Cultivate | Word of the Year
Ever since Daniel and I got married, we do an end-of-year check-in. We’ve got a list of questions we ask each other to remind us of what we experienced, learned, and how we measured up to our own expectations. (The list of questions could be it’s own blog post.) It’s lengthy, so we typically try to do it on a date night where we can really focus on each other and take the time to intentionally remember the year and dream of what’s to potentially come. Something we do to help us keep focus of the goals/dreams is determine a word of the year. By having that simple word, we can really make sure that whatever trajectory we go on in the upcoming year, we are able to keep ourselves in check.
Last year, I didn’t really pray or spend too much time trying to figure out what this year’s word was. I didn’t want that to happen again for this year, so I started praying about it in the end of November.
The only word that came to mind in the process?
Cultivate.
I brought it up to Daniel, who immediately identified with it as well. When we looked a little further into the meaning:
We read: Grow. Raise. Develop. Improve. Pursue. Refine.
We saw: Our relationship. Our kids. My professional dreams. Our house/backyard projects. Church & community. Develop new rhythms for our family that doesn’t have us feeling burnt out by the end of the week.
We’ve been in a season of growth since 2020, and we’re at a point where our roots are too big for the pot we started in. We’ve contained ourselves too well and have started to grow stagnant. Our marriage isn’t in trouble, and the kids are happy. However, we see the potential for burn out and retreating, and it’s not something we are wanting to actually manifest into existence. The process of cultivating will require repotting and stretching… learning new skills and pushing ourselves in some new ways.
Truthfully, the reason I’m writing this post right now is because Daniel is pushing me to figure out how to cultivate this blogging interest without diminishing its importance. Today was supposed to be a blogging day, a Royal Caribbean training day, and a general productively-focus-on-Rachel’s-future-day. It didn’t end up like that. It became the long dog check-up, a longer than planned trip to the overcrowded gym and store, and even longer than planned tidying up of the house with mounds of laundry included. By the time Daniel got home with the twins, I still hadn’t done the dishes from this morning. I was frustrated, and he couldn’t understand why I had to clean the house instead of focusing on myself.
It’s hard to get yourself out of thought processes that have been cultivated and engrained in you. For me, that reads - “Your interests must follow after the chores are done.” It’s going to be hard to cultivate a mindset that support this as a professional interest. I’m not getting paid. I’m not making money off ads. Yet, Daniel doesn’t care. He sees this as an opportunity to cultivate. To grow in an area and see where it leads me. Clearly, I need to cultivate some belief in myself.
I’m not entirely sure how to wrap up this brain dump of a post. The original post I had planned today was trains and toddlers for Rachel Books Magic. Obviously, this is not that idea, lol. Maybe this exists to let you know you’re not alone in these trenches. Maybe this exists to remind myself that I need to find my interests worthy of cultivating too. Whatever the ultimate purpose of this post may be, I suppose it comes down to realizing I can cultivate and grow, and likely by painfully stretching one root at a time.