#1203 What Motto Do You Live By?
It's that time again! What time? The time for EVERYTHING!
With Thanksgiving behind me, now is a peaceful time to begin my look back at 2025. I've been reviewing my goals monthly and know where I stand on that, but moreover, it's the feeling of 2025. It is also the time when, based on my reflections from the past year, I begin to formulate my motto for 2026. My motto is more than a cute tagline in my email signature. I craft a motto that aligns with my intention for the year. For 2025, it was "I am obsessed with compounding interest: Interest in Health, Family, Hobbies, and Friends." I spent all year carving out time for health, family, hobbies, and friends as my big rocks, and fitting everything else in around them.
I listed them at the top of my planning page, for each month and week, in prominent fonts and colors to ensure I stayed true to my intention.
Looking back, it was a watershed year for me. I was a bit uneasy in that I did not move forward on a few projects that had been in the "idea phase". I had fleshed them out, but each needed me to push them forward if they were to come to fruition. I decided not to push them. In light of my priorities, I couldn't initiate the required action for any of those projects. Without my attention, they languished, and I became super-uncomfortable. I don't let things languish. I do them, or I strike them off; I don't tend to procrastinate.
I have a few very close friends who make up my mastermind group, and I rely on their opinions. In the end, allowing the future to come to me, unbidden, was where we landed. It was new to me, and, as I said, wildly uncomfortable, but it worked. As I held the future further away from my direct glare, it became increasingly apparent. I now have a focus for 2026 that feels right, and it is significantly pared down from all of those projects I might have errantly begun if not for the wisdom of my collective.
Step one for me now, with my newfound clarity, will be to create my 2026 motto. I encourage you to join me. One of my masterminds is my cousin Steve. He got me started on creating a motto a dozen or so years ago, and I continue to bounce my possibilities off him each year.
Each morning, I write down my intention for the day. I find it keeps me on track. Much like meditating, the benefit of writing my intention comes to the surface when I'm being dragged under by urgent but less important tasks and requests. Having a motto is like that. It aligns with my intention for the year, and the more I read it, the more firmly it becomes part of my everyday decision-making and constant consciousness.
Now is a great time to begin creating mottos, intentions, goals, and plans for 2026. Any boat can float, but those with sails set and rudders in hand tend to float to their desired destinations.
As you work on your motto, goals, and plans, feel free to share with me. I'd love to be your sounding board.
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