My 3 Words for 2020

Each year I pick three words to act as my internal compass, guiding me towards the direction I want to go. The three words are added to my value system and are chosen based on looking for solutions to areas in which I lack conviction, clarity and a foundation to make the right decision for me.

How Do You Do It?

• Pick three words that you can use to guide you forward to success in the coming year.
• Pick words that apply to your goals, and more so, that apply to how you might make choices.
• Pick words that apply to more than one dimension of your life.

Why THREE Words?

“We choose three words so that you can use them for triangulation. One word seems to fade away from our memory too quickly. Two words sets our brain up to think of “this or that” kinds of logic. Three words gives us a way to think about the situations in our lives from many dimensions."

Your words are prompts to filter or guide certain actions are you go through the year. The act as major themes and actionable statements that can either stand alone or work together in understanding what you need to do for personal or professional growth.

My Past 3 Words Choices

2015 — Write. Explore. Connect.

2016 — Create. Share. Communicate.

2017 — Intention. Resiliency. Substance.

2018 — Decide. Risk. Note.

2019 — Produce. Simplify. Context.

Reflection

Looking back on last year's words: Decide, Risk and Note. I took a lot of risks last year from leaving my job with nothing lined up, saying yes to host a full day conference of hundreds of software engineers, to running and building a village for 37 people to survive in the desert for 8 days at the Burning Man Festival. I found myself making decisions quicker, but my strategy could have been better at utilizing people more effectively. I hesitate to tell people what to do because I personally don't enjoy being told what to do but, that hinders my delegation ability. I value being in service of others, but being too much in service of others in 2018 led me to give up a lot more of myself and personal time that I did not invest in goals that are important to me. I am getting better at documenting the journey and taking notes. I've found a lot of value out of notion.so to organize resources and things I learn. I now use Evernote as a rough draft system for more unstructured notes.

My 3 Words for 2019

Produce: Creating and sharing should be more frequent and natural. I want to produce more this year by sharing what I learn, teaching others, creating things that capture value, create spaces for others to help each other and have more creative output.

Simplify: I want to follow the motto, start simple and build up from there. I've introduced a lot of unnecessary complexity in my life and will focus on reduction this year. Some area will be: reducing the number of materials I own, reducing my direct responsibilities, winding down systems I've introduced into my life like bookmarking systems that I don't revisit or reducing the subject areas I am focusing on.

Context: Context is "a frame that surrounds the event and provides resources for its appropriate interpretation”. Understanding context is significantly underrated. Context involves everything. I have approached learning, assumptions, observations, and even certain actions and behaviors without having the context in front of mind. Even when approaching things from first principles, the fundamental concepts of the context in which that knowledge is functional matters. The risks of not respecting context are that you mistaking think certain perceives of information are universal or truths, when it may only be true in a certain context. And when that knowledge is not true when it's in a new context, you might throw it away, when it may still be useful in the appropriate context. When it comes to understanding other people, context is extremely important as it rightfully and respectfully acknowledges another person's depth, humanity, emotions, and fluctuating needs and aspirations.

Share Your Words! What would your 3 words be? You can comment down below, tweet me  @juvoni

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