I’m sure you’ve all seen the memes joking about how January has felt like it’s lasted a year (I just posted one to my own stories…so I’m with you). I knew at the beginning of the month I wanted to reflect on January when it was over because first off, I’m big on self reflection, but secondly, I was curious to see how it compared to January 2018. So here we go. While these reasons might not apply to you specifically, the purpose of this post is to get you to think and self reflect about your own first month of the year. Self reflection is my greatest tool for making changes in my life and learning how to grow.

This month threw me for a freaking loop. I started it off feeling refreshed from extra time off around the holidays, spending much of it with family and generally feeling ready to tackle the new year. I’m not one to set new years resolutions, but I have always been excited to jump into new goals and get going again.

So I went on my merry way, creating timelines and ideas for Andrea Fontana Beauty, announcing my cookbook, and overall feeling really good about where I was heading. I was blessed enough to welcome a new niece into the world within the first week and things were really looking great! But then the next morning, I slipped on ice and bruised my tailbone terribly by falling down concrete stairs. At that moment the energy changed for the whole month. I thankfully had a mastermind weekend full of inspiration the following weekend, and while I thought this would prevent me from feeling low, it didn’t.

I spent the majority of it feeling frustrated, lazy, and mad at myself. But, if I could pick one way to describe how I felt at the end of January 2018: anxiety. If I could sum up how I felt at the end of January 2019: anxiety.

Anyone else sensing a pattern here besides me? Haha I’ve noticed on social media that this seems to be a common trend for others, so let’s dig in here a little bit. Why do I feel so anxious when I start the year off?

Goals are great, don’t get me wrong, but I struggle with the constant ‘DON’T EVER STOP WORKING’ mentality that you can find among the entrepreneurship community. Que the ‘Beyonce has the same number of hours in a day as you do’ memes. The ideal that there is always something you can be working on is great, but honestly poses a real threat for me because I’m a person who doesn’t know how to shut off sometimes. I can get going, full steam ahead, and forget about how to care for myself and to simply just sit and be.

Overall, I’m a person who enjoys schedules. I like to plan and know where I’m going to be one month, or even 3 months out. A lot of that is because the nature of the wedding industry involves planning so far out in advance, but I can be shaken by large changes to my schedule. Last January and this January both posed the same threats to my anxiety. Two situations, completely out of my control.

I’m hoping tomorrow when the calendar changes from January to February, I’m able to shake off the guilt of losing my entire workout regimen that I had cultivated for months and also not really working much this past week with the polar vortex. I was able to start fresh last February and look at it as a new month, so I’m hoping to see a similar trend this year.

So what have I learned?

My new theme of January is going to be GRACE. Give myself grace with the fact that January just is not, and maybe will never be my month, and THAT IS OK! I will probably not work as much as every other month and that is ok. It will likely include snow days and cancelled plans, and that is ok. I may fall on ice and not be able to visit my gym for a whole month, and that is ok. I might not put out as many blog posts as I wanted to, and that is ok.

Because here’s the thing. It’s going to be ok. Anxiety has this weird ability to trickle down into every category of your life and make you feel like you are a failure. But guess what, you are not. I am not.

I’m personally trying to view my life in a more seasonal way, as opposed to needing every month to look the same all year. I may run more in the summer than in the winter, but that’s just what life is. Seasons of success and seasons of rest. Both can exist at the same time. Sometimes resting is succeeding. Sometimes running too fast is failing you. Regardless, GIVE yourself grace when it comes to goals and do not let yourself think for a second that you are not doing a good enough job.

You are enough and I am here for you if you want to talk about this more.

I hope February is kind to you, regardless of what January looked like.

Andrea