Word of the Year: Conscientious

Happy New Year, world!  It’s here: 2012 🙂
Many people are making resolutions for the next 12 months, or 12 days, or maybe just 12 minutes, but I know myself better than to even attempt a list of resolutions…I know (without an ounce of any doubt) that I will never stick to them.  Oh, I would LOVE to lose a lot of weight, workout every single day, never fall behind on the housework, iron the underwear, and save the planet…I am just being realistic, not lying to myself on what I am really disciplined enough to accomplish.
Instead of defining the new year with a list of tasks, I chose a word.  My goal is that my decisions will reflect my word and my word will guide my decisions.  So, the word I will focus on this year is – drrrrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuuuu (That’s my drumroll. Use your imagination!!)
CONSCIENTIOUS
According to Webster’s it officially means the following:
1. Governed by or conforming to the dictates of conscience.
2. Meticulous or careful.
Linking back to the definition of CONSCIENCE, I find the wording that really resonates with my choice:
1a. The sense of moral goodness or blameworthiness of one’s own conduct, intentions, or character together with a feeling of obligation to do right or be good. (LOVE this!!)
1b. A faculty, power, or principal enjoining good acts. (Pretty good, too!)
1c. The part of the superego in psychoanalysis that transmits commands and admonishes to the ego. (OK, that’s getting a little clinical, but we get the point.)
So, how did I arrive at my word?  My big sis helped 😉  She, being the clever and innovative gift giver that she is, used the cutest Gone with the Wind cloth shopping bag for my holiday goodies.

I LOVE GWTW!! As I was admiring the bag sitting pretty on my kitchen island, thinking about how terribly I need to go buy some food for my poor family to eat and envisioning myself using my adorable bag when I finally go grocery shopping, I realized that I am usually too forgetful – aka: LAZY – to take my reusable bags with me when I go shopping.  Then I thought, “I’m gonna do better about that in this new year!”
From that thought, I made the jump onto a really, really painfully long train of thought: all the things I’d like to do better about this year.  As the train became a scene out of that movie Unstoppable, I reeled myself back in a bit, recognized that I am really quite awful at declaring a ton of things I’m GONNA do, and remembered the guilty feeling of failure that is typically the end result of those grand intentions.
Then it hit me…I CAN do better at everything I do if I only approach the things, tasks, projects, and ideas in a BETTER way.
Voila!  My word of the year popped into my head.  I will strive to be CONSCIENTIOUS this year.  I will do things with purpose and intention.  I will carry my reusable bags to the store!
I won’t get everything done on my imaginary to-do list, but what I DO complete, I will do with focus and meaning, and THAT will be me being conscientious in 2012 🙂
So, happy 2012, world.  May you all find your word, embrace it’s cool definition, and love it throughout a fabulous new year!!
xo,
A.