Not all who Wander are Lost: How Exploration in 2021, will Help you Discover Exactly who you Are

As soon as I began to write this, at 11:30pm on New Years Eve, it began pouring down raining, as if the universe was coinciding with my thoughts, to help me wash away the year that was 2020.
It goes without saying, that a new year, brings forth new attitudes, ways of thinking and resolutions. As we move into 2021 or should I say, thrust ourselves into it willingly and whole heartedly, I have decided to make commitments to make exploration a priority.

When I speak of exploration, I mean it both literally and figuratively. However, the literal sense, I don’t have much control over at the moment. If the world is not open to be explored, there’s only so much I can do but I don’t want to bring the dread of the pandemic here to this post. We’ve had months of that.

What I do want to focus on, is the ways in which we can explore ourselves and figure out what we want our objectives to be, what our purpose is, our personal mantras, the keys to our mental clarity and overall stability.

For this new year, I didn’t want to be bogged down to resolution expectations but instead, I’ve chosen to focus on what can make me whole and how I can actually obtain that.

My entire life, I’ve felt like I’ve been chasing my purpose. Who exactly am I as person and what do I want to be remembered for? That’s where the exploration comes in. I know what I like and who I am but how do I hone in on those things, to make it spectacular?

It starts with pinpointing exactly what you want from life and going full throttle in that direction.

The first step is to forgo resolutions this year. Instead, consider a new approach by making commitments to yourself. For me, commitments are less weighted than the standard resolution and sound less formal but have more depth. No one wants to willingly break a commitment, especially to themselves.

You can look at your commitments as the umbrella to your exploration. For example, if you’re thinking of losing weight, your commitment should be to better your health. Health is the umbrella. Under that you can explore the ways in which you can be a healthier person, to include losing weight. It’s less, “resolutiony” (my word,) less cliche but more realistic.

My commitment to myself this year, is honing in on my purpose. That’s my umbrella. Under that, I will explore the things that give me fulfillment, like writing and creating and determining what gives me joy and what feels forced. Those things that feel forced or like a chore will be eliminated.

Of course there are other things that I wish to accomplish this year as well, like better money management, improved communication within my marriage, and as aforementioned, my health.  Overall though, I just want to give myself the opportunity to know and understand the new 40 year old me, with full clarity.

I entered into this year with trepidation. It is expected that this is automatically supposed to be a better year because it’s a different year but it’s still a year started in crisis. I have so much hope for us though. 2020 gave us little glimpses of light that proved that as people, when we ban together, change can happen.

I hope that this year makes you the Dora the Explorer of your personal journey and that you find and accomplish what you are looking for. I hope the wanderer in you, knows that you are not lost but that you’re on a quest to actually being found.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with this poignant point printed on my tea bag.

There is nothing like you, there was nothing like you and there shall be nothing like you.

Happy New Year friends.

****Cover photo by @miked.shotme ****