A new approach to the New Year’s Resolution

NEW CHAPTER

Like so many, I’ve always been hesitant to take on a New Year’s resolution. It feels like setting myself up for failure because, without really meaning to, I make a goal that I inevitably cannot meet. I start out with good intentions, but as the months roll by, and, well, life happens, my efforts for self-improvement and personal development get pushed aside.

So, last year I took a new approach.

I didn’t tie myself to losing a certain number of pounds or exercising a particular number of days each week. I didn’t vow to eat “whole” or remove from my diet gluten or dairy or vow to eat only grass-fed meats. I didn’t commit to reducing screen time or to stop scrolling social media or even to magically get my home organized once and for all. Rather than thinking about removing and restricting the things in my life, I thought about adding something that would make my life better.

I love reading, but I hadn’t made time for it since my children were born. After a three-and-a-half-year hiatus from reading, I made a very reasonable resolution to finish one book per month. And, for the first time in my 35 years, I actually kept my resolution. In fact, I superseded it. By the end of 2016, I had read 32 books. Even more importantly, I got back in the habit – definitely the hardest part of any resolution – and my reading goal will continue this year without such effort.

But as 2017 approached, I struggled to think about what “my thing” for this year would be. What could I do to make my life better? Not saying that I don’t have anything I need to improve in my life, but I couldn’t come up with a goal that felt right. No idea compelled me, and to me, that was a clear sign that the resolution wouldn’t stick for long.

One day soon after the New Year began, I was talking about this with a friend. I wanted a challenge. I wanted to strive to make life better this year. During our conversation, my friend mentioned to me that she, like many people, aren’t making resolutions this year but instead focusing on a word for the year. This sounded familiar. Right at the beginning of 2017, I remember friends posting their words on social media, announcing what their goal would be for 2017. My friend chose the word “balance,” something she felt she wanted to strive for in all aspects of her life in 2017. Something that would make her life better.

I asked her where I could learn more, and she prompted me to Google “One Little Word.” As I started digging in, I learned about this movement that started with Ali Edwards in 2006 and has spread to thousands of women seeking to learn more about themselves and improve their lives through the power of one word. As Ali explains on her Web site, each January she chooses “a word to focus on, to live with, to investigate, to write about, to craft with and to reflect upon as [she goes] about [her] daily life.”

You can even take it a step further and join Ali in her One Little Word® workshop that provides monthly creative prompts to guide you through the process of exploring your word.

Intrigued by the process, I started to think on my word. What would I want to explore this year? Where am I in my life right now? And where would I like to be? As Ali describes, acquiring a word usually happens in one of two ways: (1) you go looking for it, or (2) it finds you.

I came back to a word that has stirred in me for many years. A word that has guided me through an especially difficult time in my life and held me up when facing grief: Light.

Just to make sure, I looked up the definition for light and knew immediately, that, yes, this would be my word for 2017. Descriptions included, “makes things visible” and “understanding a problem or mystery” and simply “not dark.”

As I’ve struggled through grief for two years now, “not dark” sounds freeing to me. I have reflected so much on light and how it is the only thing that can chase out darkness. Even more so, how without the darkness there is no light. That makes sense. Our greatest times of personal enlightenment often come in our times of considerable distress.

There is a quote regarding light that I love by poet John O’Donohue from his book “To Bless this Space Between Us.” It says, “There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself, though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life.”

So, for the reasons O’Donohue mentions and so many more, I am inviting light into my life for this year. I am hopeful that in exploring light, I will continue to find peace and truth and strength. And furthermore, discovering where my journey with one little word will take me in 2017.

Stephanie Jordan is a local journalist, marketer and blogger.

Her blog can be found at www.stephanienetherton.blogspot.com, and she can be contacted at stephanienetjordan@gmail.com.