One Little Word 2017

One Little Word. 

Last year (Nov. 2015), towards the holiday season, many of the Instagram accounts I followed in the planner community started talking about their OLW, or One Little Word. Curious, I googled the idea, and found Ali's website. I ended up paying to join her OLW online class. 

The idea is that one word can make a huge change. The premise is that you choose a word to focus on for that year and you focus on that word. Sounds simple. It is, really. Why pay for a class? Ali gives you prompts to help you think about, reflect on, and immerse yourself in the word you choose. Many people who join the class scrapbook their monthly reflections. Others blog about them. Some complete the prompts digitally, some in their head, and some on Facebook. People can find others with the same word via the community posts. Mostly, people find community. 

Last year (2016) I chose the word Trust. 

It was hard for me. 

Not the prompts. Though I did end up not completing the majority of them. (I got behind in May, and never caught back up). 

Choosing that word was hard. Admitting that it was something I needed to work on was hard. It's still hard typing it. But that's part of why I chose that word. I need to trust that it's ok. 

I chose Trust because I needed to learn to trust in myself, in society, in friends, in family, in God's plan, in the universe. I needed to learn how to be ok with things that weren't going the way they were supposed to. I needed to learn that it was ok to admit my faults, to show them, to be vulnerable. 

Despite the fact that I didn't really do the prompts, I still took the word to heart all year. 

I would remind myself that I needed to trust. I incorporated the word into my reflections, mullings, and prayers. 

I showed my weakness to my family and I confronted my fears by seeing a doctor about anxiety. 

I joined (multiple) healthy/running/lifestyle groups on Facebook and tried to post honestly. 

I did things I wanted to, and trusted that everything would work out. 

And they did. Mostly. 

Can we really ask for more than mostly? 

⇢

I'm starting again. 

This year my word is Listen.

I want to focus on listening. To others, yes. I know I'm self centered. But (being self-centered, and all...) mostly I want to learn to listen to me. 

I want to start listening more to my gut. To what my body is telling me it needs/wants. I want to listen to my heart. I've always been "the good one." There's never been a time in my life where I didn't do the right thing, or what I was supposed to be doing. Very rarely have I ever even broken rules, and those I did were the expected norms for people of those ages to break. But I'm tired of doing every thing right and still ending up not happy. 

Now, I know, part of that is a generational thing. Millennials were raised to believe happiness was tangible, not self-made, yada yada yada (I wrote about it on my old blog. You can find it in the archives)... But still. 

Some things I've done already that aren't the expected include getting tattoos and buying skis. Honestly, it's nothing life-changing. It's more why-the-hell-not. But it made me happy. 

My tattoos kind of feed into this idea too. They are reminders to myself. Que sera, sera. What will be, will be. And Follow Your Arrow, from the song by Kacey Musgraves. 

I came up with my word while sitting on a ski lift on January 2nd, at Donner Pass. 

I was listening to the sounds of the forest, thinking about how I disliked skiing with music playing. The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

So here's to 2017. Listen.

January's prompt includes finding a quote to go with your word. I found a bunch I liked, but the above was my favorite so far. 

Below are some photos of my 2016 OLW: 

First page.

January prompt cards.

February's prompt was a collage. I like collages. I had fun making this.

I think this was April's prompt. Leave a bunch of sticky notes lying around with "What does (word) mean to you?" and other similar things and write your answer down all month long. Compile at the end. It's the last prompt I did.

March's was something to do with tracking a habit, but I didn't do it.

Here are my January prompts for 2017 OLW:

Front page. 

January prompt cards.

Quotes page.

Here are my tattoos!

And this poem kept popping into my head while I was working on my prompts today, so I'll leave you with one of my favorite authors. 

[Side note: HolyCrapLiz decided her OLW this year was Cranberry. I'm holding her to it. More to follow]