Enjoying the new decade

By Abby Crawford

After the terrible year that was 2019 finally uttered its last hoorah just a few short months ago, I have been determined that this new decade would be everything that I hoped for.

Most years I don’t take too much notice of the hype of the big countdown, the “new year, new me” approach to kissing the last 12 months goodbye and being overtly optimistic that the new year would be phenomenally different.

However, this time I literally counted down the hours, minutes and seconds until I could say goodbye not only to 2019, but to that entire last decade.

So now, a few months in, I have reason to pause and consider how it’s going – has the shininess worn off? Have there been dramatic changes? Does it really feel different from the last decade? And I have to say – yes. Yes, there is dramatic change. Yes, it is different and no, the shininess has not worn off one little bit.

For clarity, lady luck has not shined on me, and nor have there been any clear changes that you would see from the outside. I haven’t moved to a new country, I haven’t won lotto, I haven’t magically become 10 years younger or any of the things that pop into your mind as your three wishes should you ever find the magic lantern.

So, what has changed? To be honest, I think that the by looking forward to the end of 2019 I was actually drawing a line in the sand of how long I would put up with things being the way they were.

It’s only in looking back, that I realise that it created a virtual finish line for me to get to before there could be a seismic shift in the way I saw and approached my life. And literally as the clock struck midnight, I was of the mindset “right, that’s enough of all that bad stuff happening” and I simply embraced the potential for joy to occur. It’s not that anything outrageously joyous has happened, it’s just that I now believe it could. And that’s a very powerful belief.

There’s something else that’s happened as a result of drawing the line in the sand and defining an actual re-start on what I am going to put up with – I have started to remove the situations that I know have brought more stress than they are worth. I don’t mean simply “unfriending” dramatic exhausting people on Facebook (although that is cathartic – it’s so lovely to stop the NOISE!), but I do mean actively working to change or remove stressful situations whether that’s a business contract that’s lost its appeal, friends whose values now seem to clash with your own, or pursuits you used to be passionate that are now more frustrating than rewarding.

And when you remove the things that are draining you, when you say “no more” to the things that aren’t right for you any longer, here’s the wonderful thing – you create space for amazing things to come into your life that are right for you. So, I am enjoying this new decade. Sure, nothing exceptional has happened – but there is room for it now I’ve mentally and physically removed some of the negative mindsets that were occupying way too much space in my life!

So, my angle is this – be careful of what you’re holding on to. Sometimes it seems scary to make changes, it seems impossible to think that things will get better. But that’s exactly where to start – when you begin to believe you deserve better, that there will be better, then you are making room for those wonderful things to happen.

Let’s have the courage to believe in ourselves, and to know that we deserve to be happy. It’s time for change.

With much love, Abby x