Saturday, January 9, 2016

One Little Word 2016

I want to choose a One Little Word for 2016 a la Ali Edwards, but I'm really struggling with which direction I want to go with it.

When I think about my work life, the words Patience and Focus and Zen and Persevere come to mind. (Yes, I'm still experiencing a lot of work stress...)

When I think about my creative life, words like Experiment and Write and Make and Innovate and Stretch seem to be the most appealing.

When I think about my private life, I'm drawn to the words Savor and Contemplate and Prioritize and Streamline.

And when I think about my interpersonal life (family and friends and fella), I'm more likely to consider words like Trust and Listen and Give and Connect.

Have you chosen your OLW yet? How did you go about selecting your word? Are you sure of your word, or are you doubting yourself a bit? Tell me about your process.

I've given myself an arbitrary deadline of January 15th to make my OLW decision. I guess I'll just have to think on it a bit more...




10 comments:

  1. In 2015 I chose the word Balance and because I still feel like it's a work in progress, I've decided to keep it for a second year.

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  2. I opted for Joy this year. I was doing a project and it asked me what brought me joy and what were some big joy moments in 2015. While I believe there is ample joy in my life, I was unexpectedly stumped by these questions. I also pray about such things and felt like this was a call to focus on the Joy in my life. Define it. Recognize it. Be grateful for it. Seek to make more of it. I believe whatever gets your time and energy grows. There is no rule (and really, if there was I'm guessing you wouldn't care��) that says you must stick with one word all year. Maybe you
    make your own rules and pick one word per category or one word per quarter. Or spend between now and the 15th noted each day which word keeps popping up. Any of the words listed would likely show you something throughout the year. looking forward to reading more.

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  3. I have never chosen a word before. I knew about it and a lot of my friends have always had a word, but it was just never a 'thing' for me. In mid-December someone spoke something to me and it just made me realize that she saw me in a completely different way than I saw myself. But I loved what she said. I heard that same word in significant ways through the following days, so I feel like the word chose me. My word is 'brave' and I certainly do not feel brave in any way. I would like to explore what brave really is, how people perceive me as brave when I feel the opposite and would like to challenge myself to step out of the comfort zone more quickly and act in brave ways. Like posting my thoughts in response to your question. :) I'm completely happy with this choice and feel like it fits somehow.

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  4. I choose the word GROW, I thing it is a perfect word since it can be used in all aspects of my life.

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  5. Have you joined Ali's class and/or do you plan to? I'm not in it this year, but I've heard that in the first lesson, Ali gives some guidance on how to choose your word. (I've chosen a word, even though I'm not taking the class. It's "participate", as in don't be an observer. Mine came to me, maybe because I'm hearing so much about it. :-) )

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  6. this year I am going with peace. I have 2 Christmas decorations that say peace & as I was setting up for the holiday, they both seemed to speak to me & so they didn't get put away with the rest, instead, they will move around the house throughout 2016. I have a few areas of my life I still need to find peace in.

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  7. I'm still contemplating my word. In the past my words have come to me with no question but not so much this year. I have 5 on my list and might go with a phrase instead of just a word.

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  8. My word this year jumped out and grabbed me -- create.
    The year before, I had a rough idea, and like you I had a list of words or ideas that were close, but not quite right. So I looked up those words in the thesaurus to try to find a common theme. Deliberate is the word that came out of that process.

    What do you think you'd like to explore this year?

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  9. My word is Trust. As in Trust in God, Family and Friends. Trust that I am where I am supposed to be. And Trust in the process (Weight Watchers focus). I let my word pick me - usually by December 31st I have my word. I try to scrap at least one layout of my yearly word - usually in the summer after I've been living with the word for a bit.

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  10. My word for this year is Immersion. I tried to pick a word that could work in all aspects of my life. In my creative life, I want to carve out blocks of time to immerse myself in a project or playing or learning. I love the flow that can occur. But these blocks and sufficient quiet (or low noise levels) can be hard to come by. In my personal life, I want to be freer giving time to my spouse or child and immersing myself in time or activities with them. I struggle with this, since I work full time. In my work life, I want to try to carve out bigger blocks of time to actually start and finish tasks & projects. I do a lot of multitasking or working on projects between other responsibilities, but then you have to remind yourself where you were when you left off.

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