For the past six years, I’ve joined in on the My One Word idea. The idea is to focus on that one word for a whole year and make changes in your life centered around that concept, idea, word. Instead of New Year’s resolutions that usually get discarded by the beginning of February, this revolutionary concept has stuck with me and my family.
This year’s word is
LIVE
The past couple of years, while our lives have been chaotic, we’ve chosen a simpler path due to our addition to our family. The year, L’ came home, our word was LISTEN. Last year, our word was FOCUS. We wanted, no needed much rest and time to just FOCUS on us and the many needs of our immediate family. Some of those needs included a quiet space for L’ to thrive. We stayed home to establish routines and consistency for him. We did a year of no parties in our home. We traveled minimally. Our year also included more one on one dates with our children. To stay sane, that also meant more dates with just D’ and I. While at times, that included L’, we managed to get away just the two of us for a few days for the first time since he’s been home. That was glorious.
So what else did we FOCUS on in 2015? God, our family, our friendships, giving more, writing more, exercising more, calmness in our school day, more down time to recharge. (For me that meant reading. I wrote about that the other day. You can read about that here.) We focused on saying no to some good things, so we could say yes to greater things.
Some of our goals are being continued in 2016. Sacrifice is part of life and this past year, we needed to take a time out when tests indicated that I needed a four month treatment for my heart and immune system. We FOCUSed on my health, while some of D’s dreams and goals were put on hold. We hope to continue with some of his career goals this year. That’s what life is all about, isn’t it? Leaving enough room in life when your plan A doesn’t work, to adapt and be okay with plan B, C, D, or even T. Living with margin is important to us. We were not stressed – we simply, detoured.
While we will always have work to do, I think our year last year was the leveler we needed to get back in balance and calm the chaos a little bit. There are still challenges, but we are headed into 2016 with a quiet calm that is still focused on our family and will include LIVING life a little more. What will that include? For us, that means more adventures, more exploring, more physical activity (exercising, trying new sports, picking up some old ones), traveling more, taking risks, loving more, writing more, reading more, making new friends, appreciating the life in front of us and creating a space to sit with all the memories being made. We diagramed that out and this is what we came up with last night:
If you look close, you can see one answer to my question that I asked my family: “What does it mean to you to LIVE?” My boy says, “Not die.” Okay, that’s a good goal this year. Put it on the board! We covet your prayers of protection when we do the “test our limits” goal in sports and other outdoor activities, in order to accomplish the “not die” goal. Our year will still be intentional, discerning, simple, and focused. As you can see, our former words have carried over and build upon each previous year. Here are the past six year’s worth of words. Maybe something will inspire you?
2010: SIMPLIFY
2011: TRUST
2012: DISCERN
2013: INTENTIONAL
2014: LISTEN
2015: FOCUS
Welcome 2016! Let’s LIVE!
[…] Do you choose a word or goals for the year? I wrote about My One Word last year HERE, 2018’s post HERE, 2017’s recap HERE, or hear about how 2015 inspired 2016 HERE. […]