New Year, New...You?

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Well, we’re a week into the new year, guys.

How are those resolutions going?

I don’t make resolutions, but this year, I have chosen a word of intention: Commit.

I commit to improving my finances, my physical health, my voiceover business, my blog…

I committed to doing Yoga With Adrienne’s 30 Days of Yoga with my best friend, and I missed one day this week. But when you commit to something, you don’t count one day missed as a failure. You get back out there the next day and you keep going. So I did.

There was a point in my life where I did yoga every single day. At least ten minutes minimum. Even if I had to squeeze it in at work in an empty office. Or do it while drunk post-karaoke at 2am. I did my yoga every day.

The past three years, I’ve let that commitment lapse. And after day three of what I would consider some pretty easy Hatha Yoga routines, my body FEELS it. My armpits are sore. And my upper back is yelling “WTF ARE YOU DOING TO ME???”

Overnight success isn’t a real thing. It always only comes from committing to small actions over time. Hitting a boulder over and over with a pickaxe until it finally breaks.

Most of the time, it doesn’t feel much like we’re making progress. But with commitment over time, we will finally break through.

When commitment gets hard, and the motivation isn’t there, sometimes it helps to remind yourself of past wins.

Let me introduce…

The Win Jar

I’ve never been much for resolutions anyway, but some years back, I heard of someone who didn’t do resolutions, and instead did a win jar. They made a decorative jar, and every time they had a win during the year, they wrote it down and put it in the jar.

It’s so easy to forget the good things that happen and focus on the bad.

By the end of the year, it’s easy to only see the goals unachieved and the things that got in our way of achieving them.

Every year, when the new year arrives, I am super impatient for things to get going. And they almost never do, so I’m not sure why I have this unrealistic expectation.

So far this year, I haven’t booked a single voiceover job, I lost an ongoing client (because they lost their contract with the end client), and I’ve been struggling to find the energy to get my new habits going and really work toward this year’s goals.

I got pretty down on myself about all of this yesterday, and my accountability group encouraged me to look at what I HAVE done, as opposed to what I haven’t done.

So, I’m sharing them with you.

To create the list below, all I had to do was go back through my list of wins for the year. Honestly, I had forgotten about so many of them. I want to make a practice of revisiting them more frequently throughout the year for a mood boost when I need to recalibrate my mindset.

My biggest wins of 2022:

Voiceover wins:

  • Got my updated commercial demo.

  • Added TaDa! Voiceworks to my list of agents.

  • Did whole lot of agent workouts and got some really great feedback.

  • Started a voiceover peer workout group that meets on Monday nights.

  • Co-hosted a Clubhouse chat on messaging with Tom Antonellis (Thanks, Tom!)

  • Had my personal best ever month of VO income in October, and my personal best year of VO income as well.

Personal Wins/Happy Moments:

  • Found a dog in my freezing hallway, and brought it in. I almost forgot that this is basically how last year started—sleep deprived and majorly stressed out, taking care of an abandoned puppy. Ultimately, the puppy got a wonderful new home and I got to sleep.

  • Made a bunch of new dishes for the first time, including chana saag, Bo Ssam, chicken wild rice soup, and corned beef with cabbage.

  • While it might not sound like much, I got to spend a whole day hanging out with friends who were in town for VO Atlanta and for work. It was DELIGHTFUL.

  • Visited my boyfriend’s family in Hilton Head and spent some time at the ocean

  • Had an amazing trip home to see my friends in June. Went to the beach, had pizza at Pizzeria Lola, and visited the puppy in his happy new home. Went to Wisconsin Dells with my best friend, had one of the best meals of my entire year, went to Noah’s Ark Waterpark and to the circus museum in Baraboo.

  • Spent a wonderful two weeks at home in Wisconsin visiting family in August for my sister’s wedding. Went on some long bike rides, went hiking with my whole family. Just lovely.

  • Got to see comedian Joe Pera live. Nice.

In addition, some of my “wins” that I wrote down had to do with overcoming hardship. Dealing with situations beyond my control. In going over my list, I had actually forgotten about some of these things that caused major disruption in my life.

I share all of these “negative” things here not to complain or for sympathy, but to show the whole picture. I don’t make excuses for why I don’t get something done, but at the same time, looking back on my struggles from the past year helps me to have compassion for myself rather than beating myself up for not being where I think I should be. To grant myself some grace for not achieving those goals.

Struggles:

  • A rotator cuff problem that meant severe pain and months of physical therapy.

  • The stress of rescuing the dog (though I would do it again in a heartbeat).

  • A weekend where it was almost 100 degrees outside and we were without air conditioning and internet for three days and it got dangerously hot inside our apartment.

  • The stress of balancing a part-time job with full-time voiceover work while trying to find time to take care of myself and get back in shape.

  • My Sennheiser 416 going kaput while I was on vacation in Wisconsin, leading to about two months of not having my mic while it was “in the shop.”

  • Getting Covid right when I returned from Wisconsin in August—meaning that I was not able to audition or work for almost three and a half weeks.

  • Partially losing my voice from vocal strain mid-December.

Everyone has their own crap to deal with. Stress, grief, family struggles, injuries, illnesses, etc. If you are struggling with any of these things, I empathize, and hope that you grant yourself some grace as well, even while you plan for achieving this year’s goals.

Forgive yourself the past, and learn from the things that happen, so you can be better prepared for future obstacles.

This is the long game. Put another quarter in the machine and try again, okay?

My advice for you (and myself) for ending this year on a higher note:

  1. Keep track of your wins, big and small, so you can look back at them at the end of the year.

    Some days, just getting out of bed and showering can be a win. If it feels like a win, it’s a win. Don’t judge your wins against anyone else’s idea of a win.

  2. Narrow your aim.

    I am the queen of trying to do too much. My list of goals for last year was so long, there was no way I could ever get them all done. This year, instead of having 22 separate goals, I’m going to narrow it to two personal goals and two voiceover goals. Anything else will be a bonus.

    How can you narrow your aim and make your goals more specific? What do you really want to be/have/do by the end of 2023?

  3. Commit.

    Commitment means having a plan. A broken-down-into-tiny-achievable-daily-tasks plan. But it also means having a plan for failure.

    What happens when your mic stops working? When you get sick? If you just have a bad day where all you want to do is cry and eat ice cream and watch bad holiday movies?

    Our optimism sometimes gets in the way of us being prepared for the bad times. Commitment means doing things when we don’t feel like it, and it also means being able to get right back to it after a bad day or week.

Thanks, as always, for reading, friends! If you enjoyed this article, please check out more in the archives. Share with friends. And sign up for my mailing list so you’ll never miss a post!

Wishing you all the best for a wonderful 2023!