For the past several years as I begin the new year, I pick one word to serve as a goal or guideline to live my life by. In the past few years my words have been “believe”, “abide”, “discipline”, and “trust”. This year my word is “DESIGN”. I chose this word because design means “to intend for a definite purpose” and “to form or conceive in the mind; plan” and “to assign in thought or intention; purpose.” You see, I want each day to have a purpose. I wonder how many days of my life I just let come and go without much thought about how to maximize my purpose. Sure, there certainly were days that I believe I was intentional in sharing my strengths, skills and faith to make a difference in the lives of people. I am also equally certain there were days that were frittered away without awareness that each day is precious and will never be lived again.

My goal this year is to live with intentionality or to “design” each day with an awareness that it is far better to be active in creating my day rather than merely reactive to life’s circumstances. In other words, rather than having a “bad day” when something challenging comes along, recognize it’s temporary and call it a “difficult moment” that doesn’t have power to hijack my day unless I allow it to. As the designer of my day, I decide how I want my day to go and how I want to “BE” each day. For example, when tough things happen or disappointments occur, I remind myself to take a step back, look for the opportunity to learn or grow, and maybe even feel bad for awhile. However, I don’t have to “pitch a tent” there and keep dwelling on it. As the designer, it is my objective to make the most of each day I am blessed to live. What a shame when I take it for granted and decide to be miserable. As the old saying goes, “pain is inevitable but misery is optional.” Obviously no one knows how much time they have remaining and I sure don’t want however much time I have left to be wasted away allowing circumstances determine my level of joy.

I choose to be an active designer, recognizing that much of the quality of my life is “designed” by the quality of my thoughts. When I choose to begin the day in gratitude, I automatically set the tone for the day. As a designer, I even choose how I will BE each day. I want to BE a ray of light in someone’s cloudy day. I want to BE a person who adds value to every environment I find myself in. I want to BE a voice of hope and inspiration. I want to BE a person who looks at life through eyes of faith knowing that there is far more going on in this world than meets the eye.

As I progress through 2018, my word DESIGN challenges me to not get lazy and squander time away on meaningless tasks, but to make the most of each day. In fact, my daily objective has now expanded to wanting to create at least one moment each day that is worth remembering and recording in my journal “One Sentence A Day”.

How about you? What is one word that you will help guide you to make the most of your one, precious life? How about you join me in intentionally making this day a great one!!