One little word

One Little Word is a project to choose a word to live by or focus on for the year ahead.  Most people do it on the calendar year but I do it on my birth year.  

My choices for the last few years can be found HERE

Most often I have made, or had made for me,  a visual representation of the word which I put in a highly visible spot to be my fairly constant reminder to live out the word.

Lovers of irony will enjoy the fact that for last years word "witness" I did not make any such visible sign to witness!  Ha!  I am not unhappy with how I managed to live in "witness" to others, to my own life, in my faith... But I could have used a visual reminder from time to time.

Sometimes the word is hard to settle on and other times it is just there waiting to be given a chance to light the way.

This year it was somewhere in the middle.  

I went around it a few times.  

But I kept being drawn back to it.

In this 6th edition of One Little Word I have chosen the word COURAGE

It seems somewhat unoriginal given the hours I have spent in the company of some great women writers this past year who all have shone a spotlight on the critical importance of COURAGE in living an authentic, creative, vulnerable life. As a wife, a mother, a daughter, sister, friend, leader, activist, visionary.

I hesitate to put myself out there in pursuit of living a courageous life but I am also increasingly dissatisfied with anything less.

I am tired of second guessing myself based on what others may or may not think/like/approve of.  

I am done with settling for my current way of being / living  / leading as being the only way.

I am out of energy for the endless internal discourse of anxiety and "not good enough".

I am tired of silencing my truth for the comfort of others.

Am I ready to live with COURAGE? 



I sure hope so.  I will lean on the greatness of Glennon Doyle, Brene Brown , Elizabeth Gilbert and Shonda Rhimes and stand on their shoulders and act courageous until I am actually courageous.

This is no small thing.  But the time is right for me.  This is the year to have COURAGE.

Now to make myself a visual reminder so I don't chicken out of this tomorrow!