guiding word – Reimagine. Strategy.

January 6, 2025

Imagination over Resolution

“We cannot create what we can’t imagine.” ~ Lucille Clifton

Writing a new year’s post on January 6 seems fitting this year, as I’m easing into 2025 rather than running headlong into it.

I would normally be writing about my guiding word of the year (it’s “rooted”), but honestly, my 2024 word didn’t stick at all, to the point I needed to refer back to last year’s early January blog post to remember what it even was (“expansive” that kept autocorrecting to “expensive” — both were true)!

January 8, 2024January 6, 2025

Expansive

“A growth mindset is a bad idea…” said no one ever. (But do people with fixed mindsets actually read about developing a growth mindset? Why would they, if they fundamentally don’t believe change is possible?)

October 23, 2023

Well-Watered Plants

“People need spaciousness the way a plant needs water. When you give it to them, they come back to life.”

This observation by a colleague during my time in Fiji last week has me thinking, yet again, about my big word for 2023 which is “spaciousness.” It’s a word that makes me exhale and drop my shoulders — and it’s everywhere.

December 19, 2022December 19, 2022

Nourished

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming…

I’m on the brink of a holiday break, so have decided not to continue our treatment of the ELASTIC acronym until the new year when we can build some momentum with it.

For now, as we close out 2022, I want to circle back to my word of the year, “nourish.”

January 7, 2022May 3, 2022

Nourishment

As I write this, we’ve had about a week to take 2022 for a test drive. My verdict thus far is mixed, and it depends very much on where I fix my gaze. If I think about what I hoped week one would involve (i.e. nine of us in Barcelona and Valencia), it hasn’t been great as we weren’t there. If I let my Twitter feed shape my impressions, it’s starting as one of my worst years ever. And I’ve thrown my back out for the first time in almost a decade. But here’s the thing: I wrecked my back building an awesome snowman with my granddaughter on one of the most magical winter days I can remember. January marks the start of a fresh new season, and even though it’s a challenging one this year, I still have choices about my attitude toward it. For this first entry of 2022, my “wiser decision faster” is to prevent and resist the funk I could easily fall into next week, rather than needing to drag myself out of it later!