I’m sure many of you are familiar with choosing a meaningful word for the year, rather than setting a New Year’s Resolution. I’m fairly new to it, but when my coach, Lex Maust with Be Your Awesome Coaching mentioned the concept, I was in.
I love the idea of taking the time to look towards the year ahead and think about what I REALLY want to accomplish and more importantly, how I truly desire to show up in this incredible world. Sure beats looking back at the calories consumed over the past three months and killing myself at the gym as a resolution.
There are so many ways to choose a word that is meaningful to you {I LOVE this post from a couple of years ago by Elizabth Rider}. I simply sat in meditation for a few minutes and allowed my heart to guide me. The answer was nurture. And after a really rough couple of years, I know it’s exactly what I need.
I’ll be taking extra time this year to nurture my physical, mental, and emotional health, my spirituality, and my relationships. But I also want to nurture my businesses and professional dreams. Here’s what that looks like:
Slowing Down.
Taking time each day to both sit quietly in meditation AND give myself permission to dream REALLY big about what I want in my professional life. I think any entrepreneur {and every graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program- hey Alums!} will tell you that it’s so damn easy to get lost working IN your business, rather than ON your business.
I met some big goals last year flying by the seat of my pants. I have even bigger goals this year and I know to meet them, I need to slow down, be consistent, and dedicate time to strategically achieve them.
Being more intentional with my time.
We all have a natural rhythm. My brain just simply functions better in the morning. One of the simplest things I can do to nurture my health and wealth is to dedicate that time to self development and business building.
To accomplish this, I changed my schedule to work with massage clients in the afternoon and blocked off hours in the morning to activities that require more intense emotional and intellectual brain power. If you have the opportunity to plan your work day around your own natural energy flow, DO IT!
Create meaningful content.
At the end of the day… and uh, the beginning of the day, and actually all day long I guess, my professional goals aren’t about sales, they are about creating meaningful connections. I’ve been a massage therapist for over 15 years and it’s become far too easy to just throw out content regarding when I have openings. It doesn’t serve my goal of helping people live healthier, happier lives.
To truly nurture my professional goals, I need to focus on nurturing those relationships (in both my massage therapy practice and coaching practice) by providing meaningful content that benefits my audience and sparks conversation, learning, and living better. I’d love for you to be a part of these conversations by joining the community on Facebook and signing up for the weekly newsletter.
I’m excited to see where this year leads, and love being led with such intention.
I plan on checking back in throughout the year with my own progress and would love to hear your experiences with a word of the year. Shoot me a message on Facebook or an email at kellybayinc@gmail.com!
Kelly Bay is a speaker, author & small business coach. She resides in rural Iowa with her husband and three kids. In her spare time, Bay enjoys not cleaning her house and showing unwilling participants photos of her two dogs.
You can find her first book here:
Grow Dammit. Not nurturing. But funny. And my favorite plant.