My Three Words for 2024

Here we are with a whole blank slate of a year in front of us. New planners, new notebooks. All the shiny things.

The stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve doesn’t mean that things are magically different. It just means a fresh start. A chance to try again. A chance to move on.

I don’t do resolutions, but for a number of years I’ve been choosing three words as my focus for the year.

My Three Words for 2023 were Pray, Prepare, Play. I did better with those some days than others. You can read my last post of 2023 to get a glimpse of how I did.

I’ve chosen a different set of words for 2024. They are:

Flexible. Creative. Concerned.

Flexible. Easy enough to say. I need to be flexible with my schedule as well as plans. But what prompted this word was the need to be physically flexible. In other word, get my ample backside to move. Since COVID and The Great Unpleasantness of the Summer of 2021 (™), I’ve been a little less bendy, so to speak. The Old Man Bucket List Road Trip (™), along with the wearing of the red suit in December, highlighted that. Simply put I need to stretch, I need to exercise.

Now more than ever, that’s a necessity. And I have a plan.

Creative. I’m a writer. I’m an artist. I’m an actor. I’m a little ADD.  I get lots of chances to be creative. I just need a better focus on what I’m doing and where I’m going with my crafts. A major life event that should happen by this summer (if you know, you know), should help with this.

There’s a new book in the works (at least one), and I’m contemplating audition season. In the meantime, I’ve returned to my discipline of writing a thousand words a day. Sometimes good ones.

Concerned. I had a difficult time choosing the third word. It took me more than three weeks to come up with my first choice, compassionate. That just didn’t seem right. I mean, I know I need to be more considerate of others and perhaps put more focus on how I can help. But to get there, I have to be concerned. I have to care.

It’s difficult because I spent far too many years in the political trenches. I work hard these days not to get drug back into that mess. That doesn’t mean I don’t care. I do. Passionately. I just think that perhaps my concern needs to be a little more focused on what I can actually do. Where I can actually have in impact.

While I’ve chosen my third word, the actual focus and meaning remains in development.

Cause for concern if you will.

There’s nothing magical about these three words. Just where I hope to focus this year for my own self-improvement.

Have some words of your own? Share in the comments.

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