One Little Word for 2014: CHOOSE

Do you know about the One Little Word movement started by one of our favorite creatives, Ali Edwards? You can read more about it here. It’s pretty awesome how many people are doing it now. This year, Nat and I decided we would like to try it, and today I’m sharing my word with you guys 🙂

Choose. 

It is a pretty normal word, and something we do every moment of every day. We make thousands of them in a year. Some of them are mundane. Some are life-changing. Some go completely unnoticed. But ultimately, our choices make up who we are.

I’m not sure I like what my choices have been saying about me. I’ve realized that for the past several months, I haven’t always been present in my own decision making. Life has been so busy that I have been allowing my circumstances to take over my ability to choose the things I should. At the end of the day, I find myself going to bed, exhausted, wondering what I really chose to do that day.

I am not making time for the things that are most important because I’m filling my days with never ending to do lists, appointments, car pools, play groups, blog posts, practices, etc. And then I blame my grumpiness on those things, even though I’m the one who chose them. I’m wishing I would have spent more time this year just slowing down, playing with my kids, and not worrying about checking things off a list. I don’t want to be a victim to my circumstances any more. And I guess I’m just tired of being a grumpy mom and nagging wife.

I am realizing more and more that it is MY attitude that determines the feeling in our home. If I am in a bad mood, it affects everyone in my family. I want a happier family. I want happy kids, so I better start figuring out how to be a happier mom!

So, this year I am going to try really hard to CHOOSE to be happy every day. I know I’ll still have hard days. And SUPER hard days. But I can still choose to find joy in something that happened that day. And if I fail one day, I will try again the next day. I will keeping choosing joy until it comes naturally.

This month, I’m kicking it off with a Fast Food Fast. No fast food of any kind or eating out for one month. This is kind of killing two birds with one stone because we will save a ton of money, and we’ll eat healthier too! I am choosing a hard one for the first month because I want to prove to myself I am serious about this challenge. We eat out quite a bit, so this is going to be pretty rough. No eating out at all, including getting a Dr. Pepper at the McDonald’s drive through. Man oh man. I hope I make it through this.

It doesn’t mean you have to give up soda for the month, I think that would probably kill us off. Right my sis? But I am limiting myself to sodas I have at home or an occasional treat at the gas station, because if I get it at a fast food drive through I will be tempted to add some fries or nuggets for the screaming toddlers in the back 🙂