Focus Word For 2016

Our family loves to have a focus word for the year. It is something that we started 3 years ago and we are really liking this family tradition. It helps act as a compass, or a reminder throughout the year. We will ask each other (or ourselves) if whatever decision we are making will keep us in line with that focus word. (I confess every once in awhile I can be kind of annoying about it “is that donut in line with “purposeful” living?” sorry hubs) haha. Having a focus word can help you get through the hard times as well. When you are unable to check items of your goal sheet or to-do list, you can still make decisions in-line with your focus word. Take it from me, it has gotten us through some hardships and helped us stay the course. Seeing the bigger picture. (We also say a lot of prayers).

I usually start thinking about what the focus word will be a few months before the end of the year- usually about my birthday at the end of October because that marks kind of a “new year” for me. So it gets my wheels going. By the time we sit down as a family to decide on a word it’s pretty clear what a good word will be. Each family is different and each year is different. We like to brainstorm and pray and vote on the word that we seem to be drawn to. We take the first weekend of the New Year and use printables like these to map things out. I like to keep a copy of our family goals, bucket list for the year and focus word in our family planner.

Whether you have prayed about it, felt that fate was pushing you towards it because it just keeps popping up or it is a positive affirmation of the energy you are hoping to attract the next year, you will know when you have the right word. Plus guess what- it’s not a hard fast rule- you can change it if you need to because- IT’S YOUR LIFE! I have seen in my own life, the lives of close friends and family as well as during my years as a therapist that so many of us are stuck in a self constructed idea of what “should be”, an imaginary box of how we see thing or rules we have set. Rules and a standard we hold ourselves too are great but they can also be limiting. How many times have we had a melt down because a family dinner didn’t go the way we had envisioned? Or the fact that the reality of our blended family doesn’t align with the one we grew up with. How much easier would our lives be if we could just move past that. For instance all your life you’ve been told that successful people get up early. Fact is, you aren’t a morning person and do your best work late at night? Then construct your life to embrace that rather than trying to fit yourself into the box that you should be getting up early, or thinner, or celebrating Christmas on Dec 25^th. Or whatever it may be, the list goes on. Once again, I digress.

Some of our past focus words have been:

2011 – REGENERATE (This was the first year I had a semblance of health back, I was able to work again full time and I really put in the time needed to regenerate my career, as well as learning to regenerate my health. It was like the year of the Phoenix for me! Which ironically it was also the year of the fire in which I lost all my earthly possessions, again regenerating from the ashes).

2012 – FAITH (I had to exercise my faith this entire year. I truly had to walk by faith this year and I was immensely blessed, but not without my actions first).

2013 – FOUNDATION (We chose to create a foundation for our life and our future, very much like the children’s song “the wise man built his house upon the rock” we sang this throughout the year as we patiently laid a solid foundation for the rest of our lives).

2014 – GROWTH (Our goal was to grow our family, grow my husbands career and grow our experiences. Since we were patient and laid the foundation first we were able to have a baby boy and my husband passed his boards! Within a few weeks of each other! We also ventured out of state alone and grew our circle of friend).

2015 – PURPOSEFUL (Everything we did this year was extremely purposeful. The moves, the visits, the financial decisions, the food we ate, the career choices we made).

Focus word for 2016 is: BUILD

I (we) chose BUILD because there is a lot of building going on in our life this year!

Building our home (I hope you will all join me as I chronicle this adventure). Some of the trees have been cleared now and they have leveled it, so now we have a nice muddy lot overlooking the lake. That made for a lot of fun this past weekend with a toddler in white shoes 😉 I can’t wait to put some trees- BACK in.

Building relationships in our new community. After 6 moves cross country in 2 years I am really looking forward to being settled in one place and putting down roots. I am excited about the moms I have already met in our new neighborhood, the awesome blog society that exists and Charleston Fashion Week!

My smooshy baby has begun really loving legos so I am foreseeing a lot of lego building this next year.

Building our blog- in fact, we are going to a Build Your Blog Conference in February!

Building my skills in photography, coding and web design… there is SO much to learn and I have a looooong way to go! Thank you for bearing with me!

Building muscles! Join me in completing my 2nd Lean Body Challenge! I have a lot to say about how great this program is but I will save that for a future post. But check it out! Jamie Eason is da bomb!

Hubs will be building his career- he is working on a speciality in orthopedics above and beyond his doctorate so that is going to be A LOT of work but really awesome for him. It will take several years to complete but this is the year he will be starting.

Building our family??? SURPRISE mom, if you are reading this. Haha! Depending on my health and how things go this may or may not happen this year. We are waiting on some tests and monitoring things. I am not getting any younger but I also love where we are at too so I am okay either way. We will see. 😉

I find this practice to be very powerful, yet simple to implement. It works whether you are the resolution setting type of person or not. Don’t get me wrong, while celebrating milestones, having a vision board, a personal or family mission statement, making SMART(ER) goals, or holding yourself accountable are all components of success, (and we are going to get to those, using our focus word and lots of research) we have learned that by also choosing a focus word for the year it helps the law of attraction work in your behalf as well as making the goals and visions for your life easier to… build. 😉

Join us as we continue with our goal achievement series this month! Let’s make 2016 a great year! Have you ever done a focus word? What is your word or your goals for this year?

XOXO- M&D