2021 One Word recap

At the beginning of January 2021, I chose One Word to focus on for the year. That word was Choices. My rationale was this:

The choices we make in life will determine what sort of experiences we’ll have in the future. What I choose to eat now is going to affect my health in the years to come. My decision to exercise or not is going to impact my physical well-being. How I treat relationships now will come back to reward or haunt me. The person I am today is based on the choices I made yesterday and the person I’ll be tomorrow is based on the choices I make today.

As in years past, the results of my success/failure are mixed. I tried to make better choices on my eating habits; making sure I was using unprocessed, fresh ingredients and staying away from white bread and other carbs. But, then there’s pasta…..I have simply no control when it comes to pasta. But, I did a better job of portion control. 

I failed epically (again) when it came to choosing to exercise more. A lot of the year was spent trying to rehab the bursitis in my left hip. Injections and PT exercises helped. I did lose some weight, but all that went out the window the end of September when crisis hit and I undid about everything I accomplished. So, now I get to start over.

I think I was fairly successful in choosing to keep my mouth shut in situations that had potential to become volatile. I was unsuccessful in not thinking the words I really wanted to say out loud. I think I did an excellent job choosing not to jump on the social media vitriol band wagon regarding the state of our country. Lord knows it was extremely difficult not to weigh in on the incompetence of our leaders. Based on last year’s and this year’s posts, it’s clear our society has become rude, mean, angry and extremely uncivil towards anyone with different opinions. Clearly, good choices are not being made by many people on both sides of the political spectrum. I’m tiring of all the discourtesy and incivility that is going on not only in social media but in the mainstream media as well. 

I tried to carefully pick and choose my words with in-person interactions…choosing instead to try and listen before opening my mouth. I did a lot of praying for the best words to use when situations became confrontational. There was only one relationship that went sour and that was not because of my words…rather it was because of the other person’s inability to let go of their resentment and blame-shifting. I tried to make things right but sometimes people only see what they want to see. 

I believe one of the driving motivations behind my actions come from this verse:

But the fruits of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. ~Galations 5:22-23

It wasn’t perfect but, overall, I’m happy I selected Choices as my One Word for 2021. It made me more conscious about my decisions and my motivations behind my choices. Hopefully, going into 2022 I will continue to try and choose wisely in the things I say and do.

Tune in soon to see what word I chose for 2022.