The ONE WORD That Will Change Your Life

This time of the year, most of us are losing steam. We started the shiny New Year with a fresh sense of purpose and adventure and we set out to create a whole new life for ourselves. We made resolutions to lose weight, work out and improve our lives in some new way… now, over a month into the new year, we look around and wonder “What happened?” We are still fat, we have only made it to the gym twice and our job still sucks. It may seem hopeless.

However, it is NOT hopeless. We need to check out disappointment at the door and examine why we failed. Failure is always an opportunity. We must use it as an opening for real change; and REAL CHANGE doesn’t come from a new year’s
resolution. REAL CHANGE comes from consistency. It comes from taking something on and winning and losing, day-in and day-out. When we win, we celebrate; when we lose, we learn from it.

Over the years of coaching hundreds of clients, I have found that for most of us, resolutions don’t work. They are too long-term, too fleeting, too easily tossed aside. I believe that it is much more effective to consider the bigger picture: who are you? What are you committed to producing in your life? Where do you want to be a year from now? Look at these questions and look for ONE WORD. One word that is a quality, a description, an impetus… that if you were being that one word all year long, you would naturally achieve the results you were committed to achieving. If you were BEING your word, you would HAVE the things you wanted in your life. This one word will change your life.

My word this year is AWAKE. I want to be awake in my life. I want to be intentional and make choices that are consistent with who I say I am and what I say I am committed to. I want to be more patient and loving with my family. I want to eat healthy and organically, conscious of what “I’m voting for with my fork.” I want to cause the quality of my life and my free time. I want to improve in my hobbies. I want to be AWAKE to the little things in my life–the moments that pass by unnoticed. I have created a ritual to center myself in this intention every day. Every morning, before I get out of bed, I read a note I keep at my bedside. I pray/meditate on it. I consider how it might look as my day unfolds. I center my attention fully on this intention. The act of focusing on being “awake” for 10 minutes every morning is changing my life. It is not changing my life because I am getting really good at being awake… on the contrary. It is changing my life because I am getting really good at failing. I am beginning to distinguish all of the places I am fully asleep at the wheel of my life… but this is the first step. Distinguishing your failure is ALWAYS the first step to success.

What will your ONE WORD be this year? I know, the new year is not new anymore… the freshness is not automatic. So what?!. Start over. Begin again. Continue to fail until you succeed.

CALL TO ACTION:  Write a list of things you want to do, be or have this year. Notice a consistent theme in all these things. What ONE WORD, if you were being it, would produce those results in your life this year? Take it on.