The great unveiling. For the last five years, I’ve chosen a word for the year ahead in lieu of making the traditional New Year’s Resolutions. For a full origin story, you can see my post this time last year on Create . . . and my subsequent reflection two days ago on how my year of Create turned out. Here are the spark notes: resolutions never really worked for me. I’ve had a lot more success choosing how I want to feel and who I want to be and letting the pieces fall into place.
When I chose Rhythm as my word in 2018, I didn’t know that would mean meditating every day for a year (I had started with a goal of 90 days), joining a volleyball team, going to regular group fitness classes, and getting serious about my health. I just knew I wanted to create more stability and routine in my life after a rough couple of years. Having that word helped me consciously make choices in line with that intention, and ultimately made a crucial impact on my life.
This year I selected the word Strength.
This wasn’t an easy choice for me. People have been asking for a couple of months now what my word would be for 2020 and truthfully I had no idea. I was enjoying my current word (Create) so much that it was hard to think about stepping away from that and into something else. And Create, once I found it, seemed so obvious. It was the right time.
In some ways, I feel like I’m on the precipice of change in my life. New opportunities for me to contribute in my career. A new place with my writing. A growing desire to be North again and start a family. Yet in other ways, I feel like I am more rooted than ever where I am. I am truly uncertain about what lies ahead this year. Will it be one of transformation or stability or something less predictable?
So I’ve been unsure which word to select that captures the right intention. Then, a couple of weeks ago, without really thinking about it at all, I was walking and the word ‘strong’ dropped into my head. I don’t know where it came from but I took that as a sign to pay attention. Was this the word? What did that mean? I sat on it until this past weekend, ready to spend some meaningful time thinking and journaling this out.
As I put it myself at the beginning of my notes . . . let’s pressure test this.
Instead of starting with what ‘strong’ meant to me, I brainstormed how I wanted to feel and what I knew I wanted to do this next year. My notes included:
- Write. Polish Jack’s story and put it out into the world with my best effort. Write something new.
- Find some direction, in both my career and my geography so I can end this next year a little more certain.
- Run. And run distance if I can. Focus on energy, endurance, & muscle (over weight loss and calorie counting). Build healthy self-care routines to take care of my body.
- Maintain deep friendships and deepen others.
- Keep reading. Lots of books.
- A 3-year meditation streak would be awesome.
- I want to save money so I’m prepared for any future.
- I want to live in my values: I am brave, I show up, I move forward.
After completing that reflection I wrote down a list of any other words that came into my head as potential themes:
- Strong/Strength
- Direction
- Best Self
- Endurance
- Repeat
- Show Up
- Present
- Magic
- Resilient
- Elasticity
Then I took a deep breath and listened. Strength. The word was Strength.
A quick note on Strength over Strong: In the end, I went with the noun over the adjective. Rather than ‘be strong’ or saying ‘I am strong’ (both fine in their own right), I want to ‘build strength’ or ‘find strength’. I wanted something that felt part of me but not all of me. Does that make sense? Like it’s a friendship I can bolster rather than a descriptor of who I am. Maybe there’s no difference at all. Maybe I just liked how this version of the word sounded.
I wrote down the word in the middle of blank page in my notebook and circled it. Then I created five bubbles around it 1) Physical – Run/muscle 2) Creative – Write a new book 3) Career Effort – Build new work opportunities 4) Resilience – Polish & push out Jack’s story 5) Inner – Hold routines: meditate, reading, blogging.
I am brave. I show up. I move forward. In 2020, the first year of this new decade, I’m going to focus on my strength. The strength to put my writing out in the world. The strength to start and complete something new. The strength to build new roads in my career and weather difficult choices. The strength to live my values and be present in my life while creating a foundation for the future. The strength in my body — muscle and endurance and energy over weight loss. The strength of discipline and compassion needed to reach these goals.
The strength to ask myself the hard questions and ask for others’ help when I need it. The strength to be me, completely, aspiring to be the best version of myself. The strength to forgive and love myself when I fall short. The strength to change.
My word for 2020 is Strength.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Avatar (one of my favorite and most personally influential shows, that hit me like a lightning bolt after I chose this word:
In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength.
-Uncle Iroh
Though I’ve laid out some specific goals, I’m not sure what this year will bring or how my word will contribute. But if I’ve learned anything from this practice, I know that it will in ways I don’t see coming. Here’s to 2020!
With Love,
Natalie