Resolutions are stupid (IMHO). I gave them up years ago, as I know many of you have as well. I'm convinced someone evil came up with the idea to make everyone feel badly about themselves, so I've taken a hard pass approach on New Year's resolutions for over a decade.
Then, several years ago, my husband and I gathered at a friend's house on New Year's Eve. We don't live in the same state as our friend, but that year we were able to be together to ring in the new year. Our lovely hostess wanted us all to write down our word for the year to come. I hadn't ever done that before, but I was open to it. That night we shared our words and why we chose them. The best part for me was throughout the year we would check in on one another just to see how we were doing in general and inevitably we would end our conversation by reminding each other of our word. It kept us focused and inspired to keep moving forward.
Nowadays I see people choosing one word for the new year all over social media, but back then this act of picking a word to guide us through the next year was like our own little North Star. It felt special and intentional. Since then I've set a one word intention instead of some crummy resolution I am sure to break by the end of the week.
This New Year's Day that same friend and I exchanged text messages, and we of course fell back into our pattern of sharing our one word. We each had selected HOPE. Obviously I don't need to explain why to any of you reading this. I'm staring at you Omicron!
However, I added a second word this year. My real word is NO. Here's why it should be your mantra for 2022 as well.
The word NO gets a bad rap, but it shouldn't.
As educators, most of whom are women, we say yes all the time...to everything. We feel we must.
We say yes to more students, bigger class sizes, doing more with less. We say yes to unsafe working conditions and laws and policies we don't agree with because we feel like we have no choice, even though we know in our hearts and in our professional judgment that these asks are simply not good for students or for us. In our personal lives, we almost never say no. As a result we place ourselves at the back of the line for everything. I say we put an end to that right now in 2022.
Let us never forget, we are a part of a union and the collective is always stronger than the individual. So while we are leveraging our collective union power to say NO, let's also harness our individual power to say NO to situations that aren't good for us personally or spiritually. That's where our NYSUT Women sisterhood circle comes into play. Let's lean on one another. Take these situations below:
- Taking on one more thing and putting your own wellbeing last. N-O
- Suffering in silence instead of asking for help. N-O
- Worrying about what others will think of you if you set a healthy boundary. N-O
- Trying to prove your worth at the expense of what is best for you. N-O
- Ignoring that voice in your head when a situation feels unsafe in any way. N-O
- Allowing someone to gaslight you. N-O
- Staying when you should leave. N-O
- Leaving when you should stay. N-O
- Working to the point of exhaustion. N-O
- Making no time to move your body or quiet your mind. N-O
- Doubting yourself or your worth. N-O
- Hiding your authentic self. N-O
- Shrinking yourself instead of asserting your strength. N-O
- Apologizing for your opinions, thoughts, or concerns. N-O
