My 2013 word: Conscious

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

I'd been struggling with what to call my OLW for 2013.  I wanted to focus on living with INTENT, and so I thought of using the word intention, but that word seemed too broad.  I started thinking about what I hope to achieve from this - it is awareness and being more present in all aspects of my life.  In the end I chose the word CONSCIOUS, because in the end I want to be intentional as a result.

Conscious seems to marry the two ideas nicely:  Aware, intentional - the word 'Conscious' can be either one of these ideas, and can also represent both.

If I don't work toward things I want, I will never get them.  If I am not even taking time to clearly define what I want, I can't even get started!

One of the exercises I did recently, in thinking about my theme of being CONSCIOUS, was to think about what I wanted to do - who I want to BE. The following list reflects who I want to be:

- Live with grace
- Reflect
- Minimize waste in all forms
- Travel, a lot
- Always do new things
- Live lightly
- Be kind
- Give something to the bigger world
- Do the work (do it wrong, to start with, on purpose if you have to!)
- Persist (it will be hard, that's OK)
- Be thoughtful
- Eat well, and right
- Have a plan
- Be strong and healthy
- Keep a sense of wonder (look with fresh eyes)
- Don't judge, or be smug - ever.
- Bring only positive energy, ESPECIALLY to negative energy

And interspersed with those thoughts, as I captured them, some more specific behaviors that interest me, which might reflect those values:

- Bike to work
- Speak more than one language
- Grow and preserve food
- Play guitar
- Do yoga
- Meditate
- Run a 5K (be able to at any time)
- Craft (knit, sew, stitch, make)
- Become an artisan at making something related to food (pickles?)
- Know about nature - trees, plants, stars