Create Focus for the New Year

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It’s time to create a vision and focus for the New Year – WITHOUT Resolutions!

Create Focus for your New Year without Resolutions - Focus on the positive and create a healthy vision for 2016! | The Love NerdsHi, Nerds! Are you still in denial that it’s 2016 like I am? I know it’s cliche but it really does feel like time is moving faster. It’s a sign of how busy things have been and how busy they will continue to be. As a whole, I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. Do you? It just seems that resolutions are very negative – a narrowing in on all the things we do wrong. I want to focus on growth and areas that will bring richness to my life or my business. So instead, I make perpetual goals throughout the year with ways in which I am going to achieve said goals. At the beginning of the New Year, I also like to think about what lies ahead and what my focus should be for 2016 in this case.

Create Focus for the New Year without Resolutions - Focus on the positive and create a healthy vision for 2016! | The Love Nerds

Setting Focus for the New Year

I heard about the My Own Word project a long time ago and liked the idea of narrowing focus and really creating a vision of what you want your life to be. I have a hard time with just choosing one though which I’m sure some psych major would love to analyze so Bryan and I both choose 3.

3 words that will create a vision and a focus for the New Year. We don’t think too carefully on them – they can be nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. They are personal so we share them and discuss them but we don’t make ours based on our partners. His words are his and mine are mine.

To start, write down any word or goal that pops into your head for the 2016. These may read similar to resolutions and that’s okay, but they might also be broader concepts or traits you want to see in yourself. Write down your hopes, concerns, goals. Anything related to this year. Then, look for areas of focus. What items come together naturally or seem more important than others. When we narrowed down our lists, we came up with these three words each to help define our personal visions for what is to come.

The most important thing is to put these words somewhere where you will see them. In our busy lives, we need gentle reminders of what we want out of life. Especially when we find ourselves struggling, these words are reminders from ourselves about what we should be focused on and what we should maybe let go of. It’s hard but it’s healthy. I put my words in my planner so that I see them every day. My planner also has a whole box dedicated to being thankful, which words perfectly toward my number one word. (If you want to see my planner, head over now to see how I use my Life Planner so you can start the year off right.) So, without much further ado, here is what we both chose for this year:

Love Nerd Maggie: Gratitude, Wellness, Journey

Love Nerd Bryan: Hope, Family, Experiences

So, why did I choose my three?  

GRATITUDE: 2015 became a very trying year with increased health issues on both sides of our family and with the family of friends and even the loss of Bryan’s uncle right before the New Year. At first, I found myself being dragged under the current of it all. Swimming just to keep my head above water and process everything that was happening. I found myself focusing on the weight of it all. But then slowly, my perspective began to change. There are bad days where the world still feels overwhelming – ADULTING IS HARD, Y’ALL – but I want to make every moment matter. I really do.

2016 will be about gratitude. About taking every opportunity to spend with family and friends because those moments matter far more than getting another post written or doing another round of social media shares. Maybe I will have a longer day somewhere else for taking time for a loved one or maybe I will miss a show I was excited about for coffee with a friend or so on, but I won’t regret that time spent. I will be grateful for the moments we have and for the wonderful people in my life.

WELLNESS: Wellness for me is not about going on a crazy diet and the need to lose 40 pounds. It’s about finding a balance in your life where you feel complete, whole, content. For me, it will be as much about finding time to be active and eating healthy as it will be about giving myself a day off and unplugging from technology. It will be about making time to do things I love and enjoy, even if it’s 30 minutes of coloring when I feel stressed.

JOURNEY: We are on the brink of change. Which sounds very ominous and can sometimes feel that way. We have both personal and professional changes coming for us in 2016 and most of them cannot be planned or scheduled. Jobs and opportunities will come on their own time schedule unfortunately. This normally terrifies and frustrates me because I am a planner. I like things arranged and organized and ready to go. So journey goes along with gratitude for me. I am going to enjoy this time in our lives and the journey we are on instead of fighting it because most of life really does happen in between making plans. Life happens during the journey, and I don’t want to miss it.

What about you? If you had to pick ONE or THREE words that you want to define your 2016, what would they be?

 

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