Starting 2024 with a word like Ace felt like a power move that scared and excited me.

The 2020s have been notorious far for being wild and completely unhinged in what they have brought us, and yet - perhaps that was why I needed to plant my feet firmly on the ground and claim a word that I had already been secretly honing in on.

During the past six months, Ace has taught me…

Ask the Questions

If something doesn’t pass the smell test, you are right 99.9% of the time. Don’t question your concerns after seeing the proof.

Make Your Move

You move how you need to move for yourself and those you advocate for.

Stay Patient

While waiting for things to play out, stay quiet (only after you have made your move), humble, and patient.

Celebrate the Outcomes

When the outcome turns in your favour, celebrate. Your hard work deserves to be relished.

Rise to the Occasion

Hard work doesn’t end at the celebration point. Continue to rise to the occasion.

Looking back at January’s 2024 OneWord Post : A Year of Aces

Why?

If you are anything like me, I often live in the future. I plan, aim, and predict while life is playing out in front of me.
An act of symbolism and ritual anchors me in the moment.

Setting a wild yet attainable goal often gives me purpose and something to live for in the every day, keeping me anchored. Yet so often, once I have reached that goal, I am busy planning the next one and not savouring the moment as I should.

Leaving an Ace card behind gives me the opportunity to savour what has been achieved. It is a tangible, personal way I can honour the moment without too much planning or fanfare.

How?

Be as simple and understated or as extravagant and bold with your chosen location.

A simple ‘pull it out of your pocket’ and leave it on the seat behind you where your goal/moment occurred, or a lipstick kiss implanted on the card while you slip it between memos for someone to find after you receive that raise…
It’s all up to you.

***I plan to leave one behind at a specific location very, very soon. Although they have been alerted of our plans for change, this is a symbolic gesture that we did what we needed to do for ourselves as a family.
It was an exploration journey of what else might be out there that evolved into a new adventure and an ace card is soon to be played - left behind in a crevice somewhere as a token of bravery and determination.

The Ace Dare
How to Take the Dare
The Ace Dare Journal Prompts

Prompts to help guide you towards your most daring, whimsical, enticing, enraptious goals.

What were you like as a child? What interests, hobbies, obsessions, play, ideas, and desires did you have / engage in?

How would those who know you describe you today? What would they say about your Personality, work, LIFESTYLE, AND hobbies?

How would you describe yourself today? What would you say ABOUT YOUR Personality, WORK, hobbies AND YOUR LIFESTYLE?

Of those three different descriptions of you, Circle the ones that feel the most like You.

What would you add to that list of descriptions today if you could?

How do your chosen descriptions for yourself make you feel?

With those descriptions in mind - consider ways you could sink in deeper into those parts of yourself.
e.g. :

Bookworm - Sunday Morning Library Coffee Date with a book for six months.
Freelancer - Schedule a meeting once a month with an Editor / Producer.
Fitness lover - Use weight training videos to go up 5 pounds in weights.
Social - Schedule bi-weekly in-person hangs with friends and colleagues.
etc.

Narrow in on one of these action items and calim it as an ace dare.

begin secretly picking away at your challenge.

*Only play your ace (leave it behind) when you feel you have reached the goal you set for yourself.

Get a stack of playing cards

Any set will do. If it’s fun for you, do research and take the time to find a set for your year that reflects your personal aesthetic or vision for the year. My set for 2024 was the Esoteric Playing Cards.

pull out the aces

Open the box and remove the aces, keeping them with you daily.

Meditate and reflect on goals, dreams, and risks you could take

Take time to journal, reflect and take stock of where you want to go - think big and small.

Quietly create a plan to reach a goal, take a risk, make progress on a dream

Create a reasonable and attainable plan within a year to reach a goal, outcome, or way to accomplish progress. Work quietly on this.

When you decide you’ve reached YOUR goal, took a risk, made progress on your dream…

Only you know what that end outcome is.

Leave an ace behind as a calling card.

Wherever you have accomplished a goal, dream, or risk - leave your ace behind. Take a picture. Hold a ceremony and celebrate the work you did to get you there.

JOIN / FOLLOW THE JOURNEY

Instagram
#playedmyace #playyourace #theacedare

PREVIOUS ACE DARE POSTS

The Ace Dare

Aces

Aces.

Amy Grace wearing black holding ace playing cards. Font overlay reads: A Year of Aces - 2024 - byamygrace

ace1 | ās | noun

1 a playing card with a single spot on it, ranked as the highest card in its suit in most card games: the ace of diamonds | life had started dealing him aces again figurative.

2 a person who excels at a particular sport or other activity.

3 a service that an opponent is unable to touch and thus wins a point.

PHRASES

an ace up one's sleeve.
a plan or piece of information kept secret until it becomes necessary to use it.
hold all the aces.
play one's ace.

I took unusually long to find a word that would encompass this new year. In fact, I left it until the last twelve hours of 2023. What choosing a word for each new year has taught me, is that they are incredibly prophetic, delightfully inspiring and deeply powerful.

Why Ace?

Too long I have played it safe. I have played the lowest to lower cards in my hand because it kept me safe from criticism, safe from the unknowns and most importantly safe from risk.
I have flirted with playing more risky hands from time to time, but almost always I find my way back to that safe place where I feel sure that I won’t loose anything in the process.

In many respects this has served me well.
My professional and personal growth have all paced at a speed that I can manage, I have been able to maintain bridges with those who have come in and out of my life and for the most part I have been able to maintain my own desired lifestyle in a manageable way.

Yet this pace has become altogether too slow.
I have been holding on to projects, opportunities, ideas, skills, words and adventures as if playing them would risk it all.
Maybe it will.
But
Maybe it won’t.

This year I am going to be watching, learning and discerning how and when to play my aces.

This year I am going to learn to embrace the risks.

& this year, I am going to stop playing it safe.

Onwards,

PREVIOUS ONEWORDS

2023
2022
2021
2020