The Seventy-Ninth Question: I'm Thinking Of A Word
Ending the year with one of my favorite questions to ask.
You’ve been patient with me, and I appreciate you. From what was supposed to be a blog with weekly journal prompts, you’ve only heard from me six times this quarter, and I’m sorry. Hopefully, you’ve been following along long enough to have built a practice outside of these prompts, but if you rely on them, and me, to keep you honest…well, I’m sorry.
But I’m back to end the year with our final question, and to help set you up for 2025. Sending it a few days early so that you have extra time to grapple with this before the calendar year turns.
And right before we get to that, I want to encourage you to read this blog post from
. In lieu of the journal prompts I didn’t send you this month, Andrew offers a wonderful list of questions you can use to guide some of your own reflective journaling during this rot week, or that you can use to lead meaningful conversations with friends and family that you might be spending this time with.
Question #79 (and some reflections)
When I last wrote to you, I asked you to consider how you lived your word for 2024 over the past twelve months.
For me, that word was FOCUS. I measured that in three ways: focusing my mind (less multitasking, fewer stimulants in my vicinity, better routines), focusing my projects (fewer, with progress), and focusing my goals (more defined, actionable, and tangible). So how did I do?
The year started off strong, as I accomplished two of the goals that were driving this word choice. In February I finished writing my book proposal for Saving American Manhood, and in March I ran the Los Angeles Marathon, my first ever. Both only happened because I set clear goals (there was a binary question to answer: did I write it or not, did I run or not), shirked other goals, and honored the time I set aside to accomplish these. Said differently, I focused on them.
Consider this against how I ended the year: traveling, moving, running Creatives for Harris, launching two major client projects….and not writing, not training with a goal, and more stimulated than ever. I let myself get pulled in a lot of different directions.
Aren’t there two ways to look at this, though? On the one hand, I lost focus. My priorities multiplied and pulled me across multiple projects. On the other, as an outcome of my work on focusing in the first part of the year, I was able to create opportunities that led to me running a 1,000+ person volunteer operation, take new steps in my relationship, and see new success at work. So perhaps this isn’t a failure as much as it is forward movement that necessitates a refreshed approach to focus.
Said differently, I focused on finding my lane(s) in life and pruned the roads to nowhere. Once I did, I could focus on driving down those, but doing that entered me into an entirely new arena of distractions, forcing considerations of, even within my lanes, how do I want to shop up and what do I want to accomplish. Instead of focusing, I needed to refocus.
Not so much a failure, but more of a reminder that it’s a dynamic act and not a static one.
All of that said, it’s time for my favorite question of the year.
What word do you want to describe/guide your 2025?
What would using this word as a guiding principle mean for you?
What informed your choice of this word?
Was this the first word that came to mind or one that you drilled down to? What was the journey to get there?
What resources/assets/people do you need to help make this word a reality?
Can’t wait to hear what you all come up with.
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And finally, thanks for bearing with me during the end of the year. I wrote to you a bit less frequently, and reflected publicly a bit less often, but I hope you were able to continue your journaling practice on your own. Looking forward to writing our way into 2025 together, and grateful for all of you who take the time to read this.
Stay tuned!