One Little Word 2014: Commit

commit

"Commitment means staying loyal to what you said you were going to do 

long after the mood you said it in has left you."  --Trent Shelton

Hi Friends!

I am completely excited and inspired by my One Little Word choice for 2014:  commit.  This is my fourth year participating in Ali Edward's One Little Word adventure, and I am a firm believer that one word can change an entire year.  In the past I have chosen "balance", "nourish", and "less" as my words.  These were words that I focused on and reflected upon as I went about my daily life.  I had some success (& some failures) with each of these words, but without a doubt, my year was different as a result of having chosen that word to focus on.  As in the past, I had no problem choosing this year's word.  "Commit" started calling to me about the middle of last November.  

commit 
1. give entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause.
2. to perform;  to do
3. to put (onself) under a particular obligation
4. pledged to do, or to support, something
5. to say that (someone or something) will definitely do something;  to make (someone or something) obligated to do something.

Synonyms:  accomplish, achieve, bring off, carry off, carry out, do, execute, follow through (with), fulfill, make

Here's the truth:  I have absolutely no problem getting excited about new projects and goals.  I love them!  I adore & crave the feeling of anticipation I experience when I'm on to my "next big thing."  In the sparkle of newness, I go all-in.  I completely submerge myself.  The problem comes when the sparkle of newness starts to dull. Instead of pushing through, I tend to search for the new next big thing.  I'm not trying to beat myself up here, but I need to be honest:  this trait of mine is not good.  There is something to be said about staying committed.  I want to be the person who keeps at it, the one who is true to my word.  I hate looking back at things and wondering, "why did I stop doing that?" or "why didn't I stay true to that promise?"  I won't go into a long list of examples, but I will point out that you can find plenty of them right here on my blog. Why, if you look back to last year, you'll notice that I only made it to April on posting my monthly goals for last year's One Little Word, "less."  April!?!  That's not even halfway through the year!  

This year I am going to focus on 4 areas of commitment:  family, health, budget, creativity.  I will set simple goals in each of these areas EACH MONTH OF 2014 and then report back on my success and failures for the month. Sometimes the goals will stay the same from month-to-month, sometimes they will change.  As tough as I know this year is going to be with a word like "commit," it will certainly be easy to measure my success.  Being committed is black and white.  Was I "in" or "out"?  There is no "sort of" with "commit."  

So, without further ado, here are January's Goals:

Family: 
1.   Teach each child how to prepare one dinner per week.  John and I talk about this all the time--we want our kids to share in the meal prep duties and feel confident that when we send them out into the world, they will be able to prepare nutritious meals for themselves.
2.  No screen time when the kids are home.  No vegging out on the computer or my phone if they are home.  We want to play games and cards and interact with them while we still have time.  The clock is ticking.  Emily leaves for college in the fall.  My online world is simply not as important as my real life world.
3.  Call my parents at least once a week.  (I love my parents, but hate talking on the phone.)

Health:
1.  Go to CrossFit at least 3 times per week.  (This should be easy)
2.  Swim at least 3 times per week.  (This will be harder)
3.  No processed food.  If it comes pre-made in a package, it shouldn't go in my mouth.  (I've done this before, and I know I can do it, but this is incredibly hard for me).

Budget:
1.  Record all expenditures.
2.  Finish the month on budget.

Creativity:
1.  Finish my December Daily (This shouldn't be hard)
2.  Finish through 1975 in mom and dad's photo albums.  (This shouldn't be hard, but I committed to redoing my parent's photo albums a year and a half ago, and it's not even close to being done.)
3.  Complete and blog about one non-Project Life craft.

Because I am just now sitting down to write out these goals, my January calendar will reset today (with a few exceptions, like with the budget stuff. I've also already started on the meal prep idea).  I am excited and nervous about these goals.  I think that's a good thing.

Let's do this.

XO,

Vicki

You can look back at some of my previous One Little Word blogs here:  2010 Balance 2011 Nourish 2013 Less