My word it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. Yikes! All is well…just busy beyond belief. We finally got all remnants of the holidays put away for the year. And it feels good. Really good.
I love the holidays and decorating the house, but it always feels so good to get it packed up and put away. Fresh starts and fresh perspectives—I love a New Year. So while I haven’t been blogging, I have been savoring the freshness of the New Year and creating change in my own home and the homes of others.
I love changing the way a room looks and feels from time to time. Typically I get the itch to change things inside when things change outside. (And also after Christmas.) It’s so refreshing to bring out objects I love that have been tucked away for a while and put them in new places. It always makes me happy. How about you? Do you change around your home décor or does everything go right back to where it was before the holidays?
So back to “my word” the title of this post. I seriously love Ali’s One Little Word concept. Have you seen this? Do you have a word?
As you know, I love setting goals and the concept of boiling down a year’s worth of goals to one single point of focus, one single word, well…it’s simply brilliant (and brilliantly simple, at that.)
Last year my word was “grow” and I chose a color of the year to go along with the word. My color was green. It is the color I chose to paint my office / scrapbook room and my Dad’s favorite color, so it had all kinds of happy feelings associated with it.
I didn’t do much else with my word from a physical perspective—no scrapbook pages, or visual reminders of the word except for the green walls in my office. Yet from a mental perspective my word was always there. Having “grow” as a point of focus allowed me to always be on the look out for opportunities to grow personally and professionally. The books I read encouraged growth. The projects I took on helped me to grow. And when challenges arose, I looked at them as growth opportunities as well. I love this one word concept. Brilliant. Simple. Fun.
As much as I loved the word grow for 2007, I wanted a new word for 2008. I had it narrowed down to Joy, Love and Allow. Joy was my focal point during the holiday season…and it was fabulous. By having Joy as my holiday mission, I didn’t get bogged down by things that didn’t matter. It was very freeing. By focusing on Joy, and remembering that that’s what the holidays are really all about, I found joy in the simplest of things.
I am hopeful the Joy thing will stick. Having been conscious of creating Joy for two months now, and those months being the busiest months in my personal life, I believe the Joy thing will continue to be in my conscious thought whether it is my word of the year or not. So I’ve decided to make my one little word for 2008 be love.
I look at the one little word concept as being like North on my personal compass. I like the thought of having Love as my North for an entire year. When I wrote my scrapbooking inspiration statement (as part of writing the book) I realized that the real reason I scrapbook is to share my love with my family. Having this point of inspiration for scrapbooking was more freeing than I ever imagined possible. So…I want to make this the point of focus for all areas of my life for an entire year.
In my office rearranging I put metal letters l-o-v-e on my desk in the corner. It’s the first thing I see when I walk into my office. It will serve as my constant reminder to approach everything from a place of love all year long. I can’t wait to see how this focal point will change me this year and how it will enhance the way I approach everything in my life—relationships, projects, what I write about. Everything.
So that’s what I’ve been up to…a lot of pondering about words, getting reorganized and reenergized after a busy, busy holiday season, and organizing others. 2008 is off to a great start here…I hope it is for you, too.
And if you’re not on the one little word band wagon yet—join in! You’ll be surprised at what a difference one little word can make.
Precious post! Lots of great advice! My word is *Believe* and I, too, have gold letters which spell it sitting on my fireplace. It’s a stocking hanger actually that will stay there all year to remind me to believe in (and remain true to) myself. 🙂 I think this is remarkable advice for visual people and am thankful that you shared it! However, in order to keep myself achieving, I’ve set *believe* as my overall annual resolution, and decided on choosing one major life goal to work on each month. I figure this will allow me to fully focus on only one important thing at a time while developing the ‘habit’ that I will hopefully carry through the next months. 🙂
Love your word for 2008. I haven’t chosen one yet.
What is the 2007 Tracker you show in one photo with the word love?
Happy New Year Aby!
I loved your JOY word to use in the holiday season and I too would like to take that through the whole year.
But my word for 2008 is PATIENCE … I hope that it becomes more second nature to me by the end of the year.
Hi, Aby:
Love this post and I love the concept of one little word. I’m going to mull that over for the next few days. I also love the notion that your word can change based on the season or some other event in your life.
Thanks for the food for thought!
my word for 2008 is NOW. I’m trying to beat the procrastination i have come to live by, but also want to stop PLANNING so much and learn to live in the here and now and ENJOY each moment as it comes…instead of contantly trying to search the next moment out.
Hi Aby,
My 2008 word is “brave” and I’m definitely going to need a physical talisman for this word to help hold on to it. Can you tell me where you found the metal letters? I like the weight of them over the wood and paper-mache decorative letters I’ve seen for sale.
Thanks for this post! I had blogged about it but couldn’t find Ali’s original post at the time. She did say it so well, didn’t she? Anyway, my word for this year is
STRIVE
to be better, to do more (of the good stuff and less of the bad), etc.
I haven’t decided how to feature it yet. Maybe I’ll make a “birthday banner” to hang above my kitchen window.
Leslie
Great idea- thanks. I’ll have to think of a word for the year.
Nice post. My word for this year is “Do.” I want to stop thinking about things and actually “do” them this year.