My Word for 2016
Last week I briefly mentioned that, as in years past, I’ve chosen a word to guide me through 2016.
(If you missed that post, you can read it here.) Today, I wanted to share that word with you—partly because I like sharing what I’m up to, and partly because I hope it will inspire you (to choose your own word, to think more deeply about a word you’ve already chosen, or to just spend a few moments thinking about what you want). So here we go!
My word for 2016? Connection.
That will look like:
Connection with myself (physically, through things like yoga and workouts and the food I eat; emotionally, through things like Brené Brown’s books and my daily Explore writing practice
Connection with my far-away family (through more calls, emails, texts, and hopefully visits!)
Connection with my growing family (through a nice, long maternity leave since our baby is arriving in April!!)
Connection with the world around me (through putting down my phone more often, finding ways to give back, and just generally opening my eyes, showing up, and paying attention more)
Helping you connect more with yourself (through things like Explore—which I'll be offering again soon!—and some other ideas I have up my sleeve) so you can, in turn, connect more with your dream clients and customers
I’ve also chosen four words that will support me as I make connection happen in 2016.
They are:
Space. I want to make space in my life and in my day-to-day for the kinds of connection I mentioned above, and for abundance in many different areas.
Presence. I want to be more present in all that I do, no matter what it is. It’s way too easy to just go through the motions, but I don’t want that.
Commitment. I want to commit to the things that are important to me (like connection) and learn to let go of the things that just aren’t that important.
Joy. I want to find more joy. I have an incredible life in so many ways, but while I tend to be optimistic in many tough situations, when it comes to day-to-day life I tend to be hard on myself and often lack joy around the little things (or around areas where I feel a lot of fear). I want to go through life feeling joyous, not afraid or disconnected.
Choosing a word for the year isn’t always easy.
But I’ve definitely found that I get better at it as each year passes—better at being realistic about what word will work, better at listening to my intuition when it tells me what I need, and better at getting honest with myself about what it will take to make that word work. So if you dive into this practice and have a hard time, give yourself permission to do it a little differently—choose a word for the year and then check in after a month to see if it still fits, or choose a word for this quarter and then be open to choosing a different one for the next quarter, or even choose a couple of words for different parts of your life.
The point of all this is that you’re getting intentional about where you are now and where you want to be—which can be a pretty powerful thing no matter how you do it!
(If you want help creating a word for yourself, check out this post by Susannah Conway.)
P.S. Last week, I shared that I’m super interested in Jess Lively's Life With Intention Online work. I haven’t taken the class, though I want to, but I have attended her free live training twice—and she’s offering it again right now! There's one today at 1pm Central and the other is next Wednesday (January 19) at 11am Central (if today doesn't work for you on short notice).
Her free trainings are amazing, and Jess has such good energy—I highly recommend these! I'm not an affiliate or anything; just wanted to share since so many of you seemed to be interested.