My planning for 2024 started last month in December 2023. Visioning, charting inspired actions, and noting lofty goals for all areas of life (professional, personal, spiritual, intellectual, social, familial) are almost complete! But one part of my yearly planning process is always my favorite, despite being the most challenging: choosing a “word of the year.” It’s challenging for me because I have SO MANY words I want to choose, and narrowing it down to just one is nearly impossible. Mark Twain said it best, “I didn’t have time to write a short letter. So I wrote a long one instead.”
If you know me at all, you know I love to chat. And I have an obsession with words and language, playing Wordle and NYT word games until 2:00 am because I can’t sleep from reading all the news of the world in all its wordy and inflammatory glory! The world is inundated with words; words that are concise or verbose, words that express opinion, bias, and hyperbole, and words that express nuance and tone.
To put it into real estate terms, think how hard it is to limit a great home’s description to 1000 characters! Shorter and more concise is always harder, especially when you have a lot you want to say about your hopes and dreams. But, the process of finding that ONE word that reflects where you are, where you want to go, and how you want to show up all year long is super powerful and ultimately can frame the overarching narrative or theme of your year.
Last year’s word for me was INTEGRATION. I envisioned integrating my personal life and my professional life in a way that acknowledged that real estate is 24/7, and if that was going to be the case, then I needed to find a way to feel great about that fact. I wanted to work with clients who I loved speaking to even while my dinner was getting cold. I wanted to feel confident about focusing on different aspects of my life and being fully present, attracting clients who had confidence in my work and allowed things to unfold with ease. Or I needed to confidently delegate tasks so that I could still provide service, but could also finish a workout, even when I was tracking a deadline or in the middle of negotiating an offer. I wanted clients who appreciated my business efforts, but also understood that I had a life. This discovery and exploration in 2023 led to an ideal client avatar, a branding and marketing plan that expressed who I was personally, and hiring a powerful team member and operations manager who would allow me to continue to support my clients at the highest level even though my business is growing!
I decided rather than put big walls around my personal time, trying to achieve this idea of “balance,” I simply wanted to experience my work life from a place of ease and alignment so that I no longer needed to think of work as needing to be separated from personal. No more “balance” was needed as I simply focused on enjoying the experience of whatever I had planned or intended and whatever unfolded during each day. Then a funny thing happened, I began seeking (and receiving) clients and referrals from some of my kindest and most sophisticated friends – and they sent me like-minded, appreciative buyers and sellers who made the need to separate work from life wholly unnecessary. I love helping friends sell and find dream homes and talk about what home means to them – and that is pretty much what I do all day, every day. Now work doesn’t break up or take out chunks of my day – it IS my day. And going to the gym, calling my kids, scheduling dentist appointments – it’s all in the mix and it’s all part of the service I offer and the life I want.
This year’s word, EFFICIENCY, is more about refining the processes by which I achieve my desired outcomes and feelings. In a world often consumed by hustle culture, I choose intentionality and I am always thinking about scaling and better ways to do things – rather than feeling proud of how “busy” I can get. Sometimes, it’s about doing less to achieve more, utilizing time with precision, listening to what will make life better, and avoiding the noise that distracts from true productivity. Here’s to a year of streamlined efforts, focused pursuits, and achieving meaningful results through thoughtful, intentional actions. What’s your word of the year? Comment by replying to this email, I’d love to hear it!
