To speak a little more about New Year’s resolutions…well, I’m all for them, obviously. The past few years we have set resolutions for the whole family. Cheesy, perhaps, but I think it’s good for the kids to learn about setting goals, and for us to talk about what new experiences we want to pursue in the year ahead.

But as much as I like resolutions, it’s easy for them to become overwhelming and unattainable. Besides my one specific resolution (finish my next book), the rest of mine are pretty broad and a bit cliche, I admit: eat more healthy foods, exercise more consistently, spend more time with family.

Which one do I focus on first? How do I manage all of these different goals?

The other night at book club, one of my friends mentioned the idea of boiling down all your resolutions into one word for the year. The more I think about this concept, the more it makes sense.

The first word that came to mind was balance. But, real talk here: I kind of cringe at that word. It conjures images of a stopwatch that goes off when you’ve spent too much time on one priority/area of your life, blaring in your ear when you need to hustle off to the next. Balance is anxiety-inducing for me, so I dismissed that idea.

Right now I’m fluctuating between two that I believe fit better: care and presence. Both of these words bring a sense of calm and peace, and the reminder that it’s important to take care of myself and my loved ones, and to truly enjoy the moments with them.

Maybe having two words is just fine. So I hereby announce that 2016 shall be my year of care and presence. Let’s see what this year brings!

How about you? If you had to come up with one word (or two!) to focus on this year, what would it be?