Happy New Year!

I am cautiously optimistic about 2021 and I am looking forward to the year.  One thing that I learned in 2020 is that perspective and attitude can really help you navigate challenges.  It doesn't make them go away but it certainly can help your mental and emotional health stay on a more even keel even tending towards positivity and happiness, but it does take work.

Keeping a positive attitude is work and can be compared to exercise, the more you do it the easier it is, mind you it isn't necessarily easy just easier.  With that in mind I had an epiphany this morning while staring at my coffee mug and realized it can pair with one of the songs I was listening to last night and thought it should be my theme song for the year.

Last night during my dance party I was listening to 'Higher' by Gloria Estefan and thought this is a great song for 2021.  The chorus goes like this:

Just understand, don't get me wrong
You got to live your life, live it right
Or you'll go back to the end of the line
Higher step it up, higher just do it right and go
Higher keep it up, higher just pick it up and you go
Higher move along, higher get of the ground
Higher lift it up, higher here we go, here we go now

It is so simple yet so hard to do, live your life and live it right and you will go higher.  Plus it has a really great beat so it brings a smile to my face and energizes me, which makes it perfect.

Then this morning I was staring at my coffee mug and thought about Winnie the Pooh and how not much seems to get him down.  He is always looking to help others and goes with the flow, embraces the simple things, and he has a very full life. I have re-read The Tao of Pooh few times and each time it resonates with me, and to be honest I have no idea if the Taoist principles are described correctly but as a Christian it is so easy to read the book from my perspective and the teachings I have learned in the Church. I highly recommend it, the only bummer is that I cannot get an e-book version so I have to flip through my hard copy.  But that is how I decided that Winnie the Pooh would be my spirit animal for this year.

What is a spirit animal?

In the Native American tradition, spirit animals are an embodied form of a spiritual guide. Spiritual guides can present themselves to us whatever way we are willing to see them, and it is natural for people to connect with theirs through the face of a familiar animal. You may find that you have one main power animal, or you could feel close to many animal spirit guides. Your animal guide(s) hold a particular quality that could help you navigate life with a bit more ease, faith, and confidence.  Source

With the section in bold in mind I think that Winnie the Pooh is an excellent guide.

My Theme For The Year

I tried to come up with a one word theme which is something that Gretchen Rubin and Liz Craft talk about on their Happier Podcast but I couldn't limit it to a single word.  So I decided on a phrase, which I learned from one of Gretchen's books.

"A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.” ~ Anthony Trollope

 

I know from projects that I have done in the past that this is very sound advice, if I do a bit each day consistently I do get more done than when I try and do it all at once.  If I take the bigger is better approach to most things, I hit a wall and run out of energy and then have a partially finished project, I am exhausted, and I feel a sense of failure.

But if I actually stick to the bit by bit attitude I have the benefit of continuing, and seeing daily progress.  The catch is that it can seem like I am always doing something without an end to the projects, I do need to balance and be aware of that and balance it out.

I started on a play list for 2021 and I will likely add to it over the course of the year.  But right now there are 11 songs on it and some like Higher are part of my theme and others are just fun songs that make me happy.