My Guiding Word For 2017 is…

HAPPY NEW YEAR 🎉 Hope you all had a lovely New Year’s celebration. Jeremy and I had a super fun time celebrating with our friends at a party in Westchester. So far imma fan of 2017, but then again we’re less than 48 hours into the new year 🙂

‘Tis the season to set some big ass goals as we begin 2017. Later this week I’ll delve into my resolutions for 2017 but today I wanted to focus on my guiding word for the year and how to choose your own.

A guiding word is a word or phrase that you want to embody in the next year. You know how in the beginning of a yoga class you’re asked to set an intention for the next 60 minutes? A word to focus on when the going gets tough and the chaturungas start to suck? A word that represents how you want to go about your practice that day.

A guiding word is kind of like that, a word that’s your guide through the next 365 days, even if it’s something you don’t actively think about every waking second.

My word last year, fearless, so perfectly embodied where I was at that point in my life. It was what I really and truly needed this year to get where I want to be. I needed to stop being so afraid because that fear was holding me back.

This time around I really struggled to figure out what my word of 2017 would be. It sounds crazy but I was sad to let go of fearless as my guiding word. It was SO what I needed and something I want to continue to embody.

Around 2:00AM in the midst of a caffeine-induced sleepless night during finals, I finally figured it out. THANK GOD.

 

So after much (much, much, much) thinking, my guiding word of 2017 is…

In 2017 I want to cultivate more focus in my life.

Once I finally figured it out, focus felt like such an obvious choice and therefore perfect fit for 2017. I’ve been so scattered in the last year, jumping all around. When things get rough, I want to quit because I instantly forget why I’m doing something in the first place (I’m looking at YOU, grad school statistics). 

But I need to remember to put my head down, be patient and stay focused on my why.

After being so open, daring and ballsy last year while I lived as fearlessly as possible, I now need to bring myself back inward a teeny tiny bit.

Being fearless helped me hone in on my blog voice and be proud of even being a blogger in the first place. Screw it if some asshole I went to high school with think it’s weird that I make money sharing intimate details of my life…

Being fearless also made Holistic Happening a thing.

Now that I’ve got exciting opportunities on my plate, I gotta do something with them!

In 2017 I will be…

 

   ✨ Focused, literally. In this day and age of social media, I have the attention span of a gnat. Writing this blog post took me an hour longer than it should have thanks to checking my email and texting and refreshing instagram.

I strive to be more focused in my daily life, which for me means staying on task and not getting distracted by every noise my phone makes…

 

✨ Focused on my why. Towards the end of this semester of grad school, I started questioning why I was even doing this in the first place. I don’t know if you know this but studying SUCKS. I’d rather use that time and energy on this blog or Holistic Happening.

In the thick of things, I momentarily forgot why I was even doing the whole grad school thing in the first place. I ultimately want to work with solopreneurs and small business owners in wellness on their social media, helping them to harness these platforms while also figuring out their digital voice in the process. I feel this particular grad school program will help me get to that goal.

When I stay focused on the why, the studying doesn’t seem so shitty any more.

 

   ✨ Focused on my goals. Both the big ones and the small ones. This means doing the necessary work to conquer these goals, be it finally doing three pull-ups (this has been my resolution for the last 6+ years…) or making sure each Holistic Happening event is more successful than the one before.

 

How to choose your guiding word for 2017

Last year I just knew my word for 2016 had to be FEARLESS. This year, it took me a lot longer to figure out the perfect guide word for this year.

⚡️ Think about what you’ve accomplished in the last year. I started here because the truth is, I didn’t want to use a word I was already “manifesting” — what’s the fun in that? Like for me, energy would be a terrible word choice. I already feel like a chicken with it’s head cut off most days…

 

⚡️ Now, think about the things you wanted to accomplish, but didn’t get around to. Is there a common thread or reason why it didn’t happen?

 

⚡️ Start making a list of what you want to feel this year in addition to what you want to accomplish. What characteristics will you need to get you to conquer that goal? Is the way you want to feel something you can manifest in multiple areas of your life?

As I tortured myself trying to figure out my word for this year, I started making a big ass list of words that described things I want to do this year. Words like deeper because I want to get deeper in my practice of yoga and knowledge of marketing. Patience because I’m really impatient…

Focus was maybe the 5th word I wrote down. Once I started thinking about focus and how it related to all aspects of my life, I realized it was the perfect fit.

 

⚡️ Trust that whatever word you settle on is the right word. Don’t let this stress you out. Whatever word or phrase you land upon, I’m sure it’s the right one for right now.

And at the end of the day if this none of this resonates with you, forget everything I just said 🙂 I’ve seen people get crazed about finding the perfect word for the new year and that’s definitely not what this is about.

 

Your turn: What’s your guiding word for 2017?