Naming 2014: MOVE

I've been spending the past week thinking carefully about how I hope to act in 2014.  I have a (bad?) habit of making outrageous resolutions, to the point that I build an impossible set of expectations for my year.  It's not too personally damaging, because I almost always give it up a few days into January.  You can see some of my resolutions posts here, here, and here. This year will be different.  I'm not sure if it's because I'm older, or I have a year's worth of experience with my new family of four.  Maybe it's because I spent some time talking with Ben about our plans, and I'm looking for growth as a unit, instead of whirlwind reshaping my own little puzzle piece of a life.  

I've made some startling promises to myself that actually scare me: I promise to not calorie count in 2014.  I promise not to try and restart my wardrobe by buying The Ten Classic Pieces Every Closet Needs.  I promise not to join any Apartment Therapy cures.  I promise not to create a system for tracking my spending.  I promise to put my YEAR LONG focus in one place, and bravely leave it there.  I'm not scared of giving up dieting/budgeting/home organization because I'm so good at those things and I need them to structure my life.  They are my excuses.  They are the crutches that let me say starting Monday, I'll...be better stronger happier cleaner prettier BETTER.  Now I just have to be.

Our family's word for 2014 is Move.  Ben picked it and it works perfectly.  We want to move out of our house, which is scary for us because we like to put our heads in the sand and huge projects, especially where we feel out of our element, are so intimidating.  But we're ready to move.  We want to move our bodies more as a family.  Ben has weekends off for the first time since we've had kids, and this means more family walks!  Laps around the mall!  Long afternoons at the playground!  Maybe swimming lessons?  Alone time for myself to exercise.  We need to move.  

I've also stolen Move to inspire little lost moments.  These are the five, ten, and fifteen minute chunks that might have been eaten up checking Facebook on my phone.  These are the times to bang out a small task.  Yesterday a grumpy Milo wanted nothing to do with me while he played in tub; I might have sat on the footstool and scrolled through Instagram, but instead I thought "move!" and I cleaned the sink and toilet, took out the bathroom trash, and put a bunch of random clutter in the hall closet where it belongs.  One less task to hate myself for not doing.

Move is important for our family, but I think it might take me to the next level for myself.  I need to be told to move.  I'm so much happier when chores are done and things are tidy, but I'm a procrastinator and will think about impending work for much longer than it would have taken me to just do it.  I also find myself zoning out spectacularly, spending time rechecking social media that doesn't need immediate attention, reading about other people's lives instead of polishing mine.  I need to move through easy tasks and move into the living room to stop and dance with the boys. 

That's our word this year.  We're going to say move when we're excited and move when we're tired and we're going to move when we don't feel like it because our family needs to move, even if it's hard.  We can do hard things.

(image credit oh joy, text added by me)