108: Setting Intentions: Your Word of the Year for 2024 featuring Lisa Jacobs

See the show notes for this Episode here.

This transcript has been automatically generated.

Bonnie Christine [00:00:00]:
If you're ready to hit the ground running in 2024, boy, do I have a challenge for you. I would love to invite you to join me for my 5 day challenge in pattern design starting on January 11th. Now this is an entirely free and super fun experience where I get to just show you how to get started in surface pattern design. You'll learn how to create your very own repeating pattern and create something beautiful, like your very own fabric, wallpaper, stationery, or gift wrap. Inside this 5 day challenge is where I'll be sharing with you all of my favorite resources. You don't need to have any experience. Just be ready to dive in for about 20 minutes every day for 5 days, and we're gonna be having a lot of fun. I'll be giving away over $25100 worth of prizes.

Bonnie Christine [00:00:55]:
All you need to do to enter to win is participate. So if you're looking to add a new hobby, a side hustle, or an entire shift in your career, this is a perfect No risk way to dip your toes into the beautiful and breathtaking world of surface pattern design. Come join us at Bonnie Christine slash 5 day challenge? I would love to see you there. Lisa Jacobs, it's 2024.

Lisa Jacobs [00:01:23]:
We're here. We made it. We did it. 2024.

Bonnie Christine [00:01:29]:
Another year in the books and we open up a brand new book for this year, which I'm you know, it feels good.

Lisa Jacobs [00:01:37]:
Yeah. It really does.

Bonnie Christine [00:01:39]:
I love talking to you at the beginning of every new year. So you and the way that you think about your years and annual planning and Really coming into that, like, energy of that January energy is something that you talk about like no one else, and it always resonates with me so much, so I'm so excited to talk to you today about our intention for 2024.

Lisa Jacobs [00:02:04]:
Yes. And to me, I get chills. It's just the most wonderful time of the year. I I get excited for it starting in October. And then in December, just I'm in a series of deep reflection. And then in January time Amy, when you have all of this frenetic, excited energy, it's the perfect time to channel everything you're doing into the goals and the dreams that you have set up for the year. Yeah. And so today, I'm very excited because we're going to walk through a process.

Bonnie Christine [00:02:34]:
I'm Bonnie Christine, and this is where all things creativity, design, business, and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked Right inside the Smoky Mountains running a multi seven figure business doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. When I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today, I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you End your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, Changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable. Welcome to The Professional Christine podcast.

Lisa Jacobs [00:03:41]:
One of the things we're gonna look at is the theme of the year, And then we're going to summarize that with a word. And this is this is sort of par for the course. Anytime we're planning content For the year or looking at a big picture narrative, I always sort of wanna stop and say, what are we feeling? What What are we collectively experiencing right now? What do we wanna honor in any of the content or material that we put out? What's the overarching narrative that we can kind of agree Bonnie, and it won't be exact, but you're gonna hear Bonnie and I talk through it right now. And one thing that I find Stu be so interesting for 2024 is that the theme that I'm sort of sensing Is that I feel like we have several times decided we've come to a new normal. And We've come to this new normal because we've been experiencing a global pandemic. We went from in person to virtual in so many instances, And we have really given each phase of that change the title new normal. And what I'm feeling is that normal hasn't exactly been established yet. Mhmm.

Lisa Jacobs [00:05:02]:
And I think 2024 is going to be An interesting establishment of the new roles because we've been balancing out this out. What it reminds me of is Jet lag when you travel because we collectively went through something and then we've been exhausted by it and we've just been trying to get back on track. And when you travel long distances, one of the main reasons that you would experience jet lag Is because of all of the unfamiliarity and uncertainties that you walk through as you navigate new airports And you scan unfamiliar faces. Our our brains are processing way more than we realize at any given time. And so your brain is constantly gauging the sense of threat or security or safety at any given moment. And so you can liken what we've experienced over these last few years sort of to that jet lag experience, sort of to We have been really navigating unfamiliar territory. We've dealt with a lot of uncertainties and we keep trying to level the Porterfield and get comfortable with the landscape, but I think the theme of 2024 is going to be a restabilizing. I think we might have been in survival mode more than we might have realized, and I think it's gonna be a revival.

Lisa Jacobs [00:06:27]:
That's what I'm feeling. What are you thinking, Bonnie? What does this year as a whole feel like for you?

Bonnie Christine [00:06:34]:
You know, this I have to share this story when you're talking about this jet lag thing because it reminds me of the last time I got jet lag. And so this was about a year and a half ago, a year and change ago, and we went to Hawaii. And so I'm on the East Coast, so Hawaii is a 6 hour time change for me. And so when we came back, we had a red eye flight on the way back, so I had gotten fully adjusted to the time there. Right? Red eye flight came back, and then I went to bed at, like, 8 PM. So early, but pretty much on time. Woke up, got, like, 12 hours of of sleep, woke up the next day feeling like $1,000,000. Did so this was Sunday night.

Bonnie Christine [00:07:16]:
I remember it. Monday, I was awesome. Tuesday, I was awesome. Wednesday, I was like, I just owned that jet lag. Like, I crushed it. And Thursday, Lisa, I hit Such a wall I could not get out of bed. Mhmm. And in a lot of ways, that actually kind of makes me think about the last 4 years.

Bonnie Christine [00:07:35]:
I was like, I did it. We came through. We're all good, and it was almost like this delayed hitting of a wall. Like, oh my gosh. What have we just been processing? It was like a delayed, a little bit of a lag for me. I don't know if that's true for everyone, but it was actually a little bit later, like 2021 that was really hard, and then there was, like, a re Calibrating in 2022 and 2023. You know, I I'm feeling like we're in a good place. I definitely You can sense the same thing as, like, we're we're grasping for normal.

Bonnie Christine [00:08:09]:
We're grasping for what's true. We're grasping for what feels, You know, it's just there's a lot of moving parts. Like, even if we're beyond and healed from a lot of what happened in with COVID, there's So many new, like, questions like AI and, it's just all this newness, plus 2024 is gonna be a big year in a lot of ways.

Lisa Jacobs [00:08:32]:
Yes. I love that. And, you know, the newness is not something to fear. Although, since we've been through so much change, You might be a little bit more fearful of it than you would normally be, but when you even mention AI, I'm thinking Of my children in school and they're encouraging everything away from AI. And I'm like, you are actually Doing them a disservice. You need to be training them how to use AI to leverage their already existing knowledge, skills, and abilities So that they can do even more with that talent. Of course, we're not talking about plagiarizing. Of course, we're not talking about being dependent on the thing.

Lisa Jacobs [00:09:15]:
But if we don't start adopting some of those changes, then we'll be left behind.

Bonnie Christine [00:09:21]:
Yeah. I agree. When I kind of approach this, I always come up with a word. I love having a word that kind of encapsulates, like, this larger theme. And for me, It's it's 2. I kind of have this business word that relates to all of my career aspirations, and then I also have a personal one. Do we wanna talk about our word for 2024?

Lisa Jacobs [00:09:47]:
I love this exercise. Let's do it.

Bonnie Christine [00:09:51]:
I do too. It impacts me in a great way every single year. So my word last year was possibilities. I felt so just open, ready. I was looking at the world with open arms, ready to grasp whatever they kind of threw my way, And I thought about it the entire year, and it helps when I may feel like playing small and I have to remind myself, No. This is this year is all about possibility, and so I like to have it on something I like to wear like a Like a necklace or a bracelet with my word on it, I like to keep it at my workstation. I like to live and breathe this word as a reminder throughout the entire year. I think it also just helps with, like a guidance for decisions.

Bonnie Christine [00:10:36]:
It gives me a lens to make decisions around. So, okay, I'm gonna start with my business word.

Lisa Jacobs [00:10:44]:
Okay.

Bonnie Christine [00:10:45]:
Then we'll move to personal. So my business word is authenticity. Authenticity is something that's on the top of my mind. I shared recently in a podcast episode around ideas for 2024 how this is really where I think we are moving. Like, the theme of the year is authenticity. And it really kicked off for me when The Webster dictionary announced that their word for 2024 was authenticity, so not being that original here. But the concept behind it It's so impactful, and it's because, they they identify this word based on Searchie, amount of times searched, but also amount of times that other things have been searched as well. And so the amount that things like Deep fake was Searchie, and, you know, is this fake or real was Searchie, really brought authenticity to the forefront.

Bonnie Christine [00:11:42]:
And It's it's something that I believe in wholeheartedly and struggle with just a little bit when I show up, specifically on social. Now I don't struggle being authentic, but I struggle with just, like, you know, opening up the camera and hitting play no matter what we're doing. It just doesn't feel super natural to me, and so I'm always trying to remind myself, like, let them see you in whatever it is you're doing. Like, be Transparent. So this word authenticity to me represents being willing to be vulnerable, being willing to be Transparent in what what you're doing and who you are, but also actually being who you say you are. So it you know, being the person on the other end of the camera, being the person on the other end of the chat or whatever it is, like, fully leaning Stu heartfelt authenticity because I think The real opportunity here is that authenticity doesn't really matter until it gets questioned. And once it's questioned, then those who are authentic just kind of like bubble to the top. And so I think really embracing, really being willing to show up, being vulnerable, being transparent, and being authentic in everything that I do Is my goal for the business side of everything that I do in 2024?

Lisa Jacobs [00:13:08]:
Yeah. I think you've explained that very well that It makes a lot of sense, and I think it's needed. That's wonderful.