Resolutions: Just One Word

Even though Christmas has not yet come, I am already thinking and planning for New Year. 

Christmas has the greater importance as a religious holiday--sorry, folks, I know those presents and fancy dinners and glittery ornaments are nice but the fact of the matter is that we celebrate the day in honor of the birth of Jesus Christ; everything else is secondary.

New Year, on the other hand, is more personal.  It's a good time to reflect, assess, re-connect, mend, begin again.  Thus, I have been thinking about Resolutions.

This past January 1, I had the notion not to make a Resolutions list as I had done so many times before.  Those lists were nearly always unsatisfying and ultimately unsuccessful.  Instead, I chose a word.  Just one word.  And I decided to make that my focus for 2016.  I never told a soul what it was.  I got on with it and I kept it at the back of my mind nearly every day for the whole of the year.  You know what?  It worked.  I saw success.  Now, it wasn't easy and my results weren't perfect but I'd grade myself at about 85%.  That's kinda amazing considering that all of my resolves from previous years were worth a big fat zero.  My 2016 word remains on my mind and it lives in my heart and hopefully will do so for a very long time to come because it has made a difference.

One word.  I wasn't aware that other folks had discovered this same method far earlier than I did but a quick internet search showed me that I wasn't alone.  I will leave it to you to do a search of your own if you want to know more about how some other folks do.  As for myself, I think it was probably better simply to struggle with the bare bones of the matter on my own. 

It's not easy to choose a single word to convey all of the hopes and challenges that you wish to set forth.  I have been several weeks in considering my word for 2017, and I finally have it. 

No, I will Not share. 

One of the things I have discovered is that there is a certain magic in keeping a secret like this to oneself, a certain strength in silence.  To be unsupported in a challenge requires a deeper reach within that results in the building of emotional muscle.  That's the way it works for me, anyway; I cannot say how that might work for others. 

So, with less than three weeks left to 2016, I hope that you'll be thinking on your resolves with as much gusto as you expend in planning your holiday celebrations.  Do it for yourself.  And maybe you, too, will take up the challenge of holding onto just one word in 2017.

Life is good.