2024: In Three Words
2024: In Three Words
Welcome to Gayle Force(d) Wisdom! After a year of planning and lots of hard work, I am posting this entry as my first piece I’ve written as an official blogger. I am so excited to finally see my vision come to life and to share it with all of you! My hope for Gayle Force(d) Wisdom is to help people get through a hard time by sharing something I have gone through, spread the wisdom that I have gathered along the way to create a better life and connect good people with other good people. At the very least, I hope to entertain or give someone a laugh while they are scrolling through my stories. Within this blog, you will find several entries that I wrote in the past including three different series’ from 2017, 2019 and 2021. Please feel free to look back through my old content, read through the more current entries and be sure you don’t miss out on the “Gayle’s Favorites” section either. Enjoy!
Before I launch into this post, I wanted to acknowledge a few special people.
First, thank you to my amazing web designer Mary Alvizures a.k.a “Magical Mary” for everything. Her hard work, expertise and positive energy helped me translate what was in my head into this beautiful website. It is far beyond what I could have imagined. Without her help, I would still be clunking along trying to figure out blog site technicalities and would be completely in the weeds. You truly spun some magic Mary!
Second, to my inner circle of people - especially the amazing women in my life - thank you for providing endless enthusiasm, inspiration, encouragement and humor to me. Together you make up the pieces of my soul and are all a part of this blog in some way or another.
To my husband, my two boys and my little princess - thank you for letting me take time away from our busy life to pour hours into this site in order to reach this personal goal. I appreciate you all being my biggest fans. Gayle is nothing without you four.
And finally, to Pat. Thank you, you wild Irishman, for conjuring Gayle out of thin air due to your utter lack of attention to detail when it comes to learning people’s names. I love you for it and I promise I will take care of you if I make it big someday.
Okay, now let’s do this!
As I embark on this new adventure in blogging and I am still feeling like it is a new year (where did January go by the way?? Anyone know?) - I thought I would share my thoughts about where I want to be headed going into 2024.
With the dawning of the new year, it always seems to re-ignite a need to set goals and come up with a new plan for myself. While New Year’s resolutions are the most popular practice that occurs during this time, I have also seen a consistent theme of people picking a “word of the year” recently. As Gayle does nothing half assed and is a little bit extra… I/we picked three words to lead with this year with good reason and lots of intention.
As 2023 came to a close and I reflected back on the year, I realized that I needed more than just one word going into 2024. I learned a lot in 2023 and faced many challenges. While 2022 was a tough year for my mental health (see The Walk Through 2022), 2023 proved to present some unexpected obstacles on the physical health front. (More details to come on that journey later… it’s a doozy.)
It was obvious to me as I contemplated what was next that 2024 was going to be more than a one word chapter of life. As I tried to decide on how many words, I began to see many signs that were steering me directly towards the number three. Here is what I came across:
First, the final day of 2023 was 12/31/23. As I was scrolling on Facebook, I noticed that my dear friend Forrest pointed out that this date, when formatted differently, was 1-2-3… 1-2-3. The number three. Interesting I thought.
Next, as a self proclaimed type A personality, a driven and passionate Aries and a mother of 2 that needs to keep the train running at all times… I felt like I was always having to have one plan as well as two back up plans for everything - plans A, B, and C… or plans 1, 2, and 3. There it is again. Three.
As the number three and its power kept popping up daily, I did some further research on the internet about the meaning of the number three I found the following:
“Wherever the number 3 shows up in your life, it's generally an omen of creativity, communication, optimism, and curiosity!”
(Well that sounded positive.)
“…the number 3, it is connected to the body, mind, and spirit - the cycle of birth, life, and death, and can represent wisdom, knowledge, and understanding”
(Well that aligned with the theme and intention of my blog. Huh.)
“Throughout human history, the number 3 has always had a unique significance, but why? The ancient Greek philosopher, Pythagoras, postulated that the meaning behind numbers was deeply significant. In their eyes the number 3 was considered as the perfect number, the number of harmony, wisdom and understanding.”
(Again, wisdom is referenced. Why yes, this could be the perfect number… at least for this year!)
“The number 3 biblically represents divine wholeness, completeness and perfection.”
(Perfection. There’s that term for a second time. This all sounded promising. Let’s hear it for the number three! Now I feel like the Count on Sesame Street…)
So it was settled. I needed three words to help me navigate this new year. So what are my words for 2024 and why did I pick them? Let’s get started, shall we?
Pivot. Advocate. Simplify.
Pivot:
If the last few years since the pandemic began taught me anything it is that there is no predicted plan. Flexibility is the key to survival because you never know when the other shoe is going to drop. Anytime I hear the word “pivot,” my mind automatically jumps to that episode on “Friends” when Ross buys a new couch. He refuses to pay to have it delivered and carried up the stairs by professionals. Chandler and Rachel are enlisted to help him move it up the stairs. It is far too large to go up the intricate, city high rise staircase of his apartment building. He’s yelling “Pivot!...Pivot!... Pivot!” over and over again at them as they struggle with the bulky couch… much to their frustration and annoyance. Ultimately, the couch never makes it up the stairs, Ross ends up sawing the couch in half and then tries to return the damaged couch to the store like it is still in perfect condition. While this entire episode is hilarious, yelling the word pivot does not end up helping them at all. It just makes things worse.
Starting a new habit and actually putting it into practice is never easy. It takes a lot to integrate it into your routine and become proficient at it. In times of chaos, I have now begun repeating the word “pivot” in my head. It has helped me stop, take a breath and refocus on the change that needs to occur - instead of letting the frustration set in and fester. Being able to pivot and having the foresight to remind myself to be flexible seems to ease my mind and has given me some comfort. It alleviates the pressure to carry out a plan exactly as it is laid out. If what I thought was supposed to happen doesn’t work out, then it reminds me that maybe it wasn’t meant to be that way in the first place. And maybe in the pivoting process, I will stumble onto something even better than what the initial end result was supposed to be.
Advocate:
As mentioned above, I have been through some health challenges this past year. I have only crossed the finish line on 2 of the 3 issues (Wait! It’s the number three again!) but I am facing the biggest one of the three in the coming months. While navigating through the diagnosis and/or remedy for all of these, I was repeatedly dismissed by doctors, given poor quality service and had to work with some practitioners that had no sense of urgency for what I was going through. This was completely frustrating. I was told by one long time practitioner of mine “well this is just where you are at because of your age. Just live with it.” She was ultimately dismissed from my roster and I sought a new specialist in this area that not only cared but found a real issue. The point is, I knew in my gut that something was wrong. Turns out I was right on all accounts and had I let all three scenarios play out for any length of time - they would have all gotten worse. Much worse. There was something wrong and I knew it deep down. No one else could know this because it was how I felt in my core and I refused to let anyone tell me differently despite the fact that this was exhausting most of the time.
This whole journey has reminded me that listening to myself, pushing for answers and finding people (in this case doctors) that care enough to hear me out is a key component to survival in this life. After all, we only get one shot at it. I am the only one that can really know myself and how I feel - so it’s best to listen to myself and speak up for what I need and want. Sure, you can circle your wagons and gather your tribe to help you - but to “know thyself” is the first step.
Simplify:
I love doing “all the things.” It fuels my soul and it is one of my key missions in life to spark joy for others because it brings me joy as well. However, when I looked back at 2023 and all the things I did in spite of the fact that I physically felt terrible, I did waaayyyy too much. This was especially obvious to me around the holidays. By the end of the year, although I sparked joy for many others and in turn myself, I was on total burn out and too exhausted to enjoy any of the holidays on the actual day of.
Given what I have ahead of me in 2024, I have made a promise to myself and a conscious choice. I have decided to scale back in many areas of life and simplify. As much as I love over the top gestures and have a get up and go-go-go nature, it is time for a change. Even if it is just a temporary change. I will do less in the coming year, enjoy life more and remind myself that simple is better. I know that some people will perceive this as selfish or uncaring but burning myself out will be far worse than any of these judgements that may come my way.
While I sometimes get caught up in the past of what went wrong or replay things in my head, I am trying to turn over a new leaf and look forward to this year with new eyes and convictions. I am happy to share what I have learned from my experiences by recounting them, but I am also trying not to dwell on these things of the past too much either. One of the things that was sparking joy for me earlier this month was repurposing some Alice In Wonderland themed items I had from one of my baby showers into a Valentine’s Day decoration display in my home. As I was setting them out, I wondered if Alice or Lewis Carroll might have some wisdom for me and I found this quote:
“‘I could tell you my adventures–beginning from this morning,’ said Alice a little timidly: ‘but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’”
-Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Today I am a different person than I was in 2023. I am stronger, my eyes are wider and I no longer refuse to settle as I forge ahead on what’s next for me. So as I pull the trigger on this first post in 2024 and officially launch my blog on Valentine’s Day - the holiday centered around love - I am choosing to love myself. I am putting my feet up, raising a cold brew in celebration and enjoying a simple, quiet moment of silence. But I know that despite the fact that I am resting for a brief moment, I am going into 2024 with “Gayle Force” and lots of love.
