It was December 2021 when my Executive Coach Judy Micale gave me a homework assignment. Choose your word for 2022. The concept is based on the book One Word That Will Change Your Life by Dan Britton, Jimmy Page and Jon Gordon. The book details how choosing one word to focus on for the entire year will simplify your personal and business life. This exercise was harder than I thought because it did, just as the book suggested, declutter my thoughts and drill down to the basics of how I wanted my life to unfold this year. I finally found my word, Circle, and just as Judy said it would, my word found me and showed up in everything I did. My one word impacted the six dimensions of my life—mental, physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, and financial.
Here are just a few Circle moments. I started my communications career in organizations that serve and impact people's lives. I spent nearly 20 years in the emergency services profession and energy utility industries. I finally took a leap into the technology space. It was innovative, fast-paced and a wonderful way to spend almost a decade learning a new business. My career came full circle this year when I started a new chapter at a global heating, air and water heating manufacturing organization. I was right back into an industry that provides products to make people's lives more comfortable, and they use the latest innovative technology to do it.
On top of that, I decided in 2021 that I wanted my next career move to be meaningful and serve the greater good. This organization's sustainability mission is doing that and more. Now that's a circle moment I didn't see coming.
I've been divorced for seven years, but this year I said I do on November 11, 2022. Seven is the number of completion, and eight is new beginnings. I married a man whom my parents taught in elementary school! He's four years older than I am, and our paths didn't cross much growing up, but today our families are blended, and my husband now calls his former fourth-grade teacher mother-in-law. Now I could get all spacey and talk about the rings being circles, standing under a circle of flowers for my ceremony, our guestbook being a wooden circle and stuff, but I'll steer clear of that rabbit's hole. We even married at the same location where we had our first date. Both our date and wedding were on Friday night.
I've witnessed circle moments with my kiddos, in my writing, business and relationships. It took me some time to hone in on the word for 2022. It's 11:18 p.m. as I'm finishing this blog, and I still need to quiet myself long enough for my 2023 word to find me. After what happened in 2022, I know not to take this moment lightly. I wish you all much love, peace, happiness and light in 2023. If you choose a word, I pray it gives you all you desire and more.