Whew! It’s almost the end of January!! Are you racing into the new year with new energy and focus? Or are you sliding in on autopilot? Or something in between?
It’s not too late to do a restart, not too late to choose your Word for the Year. We’re past the main push for this activity, and yet the year has just begun. Ignore the artificial timelines and expectations. Consider what may be helpful for you and do it now.
Choosing One Word for the Year provides some focus for the coming year. Or for the next month, or three months. Identify a time period that makes most sense for you and will provide focus and incentive.
To make this most effective, I recommend going back to the source of this practice, One Word That Will Change Your Life by Jon Gordon, Dan Britton and Jimmy Page. It’s a small book that includes how to use the concept and gives examples of how it has worked for others.
The book’s authors have additional resources for us – including a 7-day One Word Challenge that comes as 7 emails with a video and specific things to do each day. I find this helpful; perhaps you will also.
The 3-step process to identify your word is a simple one. In some past years I used the shortcut of doing a bit of thinking, having a word pop into mind, and going with it. Although I may have arrived at the same word or a very similar one by following the steps, I shortchanged myself by not going through the process.
In addition to choosing a word that can affect multiple areas of life, keeping your chosen word before you throughout the year is crucial to our success. Again, I didn’t follow through to implement the ideas in the book, or other suggestions I found from those who use the technique.
But I realize now that I taken shortcuts both in choosing the word and in taking the recommended steps to increase the probability of my success. If you can identify with this, please join me as I remedy this in 2023. It’s not too late!!
So let’s get started:
Grab the book here: One Word That Will Change Your Life
Go https://www.onewordchallenge.com/ to sign up for the 2023 challenge and start getting your emails.
Now I invite you to come along with me on the 7-day challenge.
The goal of this process is to come up with one word that will give me MEANING, PURPOSE AND FOCUS for the year just beginning. The first step is to reflect on the past year and then think about this year. Writing, not just thinking, will be most helpful.
Let’s move ahead and make this a remarkable year!
P.S. What about resolutions? A brand new study provides a snapshot of this practice that I find fascinating:
“Every year, 38.5% of US adults set New Year’s resolutions. Age predicts one’s likelihood of having at least one resolution, with younger adults being the most likely group to have such goals.
- 38.5% of U.S. adults set New Year’s resolutions yearly, based on the average of five different studies over the past years.
- 52.6% focus on one New Year’s Resolution, whereas the other 47,4% sets multiple ones.
- 59% of young adults (18-34) have NY resolutions, making them the largest demographic with New Year’s resolutions.
- People over 55 are 3.1 times less likely to have resolutions compared to younger adults. The older someone becomes, the less likely they will have New Year’s resolutions.
- 54% of parents with children have New Year’s resolutions, which is 1.6 times more than those who don’t have kids.”
- And “23% of people quit by the end of the first week, 64% after the first month...” (https://insideoutmastery.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/)
This tells me that first of all, “everyone” doesn’t follow this practice. Second, for those who do the fallout rate is high and fast. Third, over half of those who do only set one resolution. Interesting, right?
I’m Carol Brusegar, author, photographer and curator of information. My focus is on gathering and writing on topics that enhance all our lives – regardless of our age. Topics include health and wellness, personal development, innovation and creativity, and a variety of helpful, practical tools and practices.
I have a special interest in helping people over 50 years of age to create their 3rd Age – the next stage of their lives – to be the best it can be. Check out these and more of my books here: https://www.amazon.com/author/carolbrusegar
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It’s amazing to me that we are STILL in pandemic liminal space!! No amount of mental gymnastics or fact avoidance can change the reality that we still have well over 1,000 people dying each day (mid-January, 2022) and total deaths are well over 850,000.
Gratitude is a big deal. It’s good for all of us, as we feel it, express it and share it. In the month of November, there is a big push for it on social media and elsewhere. Perhaps it’s part of your reflections at the end of a year or whenever you are regrouping. Nurturing it as part of our daily lives besides those occasional bursts is beneficial in many ways.
