I’m not one to make resolutions because I never keep them.  

But, I keep seeing people in some of my Facebook groups mention having a word for the year instead of a resolution.  I guess, it’s sort of like a resolution, but it’s meant to be one word that has meaning that you want to focus on for the year. 

In my groups, I’ve seen people use words like “peace”, “empower”, “balance”, “strength”.  Everyone has their own reasons for these words; whether they want to find a work-life balance, or take more time to relax, or become stronger.  Most people say that the word just comes to them; it’s obvious, it’s not something that you really need to think about a lot.  Everyone has something that they want to improve or need to work on to try and make their lives better.  

For me, I need to “simplify”. 

Life is crazy and 2017 is only bound to be crazier.  Between trying to plan a wedding, needing to find a new counseling position for next year (which I don’t think I mentioned here, but we can keep that as a story for another day – just roll with me for now), and just life in general; it can be pretty overwhelming. I’ve already had a few moments in the past month or so where I’m just like “OMG what the hell am I even doing?” Because there is just so much. 

And yes, I stil have my planners. 

But it’s not a logistical question like “where do I need to be at 5:00pm on Wednesday?”  It’s a “there is so much I need to do and I don’t know where to start”. 

There are a lot of balls in play and I want to make sure I do what I need to for all of them without driving myself crazy.  It may mean that I need to cut back on some activities, it may mean that I need to be more upfront and direct and not beat around the bush to get what I want.  It may also mean that I need to get rid of unimportant things.  

I don’t fully know what it means, and that’s okay. 

But I know I need to get back to basics in a lot of ways.  I’ve already started cleaning out closets and getting rid of things I never use/wear/need because all it’s doing is cluttering up my house and making me spend time on it and I don’t have that kind of time these days. 

I’ve decided to focus on four main areas to “simplify”: work stuff, wedding, home stuff, and finances.  I know those are the areas of my life that need the most simplifying and attention in the next year, I’m still trying to figure out the how’s and what’s of those things, but those are definitely the top categories.  

Like, I’ve said before, I love this blog because it holds me accountable, so I’m going to lay out my plans here for each category in the next couple of weeks.  Maybe it will inspire some of you to simplify some areas of your life or to pick a word that would be a good focus for your 2017.  As I said, everyone has areas to improve on; no one is perfect. 

Choose an area that you want to improve.  One word that would shape your 2017. 

What word did you choose?