“The car goes where your eyes go.” – Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

Each year, I, like many, pick a word that serves as an anchor as to where I want to turn my attention. Or as Garth Stein in The Art of Racing in the Rain would suggest, where I want to focus in an attempt to guide the direction of my life. I’ve spent the last year and a half working diligently on creating the life that I want. After having spent so much of my time being caught in the tornado of doing, obligations, busyness and “shoulds”, I set out on a course to take charge of my life, my calendar, and my ambition to forge a path of not just getting through my day, but instead deciding what I want my days and my life to look like. As part of that process, my word of the year in 2023 was alignment, with the goal being to live in alignment with the kind of person I want to be (see 2023’s blog here). After a year of daily reflection on the actions that were in alignment and out of alignment with the kind of person I wanted to be, I am happy to report, with very few exceptions, I am now living in daily alignment with that person (and yes, I still floss every single day). My 2023 focus, energy and effort has paid off. Planning, calendaring, monthly reflection and daily meditation and gratitude have been the cornerstones of my days for the past 18 months and it has worked. Not instantly, mind you (as I may have naively hoped) but the tide has turned, and I can see the momentum building as we enter 2024. I have made more intentional and decisive decisions about how I want my life to be and how to get there. I have set better boundaries and I can more clearly see what I want my life to look like and have put the wheels into motion to get there. However, one surprising thing happened during this process. When I set out on the path to creating the life that I wanted, I thought the path would bring me all the joy and happiness I could stand. I kept waiting for the deep sense of contentment in my life that would undoubtedly make me feel as though I had “arrived” at the life I had wanted to create. But what I found as I continued down the path, was that I had a life I was grateful for (that was easy to see thanks to my morning gratitude practice) but I still wasn’t living a life that I felt joy in. I was so focused on the daily behaviors and habits that were helping me create the life I wanted, that I didn’t stop to connect to that life. I was busy creating but was distracted from actually enjoying that life.

After much reflection, late in the year it became clear to me that I could spend all the time in the world creating the life I wanted but it wouldn’t be meaningful unless I was present in that life, unless I was intentional in connecting to the joy that this life I was creating had for me. For the past few months, I have been focused on being present and finding opportunities to connect to joy. That doesn’t mean walking around blind to the hardships, the struggles and the tough realities present in my life and in our world. Instead, for me, it has been about actively working to find joy in the everyday moments, in the doing and yes, even in the hardships. When I focus on finding the joy, my days are drastically different. I find more fulfillment, more focus and more ease in my days. However, this is not a natural state for me yet. I still find myself settling into my evening reflection realizing that I have once again, gone through the motions of my day, but I didn’t connect to it. So my word for 2024 is joy, but even more specifically in finding the joy, connecting to the joy and enjoying the joy. Because what good is creating the life you want if you aren’t present enough to enjoy the life you’ve created?

Lindsey Weigle,
Managing Partner