2016 – The Year of Choosing Wisely

My word for 2016 came to me very early in 2015. I was doing one of my One Little Word exercises, maybe the one for June, where Ali asked if there are any companion words that were coming up. I wrote down my core desired feeling words for 2015 but then I wrote down that the word “choose” kept calling to me so I had to note it. And then it wouldn’t leave. I usually keep a list throughout the year to see what words call to me and what I might want to pick. Here’s the list I made for 2016:

2016

• joy
• now
• verse
• shift
• equanimity
• learn
• go
• magic
• seek
• core
• rest
• be
• do
• adventure
• choice
• step
• yes
• circle
• forward
• lucky
• simple
• change
• color
• begin
• beginner
• choose!!

Sure all of these speak to me in some way or another but none of them speak to me the way choose does. My hope is that just like brave propelled me forward immensely this year, I want choose to remind me of who I already am. What I already can do. How life is a result of my choices. How when things happen, I have a choice in what I make it mean. How I choose to respond. I don’t want my life to feel like it’s happening to me. I want to be aware that at any moment there are a collection of choices that are always available to me and I get to choose which one to do/say/feel. I believe this perspective change is the single biggest impact I can have on my life. It has the power to fundamentally shift my life. And I want this. I want to remember the power my choices. I want to choose to respond and not react to my life.

Here are some specific things CHOOSE is about for me:

• I choose kindness: More about this tomorrow but it’s important. I want to be kind to me. I want to be kind to others. I want to choose kindness over winning, being right, making a point, etc. I just want to be kind. I know that when I choose kind over anything else, things always feel right to me. I sleep better. I live better.
• I choose gratitude: My life is amazing. I am so lucky on so many levels and I know this all the way down to my bones. Some mornings, I look at my life and I am amazed at all of it. I want to remember this every day. I am blessed. I am lucky. I want to choose gratitude.
• I choose joy: It’s easy for me to choose to be scared, to be anxious, worried, sad. I don’t want to hug these feelings. I know that joy is infectious and joy starts the circle of good. And I know that joy is a choice.
• I choose brave: Brave has served me so well. I am so proud of all I’ve done in 2015. I want to continue to choose brave in 2016. I know it’s my best companion.
• I choose equanimity: I want to choose to respond. I want to choose the calm. I want to choose to be level-headed. I want to stop screaming. I can do this. I know I can.
• I choose health: I want to take care of myself. I want to make some major fundamental changes in my life. In my diet and in my body. I want this to be the year where there are shifts and not incremental changes.
• I choose adventure: I travel for work. I want to take adventures with my family. I want to go on adventures alone. I want to go on little adventures. Big adventures. I want to define what adventure means for me.
• I choose rest: 2016 will be a year of changes in our life. Hopefully good ones, but either way. I choose to be kind to myself through all this. I choose to rest when I need to. To give myself the space I need to make it all work for me.
• I choose growth: I value spending time learning. Teaching my kids. I choose to prioritize this. To make the time for it. For me and for them. For us as a family.
• I choose me: I choose to honor who I am. To be okay with being me. Scratch that. To love being me. To fully embrace myself just as I am. I deeply believe that change is only possible from a place of full acceptance. And I am so ready to come home to myself.

So here we are. Some of the many ways I hope choose will serve me this year. If it’s half as powerful as brave was, this will be a knockout year.

Here’s to choosing wisely in 2016.