The Beginning is Always Today

Some people love New Year’s - a chance to start over. An exciting moment in time that when the clock strikes midnight, and you are going to be a new person with a new resolve. Like a devout Catholic during Lent, many of us swear to “do more of this” or “do less of that” when January 1 is on the horizon.

But this year, we have the added benefit of a new decade. What has changed for you - or for all of us - since 2010? I know, for me, I was a completely different person - both emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually. I was in a different state (literally and metaphorically), and a different career. I can remember snapshots of 2010 and how I felt, or what I was experiencing, and if you had told me that this is where I would be, 10 years later, I probably would have fought you on it. (I fought a lot of people about a lot things back then).

A friend of a friend recently told me that she stopped making resolutions around New Year’s. Instead, she committed to a word for the year and used that word in her decisions throughout the year. So I began to think about what word would speak to me, and drive my decisions for 2020 - in work, love and health. That word, for me, was Root. I finally feel myself settling in my work and life; now its time to dig in and grow roots.

I have been putting off marketing for my book for months now. Yesterday, when I sat down to look over my author profile that was completed back in November, I felt a knot in my stomach. Of all the things I have done in my professional career, this was the most important to me. And if nobody but my parents bought the book, I was going to feel it more personally than I have felt anything else.

Then I remembered my word for 2020. To write a book has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember. It has been the biggest item on my bucket list since I was studying Creative Writing in the early 2000’s. If I am nothing else in this world, I am a writer. It helps my intellectual and emotional growth and it secures me to the world around me (much like… roots).

I encourage you to choose a word for 2020. Whether you Root, Pause, Laugh, Try or Play - may you have a happy and healthy New Year.