"Mojo": my One Word for governing my life in 2020

This will be the 4th year I have adopted One Word for governing my life for the year instead of the more common goals or new year's resolutions etc that we tend to set ourselves.

My previous One Words were:-

• Focus (2017)
• Discipline (2018)
• Apply (2019)

Each of these three words are still things that I could and should improve further on.

For 2020, I started thinking about my choice of One Word at the start of December 2019.

Given where I am currently at in terms of life stage, age, family situation, roles, career and wider interests, the word "value" came to mind.

An early thinking out loud version of what "value" meant to me was this tweet:

now firming up my #OneWord #OneWord2020 which may be "value" re the value I bring to the communities I lead, facilitate, am a member of, how I add to my own value proactively & reactively & how I spend my time adds or preserves my value eg self-carehttps://t.co/GlxmvHxEPS

— Simon R.J. Fogg (@srjf) December 20, 2019

I thought more and whilst sat in church on Sunday morning 29 December the word "mojo" came to mind.

This is a word that has a number of popular meanings but it has a specific meaning for me after reading and working through Liz Ryan's book "Reinvention Roadmap: Break the Rules to Get the Job You Want and Career You Deserve" which heavily features "mojo" (391 mentions).

Reading Liz's book was eye-opening on a number of levels. Her explanation of "mojo" resonated with me strongly. I am not usually one for jargon or non-standard words but the word "mojo" is great shorthand for what I want to have as my guiding thought this year.

"Mojo" is a person's life source and their energy level.

By working through the large number of Liz's exercises, I discovered that the level of my mojo was a strong driver for my resulting success or lack of it across all roles of my life.

To be specific, in 2020, I intend to do the following across all my activities:-

1. understand what areas of my life have a mojo level
2. be more aware of my mojo levels at points in time but not necessarily real-time!
3. understand what people, situations and tasks increase or decrease my mojo levels
4. understand specifically what I can do to rapidly increase my mojo levels when they are low or empty
5. understand specifically what I can do to maintain my mojo levels at high
6. assess at monthly, say, intervals my mojo levels and understand any reasons for those changing over the month
7. act on these assessments to see whether I can eliminate or significantly increase the decreasers and identify ways to add to the increasers

Tying this back to value, I also want to see how mojo and "value to me" and "value to others" "works"in my own life so that informs my life and career planning. I am aware that the level of my mojo deeply impacts my ability to star perform or to barely function.

Ideally, obviously (!), I want to strive to be a person whose mojo levels remain consistently high so that I can star perform on a relentless basis, even aiming for that to be all the time.

I see this as tying in nicely with the work I am doing in 2020 on my inner voice/critic issues to address directly for the first time in my own life self-care issues that became apparent when I participated in one of John Stepper's Working Out Loud Self-Care circles in Q4 2018 - Q1 2019.

All of this to become a happier, more-contented person, a more likeable person, a more professional person and a more effective deliverer of services in all roles in my life.