A new year calls for a new X. What's on your life target?

Don’t let the new year scare you.

            After all, it isn’t a whole year lived all at once.

            It’s not a marathon of 365 days. It’s not even a sprint. It’s just one precious day after another, then another, and another.

            Just 24 hours. You can handle anything for 24 hours. It’s just a series of hours that unfold one after the other.

Still, that big, blank slate of a new year staring at you can be intimidating.

            Some people choose a word and carry it like a compass point through the year. It could be joy, savor, hope, faith, peace, surrender or acceptance.

Others pick a theme, a bucket list or a set of resolutions to guide them through the year.

            For 2024, I picked a letter.

            X.

I love archery and at the center of every target is a tiny X. That’s what archers aim for every single time. It doesn’t matter if you’re shooting at a target 18 or 30 or 50 meters away, you aim to hit that tiny X in the middle of the target.

You never aim for the wide outer rings where you only earn a point or two. Hit that tiny X in the yellow circle in the middle and you score a perfect 10.

For the new year, I taped an archery target on the wall next to my computer where I write. Then I wrote in the target circles my priorities, starting with that X in the middle and worked my way out on the target to the outer circles where you never aim.

In the innermost yellow circle where that X resides, I wrote God and Love. That’s my aim every single day. More God means more love, which is pretty much the answer to every problem. To be love, not just to feel it, but to be it. At the end of my life, I want it said that I loved the world and everyone in it, so I better aim for that every single day.

In the next yellow ring, I wrote meditation, prayer and journaling, practices which help me to live a more conscious and kinder life.

Then I worked my way out to other priorities, like exercise, a better sleep routine, eating healthy and drinking more water. One circle holds the names of all my MVPs – Most Vital People – my closest family members, to remind me to make them a priority over work. The next circles address friends, writing goals, community involvement, hobbies and recreation.

I hope the target helps me spend more time on my kayak and less time on the couch. More time with friends on hikes and less time on Facebook seeking likes.

            What is not on my life target, the things I don’t want in my new year, I jotted down on the edges of the paper outside the target to remind me not to aim for things like people pleasing, fear, doubt, despair, procrastination, gossiping, complaining and judging others.

In my archery club, if you hit the target dead center and your arrow lands on the X, you earn an X pin. You earn a little pin with an X on it. If you do it 24 times over your career, you earn your lifetime X pin. I’m proud of that pin. It took a lot of shots and a lot of misses to earn it.

Life is a lot of misses. It takes a lot of arrows to hit the target of what you want in life. But the joy is in taking all the shots. As they say, you miss 100 percent of the shots you didn’t take.

This year take them. Show up and make the effort. You’re worth it. Life is worth it.

Get in the arena. Put on the sneakers and go for a run or at least take a longer walk than you did last year. Write that novel. Or at least a chapter. Or a list of potential titles. Open the cookbook and go vegetarian. Or at least eat more fruits and veggies.

Forgive the person who hurt you most. Or the ones who hurt you a little.

Start somewhere. Even if all you do is aim to love the person right in front of you, it’s a great place to start and end a year.