Tag: new-year

2026 One Word/Phrase (1-7-26)

Happy Wednesday and Happy New Year!

I hope you had a relaxing and recharging holiday.  We are going to kick off a series about some questions you might consider asking yourself as we get this year rocking and rolling.  Our first question is an annual tradition.  What is one word/phrase that will serve as your north star for the year?  

At the beginning of every year, I take time to reflect and choose a word or phrase that will be my north star for the year.  I’ve found it helps ground me versus getting lost among setting too many goals.  To identify my one word/phrase I ask myself things like: What went well last year that I want to continue?  Where could things have been better?  What do I want to achieve?  What do I want to give more focus and energy toward this year? 

In 2025 my word was REBUILD.  I needed to rebuild after having a few years that absolutely kicked my butt.  My focus on rebuilding and repairing had huge dividends and contributed to me having one of the best years I’ve had in a long time throughout many aspects of my life.  This year, my phrase is Make a Choice.  As I reflected on 2025, I realized that things were at their best when I was making intentional choices whether this meant being very deliberate about working out or making clear trade-offs at work.  When I didn’t actively make a choice, I would default to getting lost in the grind, doomscrolling, and other activities that didn’t serve me or bring me joy.  My phrase is a subtle reminder that I can either choose and have better outcomes or get swept in a current I don’t want to be in.

The challenge: What is your one word or short phrase for the year?  What is your north star? 

Bonus: The image is a vision board I create that incorporates my one word/phrase as well as other images that have meaning. Here is a breakdown of the vision board.

  • Phrase- “Make a Choice”
    • 2025 was one of the better years I’ve had in a while.  My focus for that year was rebuilding, and I had a lot of success building myself back up, rebuilding some better habits, etc.As I reflected on 2025, I realized that the best parts of the year stemmed from me making very intentional choices.
      • I chose not to run myself into the ground and was deliberate about ensuring that didn’t happen.I chose to make sure I took time to recharge on a frequent basis. I chose to make weightlifting more of a priority. I chose to focus my time and effort on key work projects.
      I also realized that when things weren’t as good, it’s because I did NOT intentionally make a choice.  Essentially, when I wasn’t making intentional decisions, I was passively sliding into not so great habits like:
      • Doomscrolling for a long time before going to bed. Getting sucked up in the speed of life and getting lost in work while sacrificing family and health. Watching/consuming mindless stuff (food, entertainment, etc) that I didn’t enjoy vs choosing things that would bring me joy.
    • Bottom line- if I can I can do a better job of ensuring I am always actively making a choice, my life will be even better.
  • Morpheus and the red vs blue pill
    • This represents the idea of making a choice.
  • Spider-man swinging
    • My superpower is connecting people, things, and ideas.  Spider swings effortlessly between the connection points, and that’s what I strive to do.
  • Marvel superheroes
    • I like having someone to remind me that I’m blessed to work with a lot of amazing superhumans, and part of my job is to figure out how to bring out the best in everyone.
  • 4S
    • I had copilot create a cool logo for this. It stands for strength, steps, sustenance, and sleep, the building blocks of good physical health. I want to make sure I’m nailing those fundamentals, and the logo makes it look cooler 😉
  • The battery
    • Reminder to
      • 1. Not let my better every get too low
      • 2. Make sure I’m recharging whether that is rest, moving my body, spending time with family/friends/etc.
  • Momentum
    • I feel I gained a lot of positive momentum last year, and I need to continue to think about how I can take advantage of that to continue to make the world a bit better.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Discussing Your Goals with Others (1-15-25)

Last week was about setting goals that resonate.  This week is about the importance of discussing your goals with others.

A little over a week ago, my wife and I got a room in the library with a whiteboard and spent a few hours brainstorming goals for our family  relating to health (physical, mental, social), raising the kids, building our relationship, family trips, and things to do with the house.  Some of those are individual and some are joint goals.  Basically, it’s a kick-off meeting for our family.  Yes, it was the most romantic date ever 😉

Investing this time to share our goals with each other helps us do a few things.  First, it creates a shared understanding of individual goals, so we can support each other.  Second, talking through goals gives us a chance to make sure we are on the same page.  We both have a goal of helping our kids continue to become more self sufficient, but there are a lot of different ways to do that.  We were able to talk through what we felt we needed to focus on.  Last but not least, sharing goals helps us see potential conflicts so we can handle them.  For example, if we have goals about what major house projects we’d like to do that impacts how we will think about budgets for vacation and other spending throughout the year.

What does this have to do with anything?  Have you ever felt like you worked in silos?  I know I have.  This is incredibly frustrating.  Since the groups aren’t communicating, the different groups may not be aligned on what the goal is or they might even have goals that directly conflict with each other.  We could likely avoid more of this if we did a better job of talking to each other about what our goals were.  If we were more clear, we could align which brings power AND we could plan for how to handle things when the goals are in conflict with each other.

The challenge: How can you find ways to create a shared understanding of your goals to help achieve success?

Bonus- Here are a few goals we have this year. Sharing in case it inspires anyone.

  • Date nights- Monthly date night to be scheduled the second weekend of the month.  If it doesn’t get scheduled it gets lost in the daily grind.
  • Vacations– at least 1 weeklong trip, and a 2-3 day trip in the fall and spring.
  • Work more reasonable hours- My personal goal is to shoot more for 40-50 hours per week and limited nights and weekends.  Like many of us, I put in a lot of long days and nights during Q4.  I realized that my workload wasn’t just rough for my mental health, but had a negative impact on my family’s energy as well. #needforextremeprioritization

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry