Dear Alissa: Your Hopes and Dreams for 2021 are Enclosed

Dear Alissa,

I think, for the first time in your life, you’re rooting for yourself. You’re playing on the team for yourself and not in opposition to yourself. It feels like the internal work you’ve been doing for two years is starting to manifest externally. Even better? You’re starting to advocate for yourself and actually, truly believe you can do what others have long-said but you’ve minimized. Your therapist has been pushing you to dream for yourself. You role your eyes every. single. time she mentions dreaming. This time though it’s on your terms. I hope you’re proud of yourself when you read this in December 2021.

Be Willing to Be Wrong
(About the Big and Little Stuff)

You’re already being proven wrong about a lot of stuff. For instance, suddenly you’re willing to go biking and consider being outside, intentionally. Yes, it’s a shock I know. Your larger issue is unwillingness to be open to things that you used to say no to, even if you’re in a different phase of life. Be willing to be wrong and create some space for a little bit of a U-turn on your feelings.

(Try enough this year to know what you’re wrong about.)

Fall In Love With Who/Where You Are

The fastest way for you to fall into a negative headspace is to wonder if I’m ready to date. What should take about a 30-second gut check (because I know the answer right then) turns into weeks of spiraling. You know you’re not ready, yet you spend time trying to force another answer because it feels like I *should* be ready.

I hope you spend every moment of 2021 falling in love with your life. The mundane that builds to the larger story of your life. Chicago. New experiences. Your job. There is so much out there for you to fall in love with and to think of love as an exclusively one-sided attachment is going to leave you once again disappointed. If I’m going to be real with you, Alissa, you aren’t ready to fall in love with a partner. You don’t even want someone riding in the car with you. You spent so much time trying to find who you are, go, do that. Be that person you need to be for yourself. Fall in love with that person.

(Fall in love with Chicago. Eat wonderful food. Fall in love with new relationships. Do it all. Then do more. Spend your time pursing what makes you feel loved.)

Work Harder and with Passion

Let’s be real, you work hard but you know you aren’t working as hard as you could be. You know your career plan and that’s going to take a lot of long and hard days. It’s time to dig in and work a lot harder and smarter. You know people are going to say at the end of of your life you aren’t going to wish you worked more. However, you know yourself. You know that your work ethic is one of the most important things in life and you haven’t been living up to that importance in your life.

You are so passionate about what you do. What if you let yourself become even more passionate about it? Be a beast. Attack it. There’s nothing holding you back from exploding this year and getting that career you’ve always dreamed of. You’re IN IT already, go further.

(Build your portfolio and team, ask for a clear career plan and get it in writing.)

Do Big Things… Alone

Do not wait for your life to start. You only have right now. Remember when you used to think it was sad and pathetic to eat alone in a restaurant? Remember the first time you dressed up for yourself, went to a nice restaurant and proudly said, “table for one” and never felt bad when the staff kept asking if you were waiting for someone. “No, it’s just me.”

You navigated a pandemic, true isolation and then moving your life. In 2021 I want you to find new ways to experience things for yourself. Your co-dependence made you experience things through someone else. This is your chance to experience things truly for yourself. Go on a vacation with yourself and Eleanor. Drive by yourself. Do. Things. Alone.

Your life is never not now. A reminder from 2018 Alissa to 2021 Alissa.

(Oh, and even if it gets delayed, book that solo trip to Ireland and Scotland. Eleanor will be okay. You saved vacation days for this. You can do it.)

Stop Playing Yourself

Perhaps you are on the high of your long-awaited Peloton, but every time Alex Toussaint says “stop playing yourself” I pedal a little harder. Alex always talks stopping negotiating with yourself, putting off what you need to do. You did that a LOT in 2020, but you also negotiated with yourself a LOT. You did a lot to cover the fact that you weren’t being self-disciplined.

I hope you develop the self-discipline in the ways you know you need. The ways that not everyone may understand but you truly know YOU need. Please, don’t make this a year you get so busy doing “things” to distract from you aren’t digging into yourself, again.

As Alex would say, “Feel good, look good, do better.”

(You need to make that Peloton worth it, ride it at least 3-4 times a week and find other ways to be active that you would have never been willing to do before.)