Year of the Snow Globe

Year of the Snow Globe

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Vision Board: Here’s to the Future 2022!

Shake it…Shake it…Shake it like a polaroid picture. I just love snow globes. As a kid they were like a little magical world, frozen in time. So cute. Endless possibilities. I could just let my imagination run inside that little scene of tranquility. This is how I feel like our year is going to shake out (pun intended). My husband and I feel like we need to shake things up after working for 30 years. We are stuck in ruts of our own making and in order to grow into our new post FI life, we need to really get in there and do some different things in our lives. 

Hence, The Year of the Snow Globe is going to be our theme for 2022. This fits in nicely with my vision board saying: Here’s to the Future 2022! I have 52 sayings on my Vision Board this year and plan on writing a post on each quote I selected to better unpack why that was important to me and take action on things I am finding important and meaningful. Check out my first post on creating my Vision Board.

Here's to the Future 2022

Who invented the Snow Globe?

Who came up with the idea of a snow globe? Well, I just Googled it, so it must be true. In the early 1900’s an Austrian surgical instrument mechanic, Erwin Perzy, was trying to improve the light source for a surgical lamp and with water and suspended particles it looked like falling snow. (Short version of the story).

The Future

I have no idea what 2022 is going to look like amidst an ongoing pandemic, but the one thing I do know is, I can get out of my comfort zone and make changes to craft my future. This is scary, uncertain, full of possibilities and loaded with opportunity. So what does the Year of the Snow Globe look like? What things can I do to help shake it up and design a 2022 that I can be excited about?

My husband and I have some interesting conversations about feeling like we are in a life rut. You sorta go through life, working, cooking, cleaning, short vacations, having fun with friends & family, life obligations, etc. the usual lifestyle of a typical middle-class American family. Don’t get me wrong, that is fine, but not really fine for me right now at this stage of my life. Maybe this is all just a midlife crisis, but this rut or predictable pattern of behavior has one clear path and this is not the path I am interested in traveling down right now. 

This rut is so deep with years and years of experience going down it and digging in a little deeper each year. Why get out of the rut, it is comfortable, predictable, known? It feels secure. But as the walls get higher in this rut, it is harder to pull yourself out if the rut no longer fits. 

How to get out of the Rut

I can still see the lip of my life rut and am starting to climb my way out. I have no clue what is outside of my nice safe rut, but I am willing to find out. So the best thing I can think of is to shake it up and do things I have not tried before and challenge my current way of living and being. The feeling of stretching myself and breaking out of what I have done for years seems like my best option. I am sure there are other ways that I have not thought of, but this seems to feel like the right thing to do. 

So this is what climbing out of my life rut is shaping out to look like right now.

Sleep Life Pyramid

Sleep

Concentrate on my sleep to give myself more energy for the uncertainty that is coming.

Food Life Pyramid

Food

Focus on my diet and what I am eating. We have gone to a whole food, plant based diet as a mini-experiment to see if we can get our blood work back in line. (more on this in another post)

Move Life Pyramid

Move

Get more exercise. We are shooting for 1 hike a week and I am working on my 1 pull up challenge and getting stronger. We are also trying to walk 7,000 steps a day to just move our little tushes.

All seems pretty traditional stuff, right? We all know we should sleep more, eat better and exercise. Well, I have not really spent much energy on this for the last few decades, so why not do it in my post FI life? I think all these things are just the foundation for giving myself energy to tackle the good stuff that is coming next. 

Shaking it Up

How do I craft my Year of the Snow Globe? Here are some of the questions we are thinking about as we look at making changes.

  • Who do we want to visit?
  • Where do we want to go?
  • What do we want to do?
  • What do we want to learn?

We started with questions, which then led us to the following four themes we want to pursue as we go through the year. 

Mini Experiments

Try things for a short period of time, evaluate, assess, move on or change. We are going to just say YES to damn near everything this year to see where it leads us. We have always been worried about the financial impact, don’t get me wrong, that is not unimportant. But, we usually lead with “how much will it cost” and we don’t do a lot of things because it costs something. We are trying to swing the pendulum the other direction a bit to spend on things that we are finding value. Try it and if that does not work, do not spend on that again in the future.

Mini-Experiment #1: Whole food, plant based diet for 2 months

Mini-Experiment #2: Attend Chautauqua Columbia in September

6 Week Blocks

Lauren and Steven over at Trip of a Lifestyle talked about needing a 6 week block of time to really make a shift or change. I really like this concept and have never really traveled for that long of a period of time since I was always working. We are exploring taking some longer, slow travel types of trips this year to really spend time outside of our normal day to day living. 

As we are traveling, we would like to set aside 6 week blocks of time and settle into a place. We are thinking of doing both domestic and international trips in 2022 and see what happens.

Interest Led Learning

I love this concept of spending my time and energy on things that help me grow. An example of this is starting this blog. I had never built a website before and now know how to set up a basic site. This is a skill I can take or do anywhere, I can help others set up a site if needed. Talent stacking, since who knows what skills I will need in my future. 

I have been taking some local art classes, which has been fun. I like being creative and crafty, so this has been good while I am at home. I am exploring other projects, but not sure yet where this will lead me.

Community / Relationships

Creating and being involved in a community is becoming more and more important for me. I want to spend time having meaningful conversations with like minded people. I am interested to see what and how other people are living and finding meaning in their day to day life. The groups that seem interesting to me right now are the digital nomads, FI people, RVing lifestyle, and volunteering groups. Spending more time with my family is also a focus now that we have more time freedom. 

We have a few trips planned this spring/summer to visit family and friends. I hope that our 6 week stay that we choose will help in this category of deepening our community and relationships.

Year of the Snow Globe: Call to Action

Are you stuck in a life rut? What do you think you need to do to maybe shake things up a bit?  I don’t think it requires drastic changes to begin to shift your life perspective, but I do believe it needs to be intentional. Pick something, test it and see if it makes your life better. That is what I plan on doing during the Year of the Snow Globe, shaking that little dome until I can see a new scene emerge that I can get excited about. 

Jen

Jen

I started this blog to journal about my Post FI Life and help me process my transition from working in Corporate America for almost 30 years. I am on a journey to find happiness, joy and fulfillment. And to have a little fun along the way.

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4 Responses

  2. I love your analogy “year of the snow globe”
    I can totally relate to your comfortable rut but need to shake things up!

    Reply

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