How My Words of the Year are Making an Impact

On January 2nd, I shared in a LinkedIn post my anchor words for the year and why.  Here’s what I shared for context:

My Anchor Words for 2024

We spend a lot of time making decisions each day.  Last year, I identified three words to guide me in my decision-making: joy, intentional, and brave.  Each day, I wrote an affirmation about how I wanted each of those words to mean for me that day.  Since it served me well in 2023, I’ve continued my new tradition.

For 2024, my three words are:  Want, Fun, and Simple.  Here’s how I see these three words guiding me as I make decisions:

WANT:  Do I want to do this?  What do I want to do? 

This is my work toward moving away from Should.

FUN:  Will this be fun? How can I make this feel fun? 

This is my focus on enjoying where, on what, and with whom I spend my time.

SIMPLE:  How can I simplify what’s already in my life?  How can I keep this activity simple?  What’s the simplest next step?

This is me working on not over-thinking or planning.

My intention is that these words will help me as I focus on who I want to be, how I want to feel, and what I want to do in 2024.

Fast forward six months, and I’m still writing a statement about what each of these statements means for me in the context of the day.  

Sometimes it’s a reminder of my role in the words.  

Sometimes it’s an affirmation.

WANT has evolved to mostly be focused on me creating the life I WANT.

FUN is one that I’ve struggled with, understanding what I find fun at this point in my life.  I shared some key insights on this topic in an April blog post that included insights from Catherine Price that have helped me dive deeper into this space.

SIMPLE now tends to focus on a few areas: simple vs. complex, simple vs. hard, and simple vs. a lot. This is applied to the things and experiences I have in my life, how I define the work I do, and how I look at the effort I’m going to put in.

As we finish the first half of the year, it’s a good time to evaluate how you are feeling about your year and what you want to start, stop, or continue.

If you’re looking for inspiration in mapping out your success measures and habits for the year, download this tool. Reach out if you need help with it.