2021: The Year of the Glow Up

2021 is here, and you know what they say: “New year, new me!”
Well, I don’t think that’s entirely true. I see it more as “New year, improved me!”
So that’s my theme for this year. For me, 2021 is the year of the Glow Up.

2020 was a rough year for me in terms of self-love and self-care. I had a lot of stumbling points and setbacks (as well as some breakthroughs), but I’m choosing to see them all as learning experiences.

So for 2021 I’m improving myself. I intend to have a glow up, both inner and outer.

Something that I feel was my biggest setback in 2020 was that I got a pixie cut after I had spent awhile growing out my hair. While I love having short hair, I had been intending to grow my hair out quite a bit more, and I got the ‘big chop’ because my hair was feeling unmanageable after my jaw surgery. While getting a haircut doesn’t seem like a big deal, for me it was a physical representation of my health at the time. I also tend to tie a lot of my mood to how my hair looks (perhaps too much of my mood if I’m being honest).

But now my hair is at almost the same length as it was last year when I got my hair cut!

Almost being the key word, ha ha. Pixie cuts grow out kinda weirdly, and the last time I got a haircut (not including that time in the spring when I gave myself bangs) was in February, so my hair grew out kinda layered. The shortest sections are just long enough to go past my jawline, and the longest sections reach just past my collarbone when pulled straight.

I’m going to keep growing my hair out because my ends are still looking pretty healthy, and then once I have some more growth, and once it’s safe to do so, I want to go to a salon and get a trim, maybe some curtain bangs and some layering. And who knows, maybe I’ll even get my hair dyed (yep, I’ve been thinking about how I want to get my hair dyed for MONTHS now).

One of the major breakthroughs I had during 2020 was in regards to physical fitness. After I recovered from surgery I began exercising a lot, and I discovered that:

1. I have a lot more energy when I’m in shape
2. I really enjoy dancing
3. My body is way easier to move when I’m in shape

So even though I don’t exercise as much as I did in the spring when I was doing lots of HIIT workouts, I’m still keeping in shape. Lately I’ve been getting most of my exercise from dancing (mainly mirroring choreographies, but sometimes I play music in my room and just have fun with it), and I still do some calisthenic exercises to work on toning my muscles.

There’s also something called NEAT, which stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, and it’s basically all the physical things we do that expend energy that aren’t sleeping, eating, or sports-related exercise. NEAT rather crucially includes fidgeting, which I do A LOT.

That’s actually why I got into dancing. I figured if I learned how to dance, I would stop fidgeting as much when I’m at my desk, because I would expend that fidgety energy while dancing. But nope! Now I fidget even more, especially when I’m at my desk. I listen to music while I work so I’m often moving a little bit to the beat, or emulating parts of dance moves that I’ve been practicing.

So yeah, this year I intend to get into even better shape, improve my personal style, learn how to do makeup in a way that I like, and improve my self-care routine. I also want to work on improving my outlook on life and my mental health.

I have a weird pattern of leap years being difficult for me (2012, 2016, and 2020) and then the years after leap years being huge and wonderful in terms of my personal development, so I’m going to make sure that 2021 follows that pattern!

Do you have a theme or any resolutions for 2021? I’d love to hear about it!