#whynot

So… I thought I had settled on my One Little Word (OLW) for 2015 back in December.  I even wrote it in my January Calendar.  FOCUS. People around me, without my mentioning my OLW, started telling me their OLW.  First, D said it, “I think I’m going to really FOCUS this year”. (She didn’t really know about OLW, so I told her and she settled immediately on that.)  Then, C said, “I’ve picked my OLW… it’s Focus.” Interesting… everyone is big on focusing.  I continued to ponder.  I hadn’t felt “grabbed” by the word, but it was definitely something I felt I needed more of.  Focus.  I needed to focus on plans, on work, on future, on health.  So, I settled comfortably, but not excitedly, in sharing this OLW with my friends.

Then I attended a fabulous event – an Epiphany party – where this fabulous group of women discussed the OLW movement (some of us had already heard and participated, and some had not so it was a new concept to explore).  As we talked about it and people shared possibilities for themselves, my brain kept whispering to me… are you sure Focus is your OLW?

That was enough to get me to stop and reconsider.  OLW shouldn’t be forced, in my opinion.  It should speak to you.  Grab your heart.  That’s not to say that it will be an easy task to keep that OLW at the forefront of your life for a year, but it should be something that feels just… right. The years where I have “forced” a OLW were not as successful as I’d hoped, if successful at all, in living up to the OLW directive.  Other years, where I have been grabbed by a OLW, have been fabulous years with regard to that OLW.

So I let it sit and simmer.  I traveled across the country and back.  Visited some very wise women on both sides of the country who are actively making their dreams come true.  I began to realize that I really had FOCUSED on myself in 2014 and so it felt like I was already doing this.  Other words began to bubble up to the surface.  Words that expressed things that I am embracing… magic, possibility, boundaries, achievements, stumbling, redirection.  But the one thing that kept popping up… over and over and over… were two words:  why not?

“I can’t…” is something that is often circling in my head.  Put there by Negative Nellie (or whomever that voice is at the time), I have limited myself over and over again.  Lately, another voice has popped up.  Only two words ever comes up… “why not?”

Yeah, why not?   Seriously, Why NOT?  “I cannot lose weight.”  Why not?  “I can’t be successful in a creative industry.”  Why not?  “I can’t climb a rock wall.”  Why not?  “I can’t participate in paint gun tag.”  Why not?

Last night, at an amazing class I’m taking with nine other fabulous women, called You Time, we once again talked about OLW.  I mentioned I had thought mine was going to be Focus but now I was moving toward something else… something like, “why not?”  I asked their help in finding one word that conveyed this message. And someone said, “why can’t it be #whynot?  A hashtag makes everything one word.”

A brief period of stunned silence and then I thought.  “Yeah.  So… #whynot?”