Challenging myself in 2025

I'm one of those people. Full disclosure. Every year I contemplate what word best encapsulates my January hopes for the year.

I say January because honestly the year often goes where it wants and i have found myself more than once pivoting from my original word.

This year I chose Invest.

I have a life I'm so content in, so blessed with that I'm not looking to rock the boat or shake it up. But what I hope to do this year is build on the word from last year.

My word last year was Embrace.

I really did. I got my arms and my mind around deep, meaningful truths. Who I am, my potential. I embraced circumstances for what they are instead of what I wished them to be. I embraced joy. For most of my life I gazed upon the joy in my life with suspicion afraid to allow myself to fully bask in the good.

I am absolutely an investor by nature. I've invested most of my life and energy in my family and that joy I mentioned before is the payoff.

I've been thinking about investing a bit more. Most people don't invest- whether it's money, energy or time because they don't have it to spare.

It's how many think of investing. Investing extra.

But investing doesn't work that way.

Investing requires us to sacrifice. To give up something, compromise, or go farther with what we have by being creative with the resources. Then we take the amount we've been able to squeeze from the whole and we set it aside. We guard it, protect and defend it and we invest in something.

Investing isn't about instant gratification. It's a long game. Just like compound interest, investing is about seeing what little sacrifices across time can become.

I'm not setting trailblazing goals this year.

I'm making small sacrifices and investing them in the people and areas in my life that bring me great love and joy.

A little extra time at night to stretch and to pray. Finding time on the weekend to pick up a good book.

Long lunches with friends. Long weekends my love.

Even more time with my kids and grandkids. Time supporting their goals and dreams. Investing in them by supporting them with my own resources.

I'm investing in my atmosphere this year. Continuing to create the home and space I dream about.

I'm investing in my faith, and in myself and the things I feel called to pursue.

This blog, a passion for 20 years but frequently neglected as it's been sacrificed to other more pressing endeavors is an investment I'm ready to make.

What areas of your life do you need to examine and consider investing in? Do you do a word for the year? I'd love to hear yours.