A few years ago Alece Ronzino started blogging about her practice of choosing one word to focus on each year, rather than making New Year’s Resolutions. Since then, it’s since exploded into a full-blown movement called One Word 365. Since January 1st, over 500 people have written blog posts about their One Word for 2013 and linked up on the community page. A few of our writers share below about how their One Word has impacted their life. —————————————————- Sonny Lemmons: To be fair, I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions. If I made one, I would usually just come up with something around 7:40 pm on December 31. It’s not as if I put a lot of thought or time into them. It was just something I felt obligated to do. Three years ago, I stumbled across Alece Ronzino’s brilliant “One Word” idea. It was deceptively simple: instead of my choosing a resolution for the year, I would instead discover a word that would frame my actions for that year. I say “deceptively simple,” because while it sounds incredibly easy, it is instead a challenge to your heart and mind that requires far more thought and action than simply “promising” to take up a new, positive habit while watching a ball drop in Times Square. Unlike my typical resolution which made a statement about what I planned to do in the coming year, my One Word has defined how I am to be that year. Most of my resolutions were about an external action impacting the inside. For example, going to the gym or eating healthier. I had to go to the gym or buy (and subsequently eat) the broccoli in order for a change to occur within me. With my One Word, I’ve watched how year after year it has radiated out through my being and impacted my relationships, my faith, my being a husband and father. The change had to occur with me first. Unlike a resolution, which is easy to defer until a more convenient time (because let’s be honest, there’s not really a contest between which is more desirable: staying in bed or getting up to go to the gym, especially during the winter months), my One Word has found its way into different aspects of all that I do in unique, almost humorous, ways. There’s never been a desire to defer it, because to do so would be deferring me, to say nothing of the work God is doing within me. My word for this year? Now. Which means there are some things I need to go do. Now. —————————————————- Elizabeth Hudson One year ago I sat at the kitchen table of my childhood home, unemployed and broke and disillusioned. In an impulsive move, I had just quit my big-city publishing job, moved all I owned from the turn-of-the-century brownstone I shared with my best friend, and hopped a flight to Ireland for a few weeks. I needed time to think, space to [...]
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