My word for 2022: Consolidate -part 1
It’s the New Year! I mean, I think we’re already nearly exhausted from wishing everyone around us HNY! And as part of these well-wishes, inevitably at this time of year the conversation around new years resolutions and goals comes up.
For the last 2 years I’ve moved away from specific goals and taken the approach of coming up with a word that encapsulates my ethos and intention for the year. You can read more about this practice at One Word 365 and here’s a personal story from Yasmina I came across on her experiences of choosing a word for 2021.
In particular I’ve found the end of year reflection tool ‘Year Compass’ especially helpful to reflect on the previous year. I can then consider my areas of focus for the upcoming year and what word/s convey my intention.
Sharing my word
And in the spirit of being UpFront — I wanted to be open and share my word for 2022 and a summary of the areas I plan to work on. The intention of sharing is as much in the spirit of finding further common ground, mutual shared connection and interest with my friends, colleagues and wider network. So if there’s something in this post that resonates with you let me know. I would love to see how we could collaborate or support each other in any of these areas.
My word for 2022 of course as per the title is Consolidate.
A typical dictionary look up gives you one of two definitions.
Consolidate definition from a Google search
- make (something) physically stronger or more solid. — “the first phase of the project is to consolidate the outside walls”
- combine (a number of things) into a single more effective or coherent whole. “all manufacturing activities have been consolidated in new premises”
What the term consolidate means to me for 2022
My consolidated definition for 2022 ( see what I did there!) is a mix of both of these definitions. -
- Building my personal foundations. I worked a lot on my physical health and mental wellbeing last year and there’s always more we can do to build our resilience — I learned a lot from my extracurricular commitments the last 2 years and I’m eager to ensure I set myself up for future success by ensuring I have a solid foundation of practices to support myself in my career progression journey.
- Combining my experiences into a coherent story. Over the last 2 years I’ve had to compartmentalise a lot of my life to cope with; a full-time job, part-time MBA and being a voluntary president of JCI Manchester — as well as holding down relationships and having time to enjoy life. I’ve had a vast array of experiences and learnings during this time as well as sacrifices I’ve made in terms of what I can realistically do and achieve with my time
2022 is the first year since 2019 where I’ve not overcommitted myself and so I plan to combine and consolidate a number of things to make my 2022 a solid year.
Part 2 of this blog will give you a flavour of the things I’m looking to consolidate in 2022 — I’m using the wheel of life to frame my thinking.
