Choosing a word of the year is something I recently adopted just last year. It's more meaningful to embrace a single word as opposed to 8 New Years' resolutions you know will not be a priority come Jan 5th! At least that was my case.
My 2016 word of the year was Essential after reading Greg McKeown's book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less*. It's all about looking at your to-do list with a critical eye and throwing away anything that isn't essential to your progress.
Every few months I stopped and pondered on my word, I felt like I failed to embrace it each time. It wasn't until Aug.-Sept. that I finally embraced Essential. I embraced it so much that I threw out my to-do list! Which was starting to get a bit unproductive. I'm all for going with the flow but I need a little structure to get me to my goals. By the end of the year, I had a beautiful system going and I'm happy to bring it into the new year.
This brings me to my 2017 word of the year: Connect! I want to stop mindlessly scrolling social media, only seeing photos, and double-tapping 20 times in a minute. I now stop, read what the person posted in the caption, and actually engage with a thoughtful comment. I've made so many connections and strengthened existing ones doing this. I've probably made more connections this past month than I've made all year in 2016!
I've seen a huge jump in engagement on my Instagram account and these wonderful people I've actually been connecting with are reciprocating the love and conversation! It's worth so much more to me to spend an hour a day engaging with 10 posts/people as opposed to speed-scrolling and double-tapping 100 posts, but making no connections whats so ever!
So, what's your 2017 word of the year? What's one theme you want to fully embrace this year? Is there something you always mean to do but it keeps getting pushed to the back burner? Leave your word and why you chose that word in the comments below, let's connect!
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