December 31, 2024 – #OneWord2025

I’m not sure if I am about “catching up” on all of the weekly blogs posts I missed over the last few months, nor am I about blogging too regularly such that I would attempt a daily blog (again). I do like the idea, and have done in past, blogging when I feel inspired. Today is that day, despite all of the emails I need to open and some work I need (or would like) to do before 2024 ends. Here we go!!

One of the things I would like to do each year is to choose “one-word” for the year. I started doing this more than a decade ago. It was something that folks on Twitter (when #bcedchat was a thing… LOL) and I found over time that choosing one-word was so much better than making New Year Resolutions. More often than not, I would not meet any of my resolutions and feel very disappointed.

Then I shifted to my focus to One-Word. At first, I would choose words that were somewhat “work-related” or something that I “should do.” I’m not sure if this makes sense, but I would not realize the outcomes or results of those words until years later. What I learned was, when focusing on one-word, that’s what you focus on for the year. Last year, I chose my #OneWord2024 to be HAPPY.

Choosing HAPPY as my one-word was out of the ordinary for me. Unlike the other words I have chosen in the past, this word focused on the present. It had not expectations or requirements for productivity. I chose this word because I wanted to be happy. I spent several years blogging about “what’s important to me” during and post-pandemic, and what I learned is, I love being happy. 🙂

My #OneWord 2024 helped me to self-assess and evaluate what I was doing and it was important to me to engage in anything and everything that made me HAPPY. And, if it didn’t make me happy, I was able to “let it go.” I learned about my value, my values, and my boundaries. The only person who could make me happy was ME. That’s it. And guess what? I am happy. 2024 was AMAZING!!

So, what’s my #OneWord2025? At first, I thought it would be LOVE. Love who I am, love where I am, and love what I do. Strangely, that’s all true… ALREADY!! My friend gave me a set of “Be the Change” cards years ago, and I pulled one out a card just before writing this blog post, hence the inspiration. The word I pulled out was JOY. Ahhh… it just felt right. Voila. My #OneWord2025 is JOY.