My word for 2015 – TRUST

When contemplating what word to choose for 2015 I thought back through my 2014 and asked myself some questions.

Where have the weak spots been during my year? In what areas have I struggled? In what area/s do I need more strength? Where are my bumps in the road or roadblocks? What could do with some improving?

I looked for the stand out area that came to mind and there was my cue for what my focus word for the year should be.

2014 was the first time I have chosen a word to carry with me as a guide through my year. I chose the word ‘Believe’. It was absolutely the right word for me during 2014 and I certainly did make a huge effort to believe in myself and to keep moving forward regardless of any self-doubts that would come my way (as can be seen in my 2014 wrap up).

When I scan back through 2014 though, I can see that the perfectionist side of me is still in control and causing me grief. I literally can make myself unwell due to my perfectionist traits. I even wrote a post explaining how here but in a nutshell, I set extremely high expectations on myself, can become obsessive to the point of neglecting other things (including myself) and can be very self-critical. The expectations I put on myself can be so overwhelming that I freeze and stop. It’s a form of self-sabotage.

So how do I manage this problem? How do I still set goals without letting my perfectionism take over? How do I still obtain the feeling of achievement and pride in my work without setting high expectations on myself to achieve them? How do I not get frustrated with myself when the clarity around how to achieve my goals is still not clear? How do I stop being frustrated with myself for not knowing exactly what my goals are yet?

By trusting that I am where I am meant to be when I am meant to be there and that I will know what I need to know when I need to know it. That’s how.

Therefore, my word for 2015 is:

I hope that by carrying the word ‘Trust’ with me as a guide through 2015, that it will encourage me to lay off myself, to stop setting such high expectations, to stop obsessing over getting things perfect to the neglect of everything else, and to just TRUST that I am where I am meant to be and that I know what I need to know at that moment in time. I think this will do wonders for my anxiety levels!

Thanks to this recent post by Debra Dane of Inner Compass Designs, I became aware of Susan Conway’s free eBook called “Unravelling” which is designed to help you plan for the new year. It really is worth checking out! In it Susan encourages you to pick a word for your year and to then choose four (4) words to support it and to help guide you through the year. These are the four words I have chosen to support my word of TRUST:

1. Kindness – to myself. I would never be as hard on others as I am on myself.
2. Breathe – I don’t have to achieve everything all at once. Take some time to breathe, life balance (remember!), not so goal focused 100% of the time.
3. Accept – myself as I am.
4. Confidence – continue to believe in myself.

So bring on 2015 and cheers to always striving to be the best version of yourself possible.

Have you chosen a word for your 2015?  If you have I’d love to hear what your word is and why you chose it!  If you’ve written a blog post about it, leave the link in the comments and I’ll pop over for a read!

Ciao for now,

p.s.  It’s quite ironic that my Mindful Monday post yesterday was on the ‘Attitude of Trust‘.  The timing was quite coincidental but certainly meant to be! See – I’m already TRUSTING that things are happening as they are meant to 😉

[This post is linked up with #IBOT over at Essentially Jess]