Choose a word. Any word. One word. Make it yours for 2025. Start thinking about it now. Whiteboard it. Write it every day on your planner. Put the word on a handful of 3 by 5 cards and place them in strategic places as an ever-present reminder. Make it BIG. Write it BOLD. Get a personal T-shirt printed with it. Make it your phone screen. Learn it in some other languages. Start considering now. Decide soon: meditate on it, reflect on it; live it, breathe it and nurture it. For 2025.

I’ve been talking to friends about this recently and have finally decided on something I’m happy with. Or at least something I can work with. Something that is simple and yet, appropriately challenging.

My issues, challenges, in life have continued to revolve around family and work taking too much. My work as a teacher continues to be what it always is. Always feeling I’ve not done enough, am not doing enough and that I have too much to do. Family, similarly because I have children. Which is a joke I’ve made often enough. That my life revolves around my children and other people’s children.

I struggle with not getting caught up in those things, I wanted a word that will help me not do that. I wanted something that’s about helping me be present, appreciating “now”, appreciating what I have, accept certain things and making the most of what I have.

So, my word is joy.

It is about trying to find it in whatever situation I may find myself in. It is in doing the things I know cause it.
It is in avoiding the things I know cause stress and anxiety.

It also means I can buy this IDLES t-shirt and that I can buy plenty of Inside Out related merchandise too. It’s all good.