My cousin (who I miss fiercely as she lives on the other side of the country) shared a fantastic challenge with me. The idea was to pick one word to work on each year. Not like a true resolution where you need to do more of blank or eat less of blank but something to work on, a general word that could be applied to many aspects of your life. There are a few blogs that highlight this topic, but the original link that she sent me was by Ali Edwards called One Little Word.
Working in behavior change and being a goal setter myself, you better believe that I ate that right up! I now had a new obsession: to find my word. It was on my mind all day. When I was awake at night I was thinking about it. I wanted to find the best word for my year. But I was lost. The indecisiveness was driving me a bit mad. It truly is hard to just pick one stupid little word. I even reached back out to my cousin, who, of course gave me a brilliant idea. She recommended lighting a candle and the word would come to me. Why didn’t I think of that!? Well I did light that candle. And too many words came! I WANT TO DO IT ALL!
Sometimes you just need a sign. Between 5 wonderfully sweet and exhaustingly lovingly holiday celebrations high on wine, treats, and good eats through the Christmas week our house looked like a tornado had touched down 5 times after our great dane had first kicked up the rug, torn up his bed, and licked the counters. I never really care enough about keeping a clean house to obsess about the mess of it all but it really was making me spin. I could barely put two dishes into the dishwasher in a row. I couldn’t complete a task. When you have two children under 6 that is quite normal, but the holidays bring all these other fun “things” around; traditions, gifts, parties, etc. I couldn’t complete a task. I was on overload. In the red. No clarity. Just chaos.
I stood leaning on my beloved kitchen island, looking from task to object to child to husband to child. Panting. Like an animal. I couldn’t focus.
That was my sign! It came to me! Out of desperation! My one little word for 2016 is focus. I have the drive, I have the follow through. But everything in between needs some sprucing up.
Focus. Sounds easy enough, right?