New year, new you? The beginning of a new year offers many opportunities for new beginnings. Or at least encourages some time for introspection and reflection on the year just finished. But how many of us actually succeed in sticking to New Year’s resolutions?

I decided years ago that I wasn’t going to make myself settle on resolutions in one day. And since I’ve always worked in retail, the chance to breathe doesn’t usually arrive until after the new year begins. So I let myself have until the end of my birthday (or birthday weekend, as is sometimes the case) to take the time to reflect on the past year, as well as look ahead into what I want out of the new year. I’m lucky in that my birthday falls so close to the new year in the time traditionally allocated for new beginnings. For what is a birthday but the beginning of a new year of life?

When I turned thirty, I realized that I suck at keeping resolutions. And I found that I didn’t really care about being traditional and creating resolutions. But what I did realize in that year was that I was happiest when I was working towards a goal. And that setting goals and making plans to achieve those goals is what makes me who I am. I am a planner. However, I’ve learned that simply making plans isn’t enough to bring them to fruition. Plans require action. Wait, that’s not the fun part!

So what it took me a couple years to stumble upon the word of the year concept. I’m pretty sure it popped up in my feed on Pinterest, to be honest. But no matter where it came from, the concept of choosing a word to guide your year seemed like a brilliant idea to me! In 2017, I knew I wanted to travel internationally again. I’d even successfully started saving the money necessary to making that happen (a feat previously unheard of for me)! So it was no great leap for me to choose “explore” as my word of 2017. But something happened that year, something that I couldn’t have predicted. Seeing that word daily started to inspire me beyond simply traveling (and yes, I recognize that there is nothing simple about traveling). I started exploring new ideas, new habits, even new people! (I’m an introvert, so building new relationships takes serious effort and energy from me.) The concept of choosing a word to guide my year was successful, and I was hooked.

Last year (2018) I started out the year reading (as I invariable do) quite the selection of personal growth and minimalism books. One of my favorite books in that genre is Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I chose “essential” as my word for 2018, because I wanted to discover what is most important in my life and what makes me happy. Looking back on 2018, I feel like I stumbled quite a bit over the word I’d chosen to help guide my actions. There were times I was convinced I simply wasn’t strong enough to strive for the essential, because in choosing what is essential, one must also identify what is nonessential. Once something is acknowledged as nonessential the next step is to eliminate it. I’m sure I’m not alone in knowing that I have habits that are bad for me and yet not doing anything to stop. I actually thought my word for 2019 would be “eliminate”, to follow through where I stumbled in 2018. But I wasn’t ready to commit, so I posed the question to my friends and family on social media about what their words for 2019 were going to be. Their choices helped jump-start my process to discover the best word for me for 2019.

For a little background, I don’t work on my birthday. I feel like that is the one day out of the year where I should get to do what I want. I typically don’t even make plans on purpose to encourage myself to follow my whims and be spontaneous (something I’m not exactly known for). This year I had plans to do exactly two things: 1) wake up to the sound of ocean waves, and 2) have some cheese at the Tillamook Creamery. Strange combination, I know. I also had the firm expectation that I would choose my word for 2019 by the end of this weekend if it killed me. That sounds dramatic, but I was getting this tightness in my chest whenever I started to think of my word. Well, that, and the overwhelming urge to cry. Which are the two reactions I get when I’m pushing my feelings or thoughts aside and not addressing them. Healthy, right? At least I’m aware of it happening, which is half the battle. But back to the word choice. My process is lengthy (since it involves a dictionary and thesaurus, I won’t bore you with the details) but while reviewing my planner for the previous year, I came upon a quote I’d written down from a book I’d read last spring called The More of Less by Joshua Becker. In it another author, Patrick Rhone, is quoted from his own book, titled Enough.

“Enough comes from trying things out. It comes from challenging your preconceptions. It come from having less, trying more, then reducing to find out what is just right. It comes from letting go of your fear of less. It comes from letting go of the false security of more. It also comes from having more, losing it all, and finding out what need really is. Enough is hard work. To get there, one must let go of what-ifs, conjecture, assumptions, guesses, and half-truths. One must overcome fear, gluttony, self-doubt, and thoughts of grandeur. One must ask hard questions to find harder answers. … But, please keep in mind, even that changes. Just as the wire-walker must make slight adjustments to constantly changing conditions, so must you. The goal, then, is not to find what is, or will be, enough forever. That is impossible. The goal is to discover the tools and strategies you need to find what is enough for you right now and provide the flexibility to adjust as the conditions change.”

Patrick Rhone in Enough

Wow. Do you see why I simply had to choose “enough” as my word for 2019? It applies to such a diverse collection of situations and is quite the challenge for the year. But I will not forget that what I do is not who I am. Who I am is already enough.

May your 2019 be enough,

Ange 🙂