Shoot for the moon
Because swaggy doesn't really work as a word for the year...
Let me come right out and say it: I’m not into words for the year. If I was, I’d pick Swaggy. But I’m not.
In fact I’m already bracing myself for the annual onslaught of everyone earnestly sharing their words for the year while I scoff another Cadbury’s Hero and wonder if it’s JUST ME who finds the whole notion totally ridiculous.
I mean, none of us knows what the year ahead will bring. That goes for woes as well as treasures. So slapping an impossibly optimistic noun on all 365 days of 2024 in the vain hope that doing so might somehow make it lovely and more bearable strikes me as just setting myself up for trouble.
Please don’t @ me on this. I get it. You choose the word JOY and the idea is that it reminds you to be joyful even on days when the world seems to have gone to hell in a handcart. Cool, I can see the appeal of that. But I don’t WANT to feel joyful every day. Maybe it’s something to do with being a recovering anxiety-sufferer but the idea of feeling one thing day after day fills me with dread. The last time that happened to me I had to get medication so I could feel other things again.
Me? I want the freedom to have a rage-y day without JOY looking at me with disappointment all over her joyously joyful face. I want at least one full day of moody disdain. A sarky day. An afternoon, at the very least, of deliberately not living up to my own expectations of myself. How can you enjoy the satisfaction of a little bit of school-run road rage if you’re trying to be joyful at 8 am on Mondays?
No word can convey the gamut of emotion and explosive fragile humanity that I hope to stuff into every day of the year to come. How could I possibly limit myself to wishes for the year with ONE WORD? For the love of mercy, why would you deliberately deny yourself all of the hundreds of thousands of words that you could choose from the English language alone by settling on just one word for the year? That’s like asking me to choose one book to read or one song to listen to. I’d rather go without books and music altogether, I think, than doggedly force myself to enjoy just one and forego the dizzying choice and variety that makes music and books and words so damned captivating in the first place.
Nope, I’m not a word-for-the-year kind of gal.
What I AM into at this time of year, though, is a little thing called Mondo Beyondo. I’m not entirely sure of the origins of this idea - it’s something I first came across at least 15 years ago when we blogged instead of living life on the gram but I can’t seem to find the original blog post that inspired me.
(If I’ve stolen this from you, forgive me. Although since you came up with something as cool as a Mondo Beyondo list, I’m willing to bet that you’re not the kind to threaten lawyers. Just know that I would credit you for this if I could.)
The Mondo Beyondo list is, quite simply, a list of your wildest dreams, craziest hopes, and most outlandish wishes for the year. The only rule is that you must not hold back. There’s no point in writing a Mondo Beyondo list if you’re going to censor yourself. What if the Universe decided to grant every last wish on your list and you’d gone for stuff like sorting out your expenses in a timely fashion instead of inheriting a fortune from a great aunt you never knew you had?
All of that to say that I’ve decided 2024 is the year I go all in. No half measures. Mondo Beyondo lists of impossible dreams over earnest words for the year. I want to have big blousy ideas above my station that are so ridiculous, that the Universe feels obliged to look me up and down and ask me who I think I am. Why? Because over the years I’ve dabbled with letting myself dream of impossible things and all I can tell you is that it’s the wild hopes and unrealistic expectations that have this strange knack of fulfilling themselves while the measured, reasonable resolutions never make it past January.
As Norman Vincent Peale (I think) put it: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.” That’s my plan for the year. It’s gonna need more than one word to capture it, although Swaggy comes close. So join me, if you feel so inclined, in making some impossible demands of the Universe. My Mondo Beyondo list starts with ‘Be approached by an agent who begs to represent me and offers me a two-book deal that I can’t say no to’ so I’m not joking when I say I’m setting the bar high.
So, are you with me? You’re welcome to stay over there if you prefer. If all this Mondo Beyondo manifesting nonsense twists your melons then, by all means, assign yourself 8,760 hours of joyfulness or whatever. (Please, at least pick swaggy.)
P.S Along with this silly, extravagant approach to the year, we’ve decided 2024 is the year to finally make Muse Flash everything we know it could be. We’re throwing open the doors on Muse Flash: The Squad. It’s our very own membership programme, packed full of exclusive Muse Flash inspiration and magic. Monthly Zoom, new short course, and a coaching session with our freshly certified life coach, amongst other treats, anyone? It’s strictly limited to eight people so that we can give the cohort our full attention from January - June and it’s priced at the faintly ridiculous sum of £100 per month. There are no doors, of course, but if there were we’d be flinging them open at 6 pm tonight. A deposit of £100 secures your place and payment plans can be arranged - get in touch if you’d like to know more!
Love,
Heidi & Hazel
MuseFlash
www.museflash.academy