Embrace a 2024 of Infinite Possibilities - ONE WORD

Embracing a year of POSSIBILITIES...just thinking about this topic causes my spirits to rise in expectation and my heart to race! Were your plans to bring in this new year simple or perhaps well planned with much to do and fanfare as the night passed? Do you love fanfare and celebrations, parties and lots of hoop-la, or perhaps quietly relaxing in a bubble bath or your pj's while watching the ball drop on Times Square? 

For us ringing in the New Year most years has been rather uneventful, often quiet... watching a Christmas romance or playing a game of Scrabble...this year was just that. Celebrating the new year for me is so much more a time of looking forward-it has prompted me to focus on ONE WORD. 2024's word...

INFINITE

Thinking about the word itself, INFINITE stirs so many thoughts...about personal aspirations, about business, and about my desire for spiritual growth. Most of all I am excited and cannot wait to see the fruition of Infinite Possibilities in 2024. 

New Year - New Me in 2023

Plans for New Year's Eve are under way and our reservation for dinner has been set. We're heading to a new to us restaurant, Kimi's Chop and Oyster House, and we're really looking forward to sharing the New Year with some of our loved ones and partners in business. 

Looking towards this shiny New Year I think of a tradition I began for our household after hearing Kevin Hall speak on The Power Of Words at a business conference we attended years ago. It spoke to my spirit. Since then as the New Year approaches I have been selecting a single word to focus on in the New Year. I see it referred to by others as ONE WORD.

Stephen Covey wrote as part of his forward for author Kevin Hall' in his book, ASPIRE : "There is a language of success and a language of distress. There is a language of progress and a language of regress... Words lead, and words impede... 

What a powerful description...Perhaps the focus of our word/s can make A NEW YOU?!

Cultures around the world and through history have commemorated the ending of one year and the beginning of another. Being inspired by Kevin to focus on ONE WORD has been such a meaningful year long activity. Far different than the experience of myself and many others who make lists of resolutions. Historically as many as 45 percent of Americans say they usually make New Year’s resolutions, only 8 percent are successful in achieving their goals. 

Beginning this New Year I choose to focus my thoughts on one word... I believe it can make a new me as the year progresses. Perhaps you'll choose to join me. This year could mean for you A NEW YOU too.

One Word That Can Change Our Lives In 2016

A few years ago I was introduced to the idea of instead of working at accomplishing a list of goals in the New Year, focusing on One Word. 

As the New Year approaches my thoughts of the past year reflect on the hazards, the difficulties, the challenges and the great joys experienced along the way reaching toward my choice word for 2015, "healing". 

Much of the year was about physical healing...My body needed it! Last New Year I would not have imagined it would take those turns yet the power of a word is deeply layered. Not only did my family experience healing of the body but it was also challenged to experience the healing that takes place when on recognizes the need to forgive the unlovable. The impact of keeping my eyes focused on a single word  toward achieving that goal and to describe my solidarity as the year unfolds is powerful. Unlike the regular dictionary meaning of "Restoration," which is to return something back to its original condition, the biblical definition of the word has greater connotations that go above and beyond the typical everyday usage. Repeatedly throughout the Bible, God blesses people for their faith and hardships by making up for their losses and giving them more than they previously had before. 

The word RESTORATION is my choice for 2016. I pray that as the year unfolds, so will the restoration of my body, spiritually as well as physically. I also want to thank GOD and my sweet husband and many friends and kind acquaintences that have come along side to help me throughout this experience. Luke 4:18,19

Creating A "ONE WORD" Banner

In previous posts I shared about the idea of using just ONE WORD as the focus for my New Year. Resolutions often  just  lead to another year of disappointment with ourselves anyway. Why not replace the typical resolution list with a single, focused WORD that identifies one key plan for our lives? I plan to usher in the New Year with my focus on HEALING. If you'd like to read about it check out the post.. I wanted to create a reminder to myself, a fun way of declaring my intent in this NEW YEAR to stay the course with my ONE WORD...HEALING so I began to research what others were doing on Google with ONE WORD. My friends, you all know how I love the seasonal banners, pennants and swags. I'm guessing you also know of my love for themes, party decor and celebrating the season, right? Well I came across a really wonderful idea using office supply tags to create a ONE WORD banner and I am excited to CASE this project. It was featured several years ago at Bless Your Neighbor a blog I found while searching the net.

I'm thinking this would be really a fun project to introduce this idea to my family. The consensus from sisters is  we found it works best for us to typically get together after the New Year to celebrate Christmas together. It started originally as a courtesy to me since we travel over the holidays to see our children and their families. That meant I didn't get to celebrate with my sisters and their children who live in the same state  :( 
I started inviting everyone over after Christmas and our celebrations continue to evolve but we've share gifts, food and fun like the typical white elephant parties. This year I thought it would be fun and encouraging to talk about our hopes, aspirations, and focus in this new year through the use of my "ONE WORD BANNER". 
Here is what I came up with as I looked through my craft room. I have an assortment of tags I have used for other projects over the years maybe you do too!
 I think this project could be created using commercial or handmade tags too. Whether handmade with your own cut outs or using die cut machine electronic cutting machines or a template this project is super simple and fun! 
So here is what I did to create my "One Word" Banner. I went searching through my craft room to see what I had on hand. These are the things I found. I decided to use the plain cream colored tags- the size was best for the letters I picked.

So look around and see what you have on hand... or 

Get some tags whether handmade or store bought. Depending on how many words you would like on your banner make sure you have enough tags on hand. Pick out the banner material. I've show you what I have on hand but you could even select some fabric and cut it about 1 inch wide by the length of your banner.

Here are some of the choices I had to work with. 

Next on to the words you select for your banner.Pick meaningful words, ones that really resonate for you. I have put together a collection of words that may resonate, if not perhaps they will INSPIRE you. 

This word cloud was created at Tagul

Once you have picked your words it's time to create the tags. I have a huge collection of stamp alphabets so I picked three sizes. The largest size was for my word to inspire me in this New Year, My selected word is HEALING. The next smaller was ONE WORD and finally the year 2015 was in another font. 

 

If you are not a stamper perhaps you would rather create using typed words, hand written words or even magazine collage would be fun!

Ok so here is my "ONE WORD BANNER"...
A quick and easy get the New Year started right project!
 I hope you like it. Write me some comments friends. Tell me what your One Word is for this New Year.