[00:00:00] Aneta: We often hear people wishing us a long, happy, and healthy life, but what if the length isn't what matters most? What if instead, it's the breath depth and purpose of each day that matters most? Welcome to the Live the Width of Your Life podcast. My name is Aneta Ardelian Kuzma and join me weekly as I interview guests who made changes in their own lives to live more fully with intention, gratitude, and joy. Be prepared to be inspired by their stories of how they shifted their mindset, took courageous action, and designed the life that they always wanted to live.
Happy New Year. Welcome to 2025, which I can't even believe that I'm saying. I don't know about you, but 2024 seems like it just happened so quickly. And even the holiday season, it just felt strange, christmas came quickly, and I don't know, it was just maybe it was me, but I'm so glad that you are here.
There are so many podcasts I think, over 3Million right now. And the fact that you're here just makes me so extremely grateful. So thank you. And I also wanted to talk a little bit about some changes that maybe you'll see on the podcast this year. One of the things that I wanted to do for a while is really to integrate the podcast more with the rest of my business.
And so I was thinking through, what is the best way to do that? I love the guests that I have, but I do want to weave in themes that are associated with the book. If you don't have a copy of the book, Live The Width of Your Life. I would love for you to grab a copy. They're available on Amazon and paperback and hardcover and on Kindle.
And the Kindle is 99 cents only because I wanted to make it accessible, sometimes clients said that they have a hardcover or paperback, but then when they travel, they want to continue to read daily. And so the Kindle is a great way to be able to do that and to just do it from anywhere. So the theme for this month in the book, because the book has a different theme each month is new beginnings, which is so perfect for January.
And I love this idea of new beginnings. I love January 1st. I just think it's the most magical day. Everything is wiped clean. We're typically at home, maybe spending time with family and maybe just spending some time in reflection. And it's just a wonderful time to start a new, to focus on what I want the year to look like.
How do I want to show up? How do I want to experience the world? Years ago, I used to do a lot of New Year's resolutions and like many of us, started strong, and then at some point, maybe after a month or two, some of my resolutions would wane. And so I switched to instead a word or a mantra or an intention.
And I just found that when I focused on a word instead, it just made things so much easier. And it was easier to just continue to go back to that theme. And then I programmed my mind to just choose to experience life that way. So this year, my word is amazed. I was trying to find a word this year that encapsulated how I wanted to feel, and how I wanted to experience life.
I wanted to slow things down and to experience life in a very integrated way, not just my personal life and not just my business, but focusing on a very full life, and I wanted to savor more, I wanted to appreciate to slow down to savor the moments and just to have I think a joyful approach to living and the word amazed, which I'm not even sure if it's a real world, just word came to me and I did a post on this. So you may have seen it. And some of the things that I said about amazed is just, I wanted to experience beauty and joy in extraordinary moments and the most ordinary moments, right?
So it's being able to celebrate successes and also being able to appreciate just small mindful moments that we might have like having a cup of tea or going for a walk or just, the first snowfall. We just had beautiful snow come out yesterday and today. So that's the word that I picked and it made me think of this Mary Oliver quote, and I love Mary Oliver.
She said, tell me, what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? And I want to feel amazed every day. I want to every day continuously with an open heart, find evidence of awe. I want to feel inspired. I want to have this childlike curiosity and wonder about things that are already there.
It's not that things aren't there that we can appreciate or be grateful for. It's just that sometimes we rush and I've been so guilty of it myself over my entire life to just appreciate things. And so that's the sense of it. The other word I was thinking of is savor, but amazed feels almost even I don't know, more excited for me.
I just get more excited when I think about it. Feeling amazed, just seeing evidence of love and the quiet moments, experiencing laughter and joy daily, being overwhelmed by the beauty of nature. I love to be outside in nature, even in the wintertime. And it's just noticing the little things. Being able to smile at a loved one and getting excited still, like a kid for new experiences.
And then the other part of amazement is also focusing in on the big things it's choosing to be limitless, which was my word last year, being amazed by our courage, the courage to start new things, to grow, to push through comfort zones, to dream really big, audacious dreams and envision a life that's even bigger than maybe you could have ever thought possible.
And so that's why I chose the word amazed I think it'll allow me to stay curious and grateful and open to the magic that could happen every single day and I'm documenting how I show up and what I experience every day and when we do that, it's quite awesome. So my question for you is how will you approach this new year.
How will you approach new beginnings? And what if you remembered? We all remember that we are co-creating this beautiful life with the creator of the universe or whatever your belief is. We get a say in it and it starts with being able to dream again, to envision what it is that we want to then start taking aligned action every single day, even when you're scared what if you allowed yourself to ask really big questions?
Big questions for yourselves. If you dream really big dreams, if you jump into the deep end of the ocean and design and create more freely creativity is just one of those things that I want to focus on this year. I'm lost reading a book by Chase Jarvis, his latest book on creativity. And I love it so much.
It's just one of those great reminders of the fact that we are all creative. All kids are creative. And over time we either start to think of it as something that we don't have time for that. It's like a guilty pleasure, or we don't see ourselves as creative, but I'm going to challenge myself in addition to writing, which is something I feel is a creative outlet for me doing more things that are creative this year.
And I think that will be a wonderful way to inspire some new actions. So what is it that you will do in terms of new beginnings? And in the book, there are journal prompts, and there are challenges every day. So if you follow along this month, we will have guests who are also talking about new beginnings this month.
Next month is a different theme. It's actually about self-love and service to others. So there are journal prompts and there are challenges. And so if you follow along with me and you do it every single day, it won't take that much time, but you will start to take aligned action toward the dreams the visions, and the goals that you set out for yourself.
And that's a wonderful way to have that sustained growth, to make sure that you continue to focus on what it is that is most important to you. Thank you for joining me today. I would love to hear what your words are. I would love to hear how you're approaching 2025, the way you want to perceive it, how you want to show up in the world, and how you want others to see you.
And as always, if there's anything I can do to help you, just reach out. Have an amazing day.
Thank you for listening to today's episode. If today's conversation inspired you to dream again, break out of your comfort zones, or reflect on what it means to you to live more fully, then please follow this podcast because every week you'll hear more stories from people just like you who took imperfect action towards their goals, created more joy and are living the life that they always dreamt of living.