One Little Word

For the past several years I've followed a blog by Ali Edwards, a scrapbooking "professional" who designs supplies related to memory keeping.  Each January she talks about a project she embarks on called "One Little Word" (known as OLW in her blogging community).  The idea is to pick oneword for the year that will be your underlying "theme."  Sort of a resolution, but more just a direction you want to follow in achieving the goals you set out for yourself.  I've never really thought much about it, but for some reason this year it caught my attention, and I decided to bring the whole family along on my OLW trip.  In late December I explained the concept to them (this was met with snickers and eye rolling from the kids), and I told them that one night before New Year's we were going to sit down and share our one little words.  I pondered and pondered what mine would be, and Lawrence said he was thinking too, but we weren't going to share any of our ideas until New Year's.  

After dinner on December 30th I had each of us write down and share our OLW.  Again, some snickering and eye rolling, but I would not be deterred!  We are going to set and achieve some intentional goals this year or die trying!  I gave everyone a Project Life card to write their word on with a brief sound byte about what it meant to them.  

Our Little Words

Here are the words we chose:

Jill:  My OLW for 2014 is CHOOSE.  I thought and thought about what I wanted my word to be, but what I really want at the end of each day is to have chosen well.  Many things in life are out of my control, but I make many choices each day that impact my life both here and for eternity, and I want to be more intentional this year about what those choices are. 

Lawrence:  His OLW for 2014 is PEACE.  He had a somewhat stressful year last year, and he wasn't always happy about how he managed it.  This year he is striving for peace among the chaos of a busy life.

Sarah:  Her OLW for this year is POSITIVITY.  We are on Sarah a lot about complaining and being negative.  We all need to sound off sometimes, and of course you need a safe place to let your guard down and vent, but negativity can become a lifelong habit that's hard to break.  She wants to work this year on seeing and responding to things in a different light (or maybe she just knew I would like this word??).

John:  His word made us all laugh.  He chose THINK.  He says he thinks a lot of his day to day problems are caused by not thinking before he acts and speaks (that's actually a problem for the entire human race!).  He wants to think this year before he acts.  

The next day I went onto Etsy and ordered some trinkets to help us each remember our OLW.  I ordered bracelets for John, Sarah and I, and a keychain for Lawrence (I knew he wouldn't wear a bracelet, but I wanted it to be something he might still see every day).  They arrived this week, and I put them on everyone's plate before dinner.  

OLW Swag

 Will the OLW project make a difference in our lives this year?  Only time will tell.  If anything, the exercise of picking our OLWs caused us each to reflect on where we would like to have some personal growth, which is always a good thing.  Only God knows what is in store for us this year, and we all know that life is something that happens while we're making other plans, but I hope we value our days and spend them well.  Happy New Year!