Happy new year to our #encorefamily. We are so excited for what this new year will bring. I am not usually one to go crazy over a new year. Yes for some, it brings new beginnings, a new chance to go after something that they have always wanted and a fresh start from whatever they want to leave in the year behind. I get it, but usually I am one for starting fresh whenever you feel you need to. If something doesn’t sit right, change it. If something doesn’t make you happy, go after what does. However, as we are 3 weeks into the year I am going to contradict myself. I have absolutely started 2021 in a different mindset… well not so much a different one, I just needed to fix my crown and get back my positive energy and to leave the negativity of 2020 where it belongs… in the year that was 2020!!
2020 brought me so many good things, a holiday with friends, adventures with my family, my nephew becoming a preppy, I travelled around more of beautiful Queensland (that I now get to call home..yay!!), 3 more beautiful nephews to add to my forever growing team (I have 8 nephews and 3 nieces who are my world), a special 10 year anniversary with my childhood sweetheart, my 2 best friends who kept me sane with coffee dates and beach walks (free therapy), amazing BBO ballet results from my awesome students and my greatest achievement yet… ENCORE KINDY KIDS. So many beautiful things came out of the year that was 2020… but for some reason I could not get out of this ‘stuck’ mindset.
If I am honest, and I will be, I carried guilt through 2020. Guilty for enjoying special things we got to do whilst family were in the UK lockdown, guilty for not ‘making the most’ of our lockdown, guilty for leaving prior commitments and guilty for chasing my dreams. Yup, that’s right.. not everyone will support your choices in this world but please continue to MAKE them. Make those choices, fight for those goals and believe you can literally do anything and remember… its ok for things to change. It’s ok to make changes if you need too, if you want to. I say this, but I struggled during 2020. I use to think ‘people are only guilty if they know they have done something wrong’. HA how wrong was I.. I now know that guilt is a feeling.. and how you feel can be massively influenced by others actions and how you ALLOW them to make you feel.
I guess I want you all to know this so that you can apply this into your new year. Whether you’re a previous student wanting to apply for that job or course now you have graduated, a parent reading this wanting to do something new for YOU, a current student who wants to get their splits or achieve a personal goal in dance… DO IT! DO IT, DO IT, DO IT! Find out how and just DO IT! Because I did and I will continue to do so and I will never look back. I’m taking the memories and lessons (because they are, they are lessons. No regrets or guilt) and the beautiful people of 2020 into a new amazing year of love, achievements, gratefulness and absolutely NO GUILT into the year that IS 2021.
‘All our dreams come true, if we have to courage to pursue them’- Walt Disney
Keep smiling,
Miss Emily x