A Question for the New Year

By: Martianne Stanger

happy-new-year-2020-7M4B423.jpgFor several years running, I joined others in the exercise of choosing one word or phrase to act as a guide for the new year.  Then, one year, as the old year transformed into a new one, many words and phrases came into my mind and heart:

Pause.  Reflect.  Connect. Relationships.  Purpose. Gratitude. Create.  Clear. Encourage. Embrace. Today.  Health. Live. The list went on. 

Yet, no single word seemed persistently—and ironically—try to get me to listen to it,no phrase echoed from my heart to my head, creating an aha in my soul, and, there was not even a pair of words that whispered to me in such a gentle, yet firm way that I knew I had to take them together.

Instead, a question kept coming to me—a question I have written about before here on Signature Moms:

What can I do right now to make the next moment better?

This question has never left me for long, although, sometimes, I forget and let myself get sucked into a vortex of spiraling chaos and challenge.  (Do you ever find yourself there, too?)

Luckily, though, I never am left spinning too long as I am often graced with an impetus to listenand ACT to recognize what is enough…today, to embrace gratitude, work on relationships, live with purposeful pause. To reflect, connect, create, clear, and encourage.To live the very precious present while building a better future all through answering one simple question: What can I do right now to make the next moment better? 

It is an enduring question that, when remembered, answered, and acted upon, changes my life—one better moment at a time.

What word, phrase, statement, or question might guide you throughout 2020 and forward? I’d love to hear about it!


Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s