It’s a tradition followed by many people around the New Year to set a New Year Resolution. I’ve certainly been a fan of this tradition for many years; I followed through with some resolutions, failed with others.
About two years ago I came across the discussion that the New Year resolutions don’t actually work (and this year’ study showed that 25% are broken within the first week, 53% are broken within three months, and 92% are broken by the mid-end of the year). At the same time I also learned an alternative way of setting an intention for the coming year: The word of the Year.
You simply choose a Word to help you navigate your year. It helpes you to get clear and set a powerful intention and then get you focused on this intention and realign yourself with your goals throughout the year.
I’ve been using this tool for the last two years and seen quite amazing results. My 2010 Word of the year was Passion, and I wrote about what happened that year in my life in the guest post at Christine Kane’s blog.
My 2011 Word of the Year was “Listen”. And today I would like to share with you how this word affected my life and what that word meant to me this year.
“Listen” meant listen to my children. Really listen what they got to say. Slow down, put everything aside, kneel down to their level, be present, and listen. Listen
As a result I’ve been learning a lot from my children which I recently summarised here and here.
“Listen” meant listen to others: my colleagues, my PhD student, my husband, my mother… Being absolutely present, being aware of my body while listening – this really sharpens our attention and moves it away from wanting to react and respond. I’ve been learning to listen not to respond but to understand. This technique of listening with your whole body is beautifully described in Eckhart Tolle’s book The power of Now.
It’s been very rewarding. I have learned to become aware of my feelings and thoughts. I have also become aware of how much blame, complaining, criticism, and regret I have while listening and responding to the people who are close to me, including … myself. This awareness was the first step on the way of letting go of those negative feelings and replacing them with better once.
“Listen” meant listen to my body: forgiving myself, accepting myself and loving myself. It was not easy as I turned out to be full of self-criticism and blame. Out of this ongoing practice a video series was born called Heal Yourself and Grow.
Listening to my body also meant giving myself rest and recharge time, not pushing when the body says No. It had quite an amazing effect on me, I have not had a cold or any other illness since February 2011. This is quite amazing to me as I always (and I mean always) was susceptible to colds, and was ill every few weeks.
Being free from colds made me much more positive and productive in the year 2011, during which I accomplished many things I wanted to achieve.
“Listen” meant listen to my mentor. In February 2011 I read a blog post by Elaine Bailey on “Listen with an Intent to Understand” and in once month time I hired her as a life and business coach.
One day in May 2011 I shared with her that I want to be a life coach. She said “you ARE a coach”. I’ve listened, and started to imagine how it would feel like to be a coach. And within 3 weeks I got my first private client.
This then of course meant listening to my clients. I got to find out for the first time that listening to and coaching my private clients is one of the things I greatly enjoy. Being on the call with my clients is electrifying; it gives me energy rather than takes it from me. And the clients report back they love our skype calls.
“Listen” meant listen to the rules I made up for myself that were stopping me from growing and expanding. Letting go of those rules and writing new rules for myself was transformational to my whole work and life as I switched working part-time at Uni, took my children out of nursery to embrace unschooling 100%, and started my own business of productivity mentoring for people in academia.
“Listen” meant listen to nature. Throughout the year I focused on bringing my awareness to what I was part of, practicing what Eckhart Tolle describes as the Power of Now. This allowed me to be more awake & alive more often instead of just “getting over it” or viewing present moment as a means to an end.
“The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth, dwelling deeply in the present moment and feeling truly alive” (Thich Nhat Hanh) – this beautifully describes the essence of my year 2011. This was the year when I focused on being in the present moment. It was also the year I felt most alive in my whole adult life!…
Related Articles
Make 2012 your most productive year yet: 7 quick tips
How to catch an inspiration
Like this post? You will love getting my weekly Productivity Insights ezine!
Advertisement
