For the past two years, I’ve selected a single word to live by throughout the year. This is a word that defines my life for the year, and helps undergird everything I do for the next twelve months.

In 2011, I chose to focus on the word passion. This word underlined all I did throughout the year. It defined the year. Everything I did, I did with enthusiasm, and passion was pretty visible in most areas of my life.

In 2012, I chose the word commit. One of my biggest struggles in my life has been to stick to many of the things I decide to do. I’m not referring to relationships or responsibilities, but more along the lines of interests and desires. For example, a few years ago, I decided to hone my photography skills. I decided to shoot a photo each day of the year. I outlined monthly themes with weekly sub themes. I didn’t even complete January. 2012 saw a significant improvement in this area, at least in my eyes.

I choose to identify and implement a word every year as a part of my life plan. I add this word to the beginning of my plan, and try to use it as a piece of the foundation for every portion of my plan. Some areas are more successful than others.

The last few months have been pretty intense in my life. 2012 held a lot of significant events and some huge changes and challenges. We moved from the midwest to the Gulf Coast of Florida, taking a new ministry with a pretty awesome church. But moving over a thousand miles and leaving our families and friends behind has been tough.

We’ve experienced the pregnancy of our sixth child for the entire time we’ve been in Florida.

I started a new ministry to dads, creating a blog that helps dads become not just good dads, or even great dads, but the best dads that God has created them to be… myself included. You can check it out at DeliberateDads.com.

With all of these changes and milestones in our lives, I felt that I needed to be extremely intentional in the lives of my wife and our kids. Since we were in a new place, both physically, and in our family life, we needed to see things done with intentionality. We needed focus.

And so, my One Word 365 selection for 2013 is the word intentional.

Intentional.

Dictionary.com defines the word as “done with intention or on purpose; intended.”

That describes where my family is right now. With so much in our lives being new and different, I need to make sure that we do things with purpose and intent, and not haphazardly.

In fact, this should be the case with every aspect of my life. Not only should my relationships with my wife and kids be intentional, but the things I strive to accomplish in my ministry and in the church need to reflect this as well.

My friendships should be intentional. My writing should be intentional. My photography should be intentional.

Even the books that I read, the movies that I watch, the words that I say, and the thoughts that I think should all be done with purpose and intentionality.

That’s the word I plan on keeping in front of me for the year. It will be integrated into my life plan. It will be printed at the head of my goals lists. It will be hung on the wall above my desk so that I can see it daily.

But in order for it to work, I must be….. intentional.

Have you selected One Word to live by this year? If so, what is it and why did you select it? If not, should you consider doing so? You can share your thoughts in the comment section below.