I love the start of a new year, it’s like opening a shiny new notebook and writing on the pages for the first time.
Being a bit of a list-aholic and a planner, I always like to set myself some New Year’s Resolutions, some targets for the year and most importantly to me, a word of the year.
A word of the year might sound a bit geeky if you don’t do it yourself but it’s actually a great way to set your focus for the year ahead and having a word of the year over the past few years has genuinely helped me to focus and achieve some of the things I wanted to achieve. My word isn’t a specific resolution but it does represent the way I want my year to unfold and it helps me to focus on achieving it throughout the year.
How did 2016 go?
Last year my word was happy and I made a big effort to focus on that as much as I could, making conscious decisions to make choices that made me happy. I actually wrote a list of all the things that I thought would make me happy and for the first half of the year, I worked my way through as many as I could. Everything went a bit wrong in the second half of the year as I was unwell for a few months and then recovering from an operation for the next few months. I’m not 100% better yet but I’m going back to work next week and I can’t wait to start getting back to being me again and continuing to work through my list.
I applied my word to our family life too by asking the kids to tell me the things that made them happy – no matter how small or how silly they thought they were. Even when I wasn’t feeling well enough to do things that made me happy, I tried to make sure that they still got the chance to although it didn’t always work out that way and I definitely need to re-focus on them a little more now that I’m back on my feet.
Mr Frugal bought me a new camera as a get well present and after saying I was going to for years, I finally started to learn to how to take photos out of the auto mode because I kept promised myself that I would and was always disappointed in myself when I didn’t make the effort. I joined Makelight which is a mix between amazing photography lessons, tips and ideas and a brilliant community of like-minded people and in doing that, I re-discovered my love of taking photos and that plays a huge part in making me happy.
I also discovered that I love creating things and although I’m not crafty in the slightest, I’ve really enjoyed doing some of the DIYs that Miss Frugal has wanted to do throughout the year. She mentioned that doing more things like this would make her happy when we talked about the things we would all like to do so we started doing having a day every month where we would make the things she came across on Pinterest and YouTube and it turned out that I enjoy it almost as much as she does.
Looking forward to 2017
Since 2016’s word of the year was going so well before it was rudely interrupted by illness, I considered using the same word again for 2017 but I decided on a new word as I already achieved so much of my happy goal for last year. I did want 017’s word to be a bit of a continuation of last years though so I went with this….
My 2017 word of the year is SHINE!
I want to continue to do things that will make me happy but I want to share my successes a little bit more with everyone as well as celebrate other people’s successes more when they have the courage to share them. Some people, myself included, have difficulty telling people when they’ve done something they’re proud of and usually just don’t bother even though they may want to shout it from the rooftops.
A good friend made me realise that successes should be shared and that they can be shared in ways that don’t come across as showing off. My success might inspire someone else to succeed just as your successes might inspire me more so we should all allow ourselves the chance to shine a little bit more – in all aspects of our life.
By allowing myself to shine a little more, I can put into practice some of the many ideas I have written down on my ‘One day I will….’ list which is filled with ideas of things that I want to do but always put off because I think I can’t.
I also want to encourage my children to shine even more brightly than they do already but I need to think of how to do that without being a pushy parent. Miss Frugal is still quite shy around new people but needs to start stepping out of her comfort zone as she gets older and Master Frugal needs a boost in his confidence so I’m working on that as we speak (I have a list ;-)).
Do you have a word of the year?
Don’t miss out on future posts like this – receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also find me on BlogLovin, Yummly and Networked Blogs and I’d love to see you over on my Facebook page and on Instagram.
