CC Chapman and I were talking about the Three Word Exercise and agreed that "when you pick the right words they are not just for 365 days, but rather continue to stay with you."
Chris Brogan explains it:
Every year, I go through an exercise where we take three words and use them as the central focus of your goals and efforts for the year to come. Instead of saying “I want to lose 30 pounds” and then forgetting about the goal a day later, I might have something like “green” that reminds me to eat more plant-based foods at every meal, or similar.Like the Party Guest in Annie Hall who forgot his mantra, I had forgotten my Three Words for 2013.
The idea is that the words you choose will go past being a simple goal and will become part of the way you identify yourself, and thus, a guiding light for your efforts.
I looked them up on my blog post from January 1, 2013. They were Play, Fun, and Surprise.
Now that I look back at my post, what I did in 2013 was ingrain my three words in everything I did.
That makes me think that this exercise really set the tone for the year.
I'm keeping these same three words for 2014.
I like them.
I always thought of them as changing each year. Maybe they don't have to. Maybe they're the new mantra.