(photo credit: flickr)

“Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose – not the one you began with perhaps, but one you’ll be glad to remember.” ~ Anne Sullivan

There is too much emphasis on the new year and resolutions, yet there is value in beginning new, starting fresh, aspiring to lofty goals and creating change. There are lessons to be learned in all the beginnings and the many subsequent failings. To get back up and start again and again is, at the least, a practice in patience.

I am loving the idea of a word for the year. One word that encompasses what 2011 should be for you in all its highs and lows. One word that represents your hopes and dreams and will lift you up when you fall. One word.

My word for 2011 is b r e a t h e.

It’s the warm air coming off a calm ocean that makes me want to take a deep breath to take in all of the smells, sounds and texture it brings with it. It’s what grounds me before heading out into the world. It’s what will get me through all my beginnings and failings. I am going to follow my breath wherever it takes me. I am going to just breathe.

What will yours be?

And what does it mean to you?