What is your “word” for the year? Here are mine...all three of them!

I don’t know about you but I do this every year but this year has been a little more difficult and has taken more time than I anticipated.

So let me back up…

Several years ago I started the practice of identifying three words that I want to focus on in the upcoming year and then putting my effort and energy into living those words out all year long. I have heard that several people do this as well but only focus on one word (not three as I am suggesting).

I don’t know if there is a right way and a wrong way…the goal is simply to put your focus on something and living from that place throughout the year.

So a few weeks ago I came up with three words:

PersistencePeacePower

As I have been meditating on these words, I have really struggled with persistence. It just didn’t feel right. I invite those that I am coaching to “try it on and see if it fits”, so that is what I was doing. I spoke it out loud. I meditated on it. I imagined myself living it out this year…nothing I did felt right.

So maybe the word wasn’t right.

Today I was trying out a new meditation technique focused on breathing. I was counting my breaths and thought “what I use my words instead” … so I started breathing in and out and focusing on my words, when it struck me “I need to focus on being in the moment. I need to focus on now. I need to focus on being more…present.”

So the word became presence and then everything started to fall into place. I could see the various relationships at play and how these words truly are what I need this year. I have focused on action words so much in the past that I am constantly forward thinking. While focusing on the future has proven to be helpful, it has also had a dark underbelly that I wasn’t expecting. I became very disjointed with reality and started judging life on the “holy trinity of regret”; the woulda, shoulda and coulda of life. 

This year I want to focus on right here, right now. I want to get very comfortable with things as they are, interact with them from a place of truth and radical acceptance. I want to stop being so forward thinking that I forget to take in life where it is and as it is.

This year I am going to focus on presence which leads to peace and then ultimately to power. I don’t know exactly how it all unfolds BUT I want to unpack that in this blog as I interact with each word and take their meaning to heart more and more each day.

This is going to be an exciting year…and for me it starts by focusing on this present moment, breathing it in fully and experiencing life at a whole new level.

This blog will start to get crowded with images, videos, musing and posts about the journey that I am on. I hope you join me. I hope you interact with me. I hope that it inspires you to step out and do something great with your life this year.