2011

04Jan11

I wrote last year that I felt like my world was contracting, and that feeling has carried on into the new year. It’s changed, though, so that it doesn’t feel like a negative experience, and has figured a lot in my thinking about the year ahead.

Last year, and pretty much every year before that, I went charging in with a huge list of goals and targets that became unmanageable around about the mid-year mark, and ultimately defeated me.

This year is different.

I try to pick a word every year that is kind of the headline for my thinking for the year. There have been all sorts of words over the years, but this year’s is a bit of a strange one.

Consolidate.

On the surface, not terribly sexy, but it’s speaking to me in all sorts of ways and on all sorts of levels – on a personal level, at a domestic level, and in terms of my writing and sewing as well.

It’s about bringing everything together into a single, combined, united whole.

It’s about streamlining what I do have – discarding the useless and unwanted, and organising what’s left into something stronger, more coherent.

It’s about strengthening and improving my control, my techniques, focussing on what I enjoy doing and letting the rest go, avoiding distractions.

It’s about acknowledging the firm foundations I have built in terms of writing and sewing and in my routines and family life – and in terms of the changes and realisations I’ve had on a personal level – and making sure they’re strong enough for me to build on.

It’s about making the most of what I already have and know and cherishing that, appreciating the good it does me, and how good it actually is.

So there are no goals or targets this year … just a continuing on down the line, and seeing where it takes me.

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Tags: 2011, consolidate, word of the year