I recently went to a creative space in Milwaukee called Translator. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning, they host what they call a Lab (the rest of the time Translator is a digital marketing agency). If you’re in the area you should stop by. People get together and share ideas, get advice, and help others with their problems. It’s a great place for business and creative types to meet and collaborate in a positive environment that fosters creativity. I don’t go nearly often enough.
A recent session was held on goal setting. Many ideas were presented, but one intriguing one offered by Katie Felten, who moderated, was about Chris Brogan’s three words for the year idea. Basically you pick three words you want to be the overriding theme for the next year and live them daily. It was amazing and inspiring to hear the stories of how that’s worked for Katie and Mark Fairbanks over at Translator. There was an exercise where we wrote down three words that we wanted our next year to be about and we went around the room and discussed them.
My three words for 2014 are:
Declutter – I have way too much stuff in my house and in my life. It’s stuff that doesn’t matter. Why do I need so many shirts when I don’t wear half of them? Why are there so many empty boxes lying around? What am I going to do with them? By having so much stuff around, it doesn’t leave room for new stuff to come in. Decluttering will be not only a physical but a mental purification. I won’t reach minimalism, but I can sure try.
Focus – I want to focus on the things I really want; the things I want to do, the things I want to spend my time on, and who I want to spend my time with. Life is very distracting; especially with TV, the internet, magazines and other media. I can easily waste away a few hours everyday without even trying. I want to eliminate those distractions. When I used to play darts I would get extremely focused on my dart throwing. I would imagine a laser going from the tip of the dart to the dart board. It had to go exactly where my focus was, there was no way around it. And when I could focus so closely as to the exact hole I wanted that dart to go to, I could get pretty darn close. I want to have this kind of focus on whatever I spend my time on or whoever I spend my time with in 2014. I think decluttering will also help a lot with this goal.
Ship – I borrowed this term from Seth Godin. It means that your ideas don’t mean anything unless you ship them, unless they make their way out into the world. As one person said at Lab, “if it doesn’t ship, it doesn’t exist.” That’s true. No one will know about my work unless I share it, and put it out into the universe. It has a chance for a life outside of my mind or the hard drive on my computer if I expose it to the rest of the world. Sure, there’s a chance that nothing happens or the work gets criticized, but there’s also a chance for it to impact people. And at least it sets you up for some unknown possibilities.
I’m excited to see what 2014 shapes up to be because of these three words. You can do this too. Write down the first three words that come to mind (there’s probably a reason they’re right at the top of your head). Put them in a place where you can see them, so you have a reminder of what the words are.
What are your three words for 2014? Why did you choose them? How do you think they’ll impact you in 2014?
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