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How are all those resolutions coming along? Are you sticking to them?

This year, I decided to try something new. I decided on intention and one word for this year.

So many of us, whether it be January or September (some use the start of the school year to start anew), attempt to find ourselves, find our why, find our purpose, and statistically fall flat. Depending on the stats you look up, upwards of 80 percent of people abandon their resolutions by February.

Right now, I see many posts and books coming out about knowing your why. It means you understand the things you do, or better yet, it’s the reason you do the things you do. Knowing this “they” say is helping you achieve your passions.

I was one of those 80 percent of people who would give up the attempt to be a better version of myself shortly after the new year.

In 2021, I wanted to follow my passion and start writing. So I decided to stop with the resolutions bandwagon and focus on that.

I started writing about my grief journey four years ago after my husband passed. It was only on my social pages, and it was a way to help me process my thoughts. Then I joined social media grief groups, thinking my story would help other widows in their early stages of mourning.

After a while, I started to get so many comments about how my words helped them. How in that moment, they got up and went for a walk. That they decided to eat. Reading those words then helped me in my healing.

I thought to myself, my experience could help someone else.

For far too long, I have wanted to write my story. Not to journal, although I do journal, but to write my story of loss. I believe my experience can help others in those first days, months, years. Showing them the darkness won’t last forever became my why.

One day an Elephant Academy marketing email came into my inbox. I knew why I got the email. In those early days of my grieving, I found Elephant Journal on social media (social isn’t all bad), signed up for my two free reads, and got on their mailing list.

I read so many articles of inspiration. Ones on grief, single parenting, yoga, and those words spoke to me and kept me moving. Reading the email, I wondered if I could write for them? Nah—no way my words could do for someone what the words I had been reading would do for me. I just hit delete and moved on with my day.

The universe either knows what it is doing, or Elephant Journal marketing department does. I think it’s a bit of both because as I kept writing in my social groups, I kept getting these emails about the Elephant Academy.

One day I did it! I signed up for the academy.

I wanted to hone my writing skills and find my voice to help others just like those authors had helped me. This was my time to follow my passion for writing. I finally knew my why, and I started the course.

It was slow going to get into the groove of writing every day. Of course, my family and friends loved my articles, but it was the strangers who made an impression on my heart.

I ask you to remember what excites you and to focus on that. What gives hope to people?

How often do we get sucked into the abyss of—pick your social app? I know there are times I do, but however the algorithms work, and whatever “side” I am on, I find people out there trying to make lives better—doing their best to motivate us to become better versions of ourselves.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a lot wrong with social media, but there are so many individuals out in this massive world who might hear your words or relate to that product you want to develop, and at that moment, a shift can happen for you.

This new year, I decided to go against making the resolutions that had always set me up for failure and only choose a word of intention. I saw these quotes.

“An Intention is a chosen theme that allows you to create alignment in your life.” 

“Intention is nothing without action, but action is nothing without intention.” 

I choose focus as my word.

Having a word allows me to reflect daily on what I want to accomplish on any given day. I don’t want to constantly fail at a resolution and feel bad that I couldn’t stay with it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said: I am working out five times a week, meditating every day, journaling at night, shutting my phone down at bedtime, only not to follow through.

When I wake up, and in those minutes, I take stock of where I am physically and emotionally. I listen to what my soul is telling me. Doing this will give me a road map of what to focus on that day. If I slept great, I focus on a workout for that day. If I have grief bubbling up, I concentrate on slower movements or meditating and journaling my feelings surrounding the emotions. Instead of telling myself that I want to accomplish all these things, I get to choose what to focus on each day, giving me lightness.

By not putting so much pressure on myself, I am doing everything that fills my soul for that day.

What excites you? What are your passions? Maybe pay attention to those emails you get; you might sign up for that course that changes your life.

Go ahead, choose a word, and let me know.

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