The onset of a new year is often a time for reflection on the past and a renewal of efforts for future improvement. Perhaps you have seen the recent approach taken by those at My One Word and other similar sites. This idea is to focus on one word for the year, selecting a word that allows one to proactively address aspirations for improvement in the new year. This idea has become quite popular, as evidenced by the growth of the #OneWord hashtag on Twitter.
I thought about using this method of focusing on a single word for the year. Upon further reflection, however, I found this approach to be too limiting. After all, life has so many facets that it seemed awkward to select one word and then shoehorn all my other ideas and goals within that word. So instead I chose four words, setting my own pattern and approach to that idea.
Here are the words I selected:
Worship -- honoring my God and Creator with greater joy, reverence, and awe in all that I do, and being conscious about consistently recognizing God's grace and provision in my life.
Explore -- being willing to step outside my comfort zone in trying new cooking recipes, investigating new neighborhoods in the metropolitan area where I live, reading a wider variety of books, and identify new ways to better serve my family.
Reflect -- making the effort to visit other classrooms in my school to evaluate my own classroom strategies, embed a reflective process more intentionally with my own classes and in my own professional work, and identify successes and challenges in using the words I chose for this year as action words.
Write -- a commitment to more intentionally share what I am learning, how I am growing, and with what I am challenged with others, allowing God to use me to help all whom I meet, in person or through digital technology, with these thoughts when possible, but more importantly, provide me with the opportunity to use my writing as a tool for reflection.
So there are my words for 2017. Do you have a word or words that you selected? If so, what are those words? If not, what might your words be? How might you best honor the gifts God has given you during the coming year?
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