Happy New Year! It has certainly been an interesting 12 months! I think we are all wondering what 2021 is likely to bring.

During 2020, I shifted my focus to building some programs aimed at helping everyday people with the everyday challenges that we face. The downside of this is that some other commitments, such as this blog, have slipped a little. I am not proud of that. However, I accept that it is how things have worked out in a year where most of us were trying our best to hold it together. My goal is to change my approach so that I am writing here more regularly during 2021.

And that’s how I found myself actively observing my actions throughout yesterday while looking for inspiration for a blog post.

I am currently working on recording a session about New Year Resolutions that I have committed to releasing on 5 January 2021. It is the first time that I have pre-recorded a session. I am not keen to see myself on video, and so I have been deliberately avoiding it.

Anyway, yesterday, I finally did it. I completed what I thought was a stellar effort of presenting the session and was certain that this was a recording worthy of release. My first ever pre-recorded session, ready to go, and four days early, too! I went to hit stop on the recording.

It was then that I realised that I hadn’t actually started the recording.

I should probably put this into context. My family is all at home on holidays at the moment. Everything that I do seems to take three times longer than I had planned because being a member of a family means pausing for interruptions when other family members need me. When everyone is at home, that seems to be quite often. Regardless, I had finally found 45 minutes where no one needed me. No one interrupted. Everyone kept quiet. I found my groove and did the presentation. I completed it to an exceptional standard.

And then I didn’t hit the flipping record button.

When I shared my woes with my husband, he tried his best to be supportive: “Oh no! Well, I guess these things happen!” My response: “They do, but I don’t know why this had to happen to me!”

And this was my ah-ha moment: What exactly is it that has happened to me?

As we progress through life, events happen. Cars break down, pandemics happen, theatre tickets get cancelled, we forget to hit record on a pre-recorded presentation. While these events are happening in our life, it is our interpretation that has them happening to us, and not life itself. The events are simply happening. Nothing more, nothing less. That an event is happening to us is a story that we have created in order to make meaning of it.

Any story that we attach to an event has the potential to impact how we see that event, how we recover from the event and how we take action for similar events. We don’t have to attach a story where we are a victim, with life happening to us. We can, instead, choose a story that serves us.

When I realised that I was making myself a victim with regard to the great non-recording-debacle-of-2021, I paused. What did this event give me that I could use in my story? It gave me the opportunity to feel confident about what I am doing. It showed me that I did it once, so I could do it again. It provided me with learning.

It then occurred to me: This incident didn’t happen to me. It happened with me.

And so, as we head into 2021 with no real idea of what the year is going to bring, the questions that I invite you to consider are:

• Will your story of 2021 be one where the events happen to you or with you?
• How is that approach likely to serve you and others around you?

Image by iXimus from Pixabay