Happy New Year friends! I have anticipated the start of 2021 and was looking forward to leaving 2020 where it belongs, in the past. I don’t really know what I was expecting but I thought for sure I would wake up January 1, 2021 and be back to “normal.” Well, as we all know, that didn’t happen. The first few days of 2021 were just as difficult as the last few days of 2020.

But here we are in 2021 and as usual, the first of the year is always a time for reflection and change. Most of us think about New Year resolutions and maybe even make a list or a vision board of things we want to accomplish. After 35 years of doing this, I threw in the towel and surrendered the whole resolutions idea a few years ago. Resolutions just ended up being another disappointment for me for different reasons — I didn’t run another marathon, I didn’t take that trip, I didn’t volunteer enough, I didn’t finish the book in the book club, I didn’t lose the weight, etc. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

I started a different tradition: I choose a word. Just one word that I must live by for that entire year. I figured it was easier to make one word happen than a bunch of “things” on my list. The first year I started with the word love — I wanted to show love more than receiving love. Then it was patience; that one is self-explanatory! Last year, my word was surrender. Most people might think that means I threw up my hands and gave up. Instead, I have made up my own definition of surrender, one that involves continually taking action instead of giving up or shifting all my energy elsewhere. It means being in the present moment and using affirmations. It means knowing my fears and limitations and boundaries. It means going with my gut and embracing my beliefs and my decisions as my own. It means being authentic and releasing my ideas of what I am (jobs) and focusing on the who I am (empath, kind, giving, etc).

This year my word is change. I felt this word was important to embrace. Change means replace something with something else, and, in my case, I tend to think it is replacing with something better. It is a variation to the common way of doing things. Last year with surrender as my guide, I let go of trying to control situations that were out of my control. This year, things are still out of my control, but I am going to change to adapt to my environment and circumstances and be successful.

Maybe this is a word that we as the poultry industry can all adopt in 2021. Life happens, and what happened in 2020 was definitely a change. We can no longer routinely do what we have done in the past in the same way. Our environment and world have changed, and we have to change with it in order to be successful.

In order to change we must overcome barriers of self-interest, misunderstanding, low tolerance to change, and different opinions about that change. How do we overcome these barriers? Education and communication. This is our chance to change how people view our industry. This is our chance to educate and communicate and change our approach to the public and non-agricultural people in our communities and those we serve.

Change is sometimes uncomfortable and mostly time-consuming, but it is well worth embracing and becoming that innovative organization which embraces everything we have surrendered in 2020 and uses that knowledge to become successful in 2021. As an industry we have been asking for people to listen to us. Well, we are now on the platform and being heard. There will always be naysayers, but most people are listening. We should embrace this change and use it to our advantage.

There are a million reasons to say "no," but if we find the courage to say "yes" then great things can happen. Happy New Year, friends. Let us turn the surrender of 2020 into change for success in 2021.

My 2021 word

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