Bouncing into a new year

Over the last few years, a trend has emerged as a part of the New Year's resolution-making ritual: Choosing a word for the year.

Your word for the year is supposed to pack in every aspiration, goal and behavior that is to occur in the upcoming 12 months. No pressure, right? Or, maybe choosing one word to clarify your focus is a more manageable alternative to making a list of resolutions that, according to Forbes, only 8 percent of us actually achieve.

When the word “bounce” came to me as a potential word for the year, I was a bit underwhelmed. The image that came to mind was my son's red ball, the kind you use in P.E. for dodgeball. Or a dryer sheet. I was hoping for something more glamorous for this sure-to-be pivotal year.

In addition to the unappealing images in my head, I felt uncertain how this word would inform my outlook for 2019. I decided to look up the actual dictionary.com definition.

It turns out that the definition of bounce has 17 different connotations, and it’s both a noun and a verb. The first three entries helped me zoom in on its meaning for me.

1. to spring back from a surface in a lively manner;

2. to strike the ground or other surface, and rebound;

3. to move or walk in a lively, exuberant, or energetic manner.

As I contemplated how I might bounce through 2019, I settled on my own hybrid definition: I will move through this year with flexibility, resilience and exuberance, open to unexpected opportunities and new environments.

So, bounce is the word. I like it.

Throughout the year, I’ll track how true I stay to this definition. That also means I’ll cut myself some slack when I don’t rebound as well as I should, or I resist taking some risks.

Why it matters: Have you ever heard the phrase, “the days are long, but the years are short?” Before we know it, we’ll be clinking glasses to ring in 2020. Perhaps the small step of choosing a word (or phrase) to anchor the year will give meaning to those long days while the year flies by.

Do you have a word for 2019? Tell me about your word in the comments section. Thanks!