As New Year’s Day approached and I was scrolling through Twitter, I saw more and more educators posting their #OneWord2018.
I am not sure where the One Word concept originated (I’ve seen several websites and books on the topic), but lately I have been working to simplify my life. I was drawn to the idea of choosing a single word to guide me for the year instead of an entire “New Year’s Resolution.” Seems easier to actually succeed.
I took a day to think about what word I might choose. As an English teacher and avid reader, I LOVE words, and so many seemed like they would be good choices. I looked at words other people were choosing because I didn’t want to pick something that everyone else was doing. But then I decided I didn’t need to worry about that. I just needed to focus on me.
So while there are at least a dozen other words I could have chosen, I settled on “POSITIVE.”
I don’t think I’m a negative person, but I wanted to be more intentional about focusing on the positive no matter what the circumstances. This does not mean being a “Polly Anna” or ignoring truly difficult situations. But I know I want to look for the good in people and in situations.
Who knew my decision would be tested so early in 2018? We returned to school/work on Jan 3rd to find no wifi available to students and limited teacher access to the internet. Over the next 2 days, as the network team worked to get us back online, it pretty much ended up that almost no teachers, staff or students had internet access or printing access.
This was definitely a time that I could have chosen to focus on the negative (and I definitely had some frustrating moments), but I tried to keep in mind #OneWord2018 #Positive. I was able to help teachers who needed alternate plans. I was able to teach a class for a teacher who had to leave. I was able to shop for the items for our STEM Lock-in. I was able to prepare the items for our District Magnet Fair.
Seems like POSITIVE was just the right word for me so far this year. I plan to maintain that approach to work and my non-work life in 2018.
What’s your #OneWord2018?
POSITIVE–what a fantastic word for the new year! And I love your visual behind it. Thank you for another inspiring blog post, Susan!
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