Tag Archives: new year’s resolutions

How One Little Word (or Three) Guides My Path

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One of my favorite quotes from a favorite book.

As 2017 winds down to an end, I realize again how much I love this transition from the old to the new. Everything seems fresh and possible to me. A new year, a new day, a new hour. Everything that’s old is new again.

Honestly, the eve of the new year is one of my favorite days. Not because I like to go out to parties or even that I am likely to ring in the new year in any special way. Sometimes we don’t even stay up till midnight! It’s really because I am standing at the doorway to new beginnings.

I have a practice of choosing one word that will guide my actions, my thoughts and my behaviors during the year. Last year was “Simplicity.” I found that I purged, created better flow, looked for ways to let go of things, people and thoughts that were no longer serving me. The year before, my one little word was Brave, and I stretched myself out of my comfort zone time and time again, creating a sense that I just needed to honor that intention, and the rest would fall into place.

This year, my one little word is Create. In fact, I have a bit of a formula attached to it this year. So actually, it’s three little words:

Connect. Engage. Create.

The process, as I am envisioning it, begins with Connecting to my authentic self. The true longing of my soul. The inherent skills and talents I possess. My creative trio – mind, body and spirit.

Then, I Engage all of those aspects of myself as I connect to them. I call them to life. Summon all the best I have to offer in whatever it is I am designing.

Then the Creation begins – whether I have a plan of exactly what, why and how or whether there’s an end result I am looking for but have no idea how I will get there. For me, creating sometimes begins with knowing nothing. And sometimes, I have a clear sense of exactly what I am trying to achieve.

It’s hard for me to imagine what all I can accomplish with this word as my touchstone this year!

I encourage my clients to come up with one little word to guide their year as well. As a coach, I find that setting an intention for the year helps my clients move into the habits, opportunities and behaviors they are looking to practice or design.

Want to give it a try? It’s very simple. Just ask yourself – what’s your one little word for the year?

(Ali Edwards is a creative entrepreneur and has designed an entire course on the concept of creating One Little Word each year. You can find her work in this area here.)

 

 

My wish for you in 2012

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This is one of my favorite times of the year.  A chance for me to purge the old and welcome new possibilities exists in this somewhat magical gap between one calendar year and the next.  We incorporate many rituals in my household, including those that are familiar like eating black-eyed peas and not putting up new calendars until after midnight. We also cleanse old energy from our home by lighting a smudge stick of sage and cedar and passing it through each room of the house. We put dimes under our threshold for prosperity and we open the windows in the East just before midnight to allow fresh, creative air to pass through our home, ensuring a successful and adventurous year. If our pantry is full at midnight, we believe we won’t hunger in the near year so grocery shopping is essential if our stores are low.

As 2011 comes to a close and 2012 begins, millions of us will take at least a few moments at some point or another to reflect on our accomplishments, our challenges and our hopes for the year ahead. Resolutions and intentions abound in the minds of those who strive to change old habits or create new ones. Fears about whether those resolutions will stick surface in our thoughts as we silently wonder if this will be the year we achieve our ideal weight or pay off debt. Self deprecating thoughts sneak in unbidden, yet familiar. Whether this review is something you enjoy or dread depends largely on the process and your state of mind going into the review.

This year, I used a process created by Rosetta Thurman, the Happy Black Woman. Her Review/Preview questions were similar to the ones I usually use and allowed me to feel complete about letting go of the old and embracing the new.  I value her work and hope you’ll take a look at her blog here.

I’m not a huge fan of resolutions. I do think an intentional practice of considering what’s working and what isn’t is important. Change isn’t always easy to maintain so don’t be hard on yourself.

I do know one thing for sure – if you do what you’ve been doing, you’ll get the same results. If you’re really happy where you are, you’ll be all set and probably don’t have need for a long list of resolutions.  If you want something better in your life, change something – even something small. Often, the mere fact that you take one baby step causes a momentum that will surprise you.

In my opinion, another really important piece about this process is the ability to see that there is possibility. I’d like to share a quote that closes one of my favorite novels – Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. The characters have both been on an incredible adventure that altered the course of their lives significantly. They overcame huge obstacles and found that they were completely in love and felt incredible hope for their future together. The author closes the book with this one very simple and yet powerful thought expressed by the narrator of their story.

“And the world was all around us, new with possibility.”

May the possibilities of 2012 be more than you could ever have imagined for yourself.