Happy New Year, happy Sunday and happy to be back to work this week as we rev up our engines for a year of loving, seeking, doing, enjoying and being excellent in all our pursuits of excellence!! ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ Inspired by @chrisbrogan in the last couple of years I have replaced new year resolutions with 3 carefully chosen words. ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ It has been a joyous time with family and lots of indulgent reading, as I thought about my three words. One of those books was ‘Ikigai, The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life’ by Hector Garcia and Francesc Miralles. Here’s a little snapshot of why I chose Ikigai, Simple and Create for 2018!⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ IKIGAI⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ After reading this book, Ikigai became my first word. Ikigai is thought to combine the Japanese words ikiru, meaning “to live”, and kai, meaning “the realisation of what one hopes for”. Body, mind and spirit, Ikigai is said to be ‘the art of aging while staying young’ a powerful word to stay on path and on purpose. To my understanding this is less about goals setting and more about a state of mind that the Japanese adopt to remain optimistic and positive despite the many challenges of life. ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ SIMPLE⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ Keep things simple. Resist the temptation of over-complicating. Focus on doing one thing at a time to a completed state extremely well. Whether it’s food and exercise or creating new content be relentless in the pursuit of simplicity.⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ CREATE⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ Align business with creativity. Continue to experiment and collaborate to take ideas trapped in the mind and bring them to life. Create art. Create opportunities. Create connections. Create conversations. Create fun and play. Constant daily rituals of unleashing creativity. ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ These are my 3 words, my phone screensaver and daily reminder for the coming year to follow my ikigai, keep things in my personal and business life simple and consistently stay playful and creative.⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ Does anyone else do this? If you could choose three words for your year ahead what would they be?⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ #NewYear #My3Words #Ikigai #Simple #Create #BeExcellent (at Melbourne, Victoria, Australia)