My Word Of 2016 (or I’m Going To Be Strong)

I did my first word of the year last year, and I’ve decided to continue the tradition of that this year. I started thinking about what I wanted my word for 2016 to be at the beginning of December and it was tough to figure out what I wanted it to be.

I loved that my word last year was “bold” because it could mean lots of different things in different parts of my life. I wanted another word that was more on the positive side (I think that’s what everyone wants their word to be like) and I wanted it to match and enhance my word from last year.

I spent a lot of time brainstorming and scribbling out ideas. There were a lot of words that seemed good, but for some reason or another they just didn’t feel right to me. Or they might have been awesome, but I could only see myself using the word as a focus on one part of my life. But after a lot of thought, this is what I’ve come up with for my word for 2016.

Strong

I think “strong” is a perfect word for this year. It does go as a nice companion word to “bold” in my mind. And it can have a couple of different meanings for lots of different things that I have in my life.

In my acting career, I want to be stronger in my auditions and meetings. I want to make strong choices and show that I can be a strong actor. This is very similar to being bold, but I think I like strong better because you can be meek but strong at the same time. Sometimes, I need to be a meek performer in the audition room, and I can still feel like I’m honoring the word “strong” while doing that. It doesn’t feel like an act that I’m trying to put on (like bold felt at some random times). This just feels much more natural and achievable to me.

I like having “strong” as a focus word for my workouts for some pretty obvious reasons. I’m trying to focus on getting stronger versus losing weight. I feel like losing weight is such a weird journey and has so many ups and downs (literally). But focusing on getting stronger is much more linear for me. I know when I’m able to use heavier weights for different things and I know when my rowing is at a higher wattage. And I can use that as a focus word for my speed training on the treadmill too. Being strong has become a priority for me in my life, and having it as a focus word for the year is perfect.

“Strong” is a good word for my hopes of getting into recovery with my eating disorder too. I need to be strong to win the battle. I need to be strong in my efforts to track my food, track my feelings, and track my episodes. It’s easy to not track things when the day isn’t going so great, but I need to be stronger than that and track things anyway. I’ve found a new app that I’m using together with My Fitness Pal that is helping. When you track food, you don’t have to see the calories. All you put down is what you ate and you track other things like feelings and other thoughts as well. I’m not switching to that app totally yet because I do still like tracking calories on My Fitness Pal, but I’m open to the idea in the future of not having calories as a focus at all.

I’m really looking forward to making 2016 my strongest year yet in so many parts of my life. I’m really feeling good about the progress I’ve been making lately and I hope that I’m able to maintain what I’ve been doing and just keep moving forward. I’ve got my word up as the background of my computer so I’m reminded of it every day. And I’m looking forward to sharing with you in a year about how my year of being strong went.

3 responses to “My Word Of 2016 (or I’m Going To Be Strong)

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