on track. I think an important part of finding what works for you, is trying new things and being okay with things not working out.
4 Beating Zoom Fatigue - But make it retro
I’ll be honest, the last thing I want to do most Friday evenings after completing a week at work is jumping on a zoom call, even if it is with my friends. But the fact is, this is the only way I’m actually able to get some face to face time with the people I love. So rather than scrapping it altogether, I’ve looked into ways we can still be together on Zoom without becoming bored or dreading logging on.
This has led to ‘film watch alongs’, most recently High School Musical 3, where three of us sat in our homes talking over the film and just enjoying the laid back time together. It wasn’t as structured as a film quiz, we certainly had to press pause a few times for one of us to go to the loo, but it was less draining than a quiz and more fun than a general catch up.
I’ve also joined in on some online networking which has felt amazing, hearing what other women in the industry have been up to is not only inspiring but also just lovely to meet some new people that perhaps I would have never run into during a physical event. New ideas I have for both my friends and my team are some retro ideas, an online ‘Family Fortunes’ style event, and a throwback to Cilla Black’s Blind Date...watch this space.
5 Setting boundaries - They’re good for you, really.
Prior to the lockdown I rarely had any boundaries with people. I was replying to emails from 6 am to midnight. I was saying yes to almost every work opportunity thrown my way and I was eager to please friends, family, and coworkers no matter how I felt about it. So when all of a sudden I was in my own home 24/7, some people thought this meant I was available to them 24/7 also.
Don’t get me wrong, community is so important, especially during a time of isolation. But I have truly valued alone time this past year, being readily available during the workday to suddenly be on camera, despite feeling, and let’s be honest looking, like shit, really took its toll on me at times. After a workday, watching the news, and feeling exhausted, the last thing I wanted to do was jump on ‘House Party’ or Zoom and take part in a quiz.
It took me weeks to get over the stigma of this being rude or neglectful and finally come to the realisation that for me to be able to effectively do my job, look after my dog, house, and myself, I had to set boundaries. So I started saying no.
I wasn’t going to come to every zoom social, I wasn’t going to reply to all my text messages the same day and I wasn’t going to clear my inbox by midnight each night. Did this add conflict to some friendships? Did I get a few hostile emails? Sure, but I felt a lot better which meant I was working better. Plus, it made me realise who the good people were - both professionally and personally.
My advice on easing into setting boundaries is to start small. If you don’t have the mental capacity to reply to a message, don’t open it until you can. If you want to stop replying to emails past a certain point, add a little disclaimer to your signature. I also added ‘I do not accept calls after 6 pm’ and I added an hour during the middle of my day to my calendar to take a proper lunch break, which meant nobody could schedule anything during that time and it reminded me to get away from my desk.
These are just some ideas for easing yourself into the new year without adding too much pressure onto yourself, especially when there’s enough pressure out of your control being thrown at you. Trying new things is something we’re often told, but these usually relate to recipes, craft activities, and places to travel, not so much on how we can feel better within ourselves. We have a few mantras here at Rianne Pictures without our team, one of them is ‘Work Well, Feel Well’. After all, our biggest and most important project throughout our lives, is ourselves.
