Three Words 2017

I have had two years in a row which really tested my strength and more importantly, my resiliency. I'm so done with that. I know I am strong and I know I am resilient, and I don't need to prove it to myself or to the world. What I do need to do is stop surviving and start thriving.

A reminder of my words in 2015 - Strength, Rebuild, Whole

And my words in 2016 (which I never posted) - Create, Rebuild, Challenge

There's a lot of growing and building and working in those words, and there was in those 2 years also.

I'm tired. So this year I'm going to rely on the things that help make me so resilient. I'm going to spend more time on the good things.

Words

Joy

Despite a challenging year in 2016 surrounded by lots of grief, I was generally a happy person. But this year I don't want to be happy despite shitty circumstances, so I'm going to focus on putting more joy into my life. I'm pretty grateful and make note of 3 things I am grateful for every day. This will continue. But I also plan to choose more places, times, experiences, even things that bring me Joy. Actively.

Intention

Which brings me to word two, Intention. This one is sort of a cheat because last year I started talking about intention a lot by the middle of the year and kept telling people it was a word I was using to guide my life. This year, I really mean it. I'm tired of letting things happen to me. I want to choose the things I do and the ways I spend my time and the people I am with. I don't want to look back on my year and think "I've been lucky to have such a great life." I want to look back and think "I created such a great life for myself."

Deepen

Deepen. This is a really different idea for me. I want to deepen the relationships I have with people. Some of it is about Joy and Intention. I love my friends and family and they bring me happiness so I want to choose to be with them more to get more happiness. But from another point of view it will be a challenge and a pushback against the year I've had. In 2016 I lost a number of people to death, many close, some even closer. At no point have I thought about breaking ties with people to suffer fewer losses, though I've joked with people about it. I know that is not the healthy response to grief, but I also know it can be a natural one. I'm not leaving it to chance. I'm going to actively work against building walls to keep myself safe. I want to deepen every relationship I have. I want to be more open and vulnerable. I want to trust more in the people around me and put more of my safety, security, and happiness in their hands.

In some ways I think my words for this year don't seem like a huge leap for me, but in other ways I think they are going to be really hard work.

Read - Word of 2013

I used to be the world's biggest bookworm. Nobody recognized my face because there was always a book in front of it. In fact, I used to read a book during my 20 minute walk to school every morning from 8 years old to 11 years old. Then I read on the bus for the rest of my teen years. I would go to bed at 9pm every night, and often read until 2 or 3 in the morning. My bookshelves still suffer under the weight of all my books, and I come home with new ones regularly.

But somewhere in the last 5 years I stopped reading books. Well, I didn't really stop completely, but there has been a significant slow down. I started to feel too busy to read. Not only that, for the last 3 or 4 years I've spent the better part of every day online, reading and writing. I've become so accustomed to reading online that all of my speed is there now.

Just the other night I read a 140+ page e-book in a couple of hours. And it's because I've gotten so good at filtering what I see on my screen. I use keywords, formatting and page breaks as cues on where to read. But that's just not reading.

I miss holding a book in my hands, turning pages and pouring over every page. I'm still a pretty quick reader with paper books, but I don't scan, I read every word (including footnotes).

I used 2012 to get back into reading. I started the year deciding I would join the #26in2012 group, read 26 books in one year, one every two weeks. Seemed completely doable. There were times I would read 3 or 4 books in a couple of weeks. But I just couldn't do it. Turns out I think every time I sit down to read a book that I am wasting time and could be doing something else. I don't like that feeling.

About midway through the year I decided to join a book club. I love it because we read non-fiction, my favourite type of book. It also becomes easier to take the time to read because I can justify it to myself as work when they are books about business or community. Plus I have the expectation from the rest of the group that I will finish the book. I still struggle with setting aside the time to read, but I think I did well this year.

In 2013 however, I plan to read way more. I've started a list of books to read. I still know that I learn more from reading a full book than I do from reading a blog post or article. And I learn best by reading, not by watching or listening. So I will take the momentum I've created in 2012 and push forward this year and read, learn and implement more.

*note - these aren't all the books I read this year they are just the ones I took pictures of. Some of them I haven't even started reading yet.

The best way to read!

The second best way to read!