The New Year

Each year I pick a word to focus on to try to improve my life.  This is not my idea.  The idea belongs to Mike Ascraft originator of One Word.  Instead of making a long list of new years resolutions which will be forgotten by February, Ascraft suggests focusing on just one word.  "...this process provides clarity taking all your big plans for life changes and narrowing them down into a single focus.  Just one word that centers on your character and creates a vision for your future."

I came across Ascraft's website one July.  I was immediately intrigued and decided not to wait until the first of the year but to begin immediately.  The word I chose was gratitude.  I was already into gratitude in a big way.  I had kept gratitude journals on and off for years.  And in the realm of self help, it was the only idea my oldest daughter Kate and I agreed on.  She considered all my other self help adventures to be pyscho babble.  She even gave me a book one Christmas parodying the whole genre.  It was called One Frog Can Make a Difference, Kermit's Guide to Life in the 90's. Very Funny.  I loved it. But she agreed that her friends who could grasp the idea of being grateful for what they had instead of whining about what they didn't have were much better off in life.  And even thought I thought I knew all about gratitude, focusing on the word for 6 months gave me new insights. 

The second word I chose was "imperfection", a concept much more difficult for me.  Like many people I have a self imposed perfectionistic streak.  For me it is an excuse to be lazy.  If I can't do something perfectly then I won't do it at all.  A good example is dieting.  If I don't have a perfect day, then I will just eat what ever I want because I've already blown it.  The concept, however, impregnates every part of my life.  My writing, my photography, my work as a psychiatric nurse, even motherhood.  I always thought I could and would be the perfect mother.  When I realized quite quickly that this was an impossible endeavor, instead of embracing my imperfection and trying to improve my skills to be the best mother I could be, I simply chastised my self for my failures, not helping anyone.  At some point during the year I came across a book written by Carol S. Dweck called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. The book explained years of banging my head against the wall striving for success and perfection.  A discussion for another blog post.

This year, when my oldest sister, Susan, reminded me to pick a word for the new year, the word patience popped into my head and wouldn't leave.  I have never been a patient person even as a child.  The late, great Carry Fisher once said:  "instant gratification is not quick enough,"  a mantra I've lived by most of my life.  And like perfection it permeates every aspect of my being and my life.  So this is my blog for the year: practicing patience.