This year I participated in Ali Edwards ‘One Little Word‘ class. You can read my initial blog post about it here. My chosen word was LESS, and to be honest, it fell by the wayside by the end of the year. Each month you receive prompts to complete, the idea is that you really incorporate your word into your life. The main issue for me was that it became apparent a few months in, that while I had chosen a word that encompassed a lot of what I wanted to change, it also allowed a lot of room for excuses. ‘Oh I want to be less stressed, so I just won’t do x, y and z.’ As a result I didn’t stick with it as well as I could have. It wasn’t all for nothing though, I certainly experienced less self inflicted stress and anxiety this year, and the house has much less stuff in it after several clean outs. In short, choosing a word and following the prompts won’t magically change everything, like everything you still need to put in some effort.

That brings us to my 2015 word. A month ago I was seriously considering not taking the class this year and just doing my own thing, but it felt a bit defeatist. I want to challenge myself to get out of my bad habit routines and letting things fall by the wayside is one of the big ones. So instead I started to ponder on a good word for 2015. I reconsidered ‘confident’ which was my initial choice last year, but it didn’t feel right. I then thought I’d settle on ‘create’ but create still didn’t feel like the kick up the backside I need. Believe, accept, and challenge were all contenders and the more I thought about it, the more I realised challenge is my word.

If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you.

Interestingly challenge encompasses all of the things I was hoping to achieve with less, but it feels like a much stronger word and a word that’s easier to think. You can challenge, for example, your;

• thoughts
• beliefs
• actions
• expectations
• perceived limitations
• perception
• habits
• ideas
• ideals

I feel confident that I have chosen the right word and look forward to bringing it into my life this year, and being part of the OLW 2015 community.