It’s becoming quite popular – or at least, I’m hearing about it quite a lot – to choose a word of the year to guide you; often instead of making New Year’s resolutions.
I realise this blog post is coming to you a bit late in the day – January 2019 is finally coming near to its end! However, I don’t have time before Christmas to think about the following year, and afterwards it takes me a bit of time to get over it all and start planning the year ahead. Last year, I picked a word of the year – ‘Persevere’ – (I wrote all about it at the time of course!) and I found it more helpful than I expected it to. I pyrographed my word onto a wooden heart and kept it on the desk in front of me all year. I even took it with me on our trips to America.I have to say, it really did the trick. I barely wasted any time contemplating giving up, because it was there all the time to remind me to persevere.
How to choose your word of the year.
You will need to plan some time for this. You really need to reflect on the past year and think about what didn’t quite go according to plan; or whether you’d rather have taken a different direction on things. I use my word of the year mainly to guide me for work, but you can choose a personal one instead, or even as well as a work related one if you like! Think about how you want to live your life this year. Is there anything you’d like to do more or less of? What is it that you need to keep reminding yourself to do?
Your word might come to you straight away, or it might take a few days to mull it over. I started by brainstorming words on a piece of A4 scrap paper with the thesaurus website open on the screen in front of me! In the end, I picked the very first word I wrote, but it was nice to go round the houses to be sure I had the right one!
Reasons I chose my word of the year.
Looking back on 2018, although I was successful at persevering with my business and my blog, I felt a little frustrated that I wasn’t able to push them forward and make a success of them. This was mainly due to lack of time, and also the fact that we were out of the country for a quarter of the year, which makes it very difficult to go full speed ahead on a business based in Britain! Looking ahead to 2019, it looks like we’ll still be travelling to America a few times again and therefore it’s likely that little will change. However, instead of feeling defeated and discouraged, I’m going to be more prepared and reconciled with the state of affairs. I will therefore nurture my business. I will look after it, keep it nourished, supported and protected ready for a time in the future when I’ll be able to put all my energy into it. The word reminds me that my efforts aren’t pointless and that I’m keeping everything going for a good reason.
Ideas for your word of the year.
Here are some words I came up with that I’m hoping will be right for my word of the year in the future: momentum, grow, establish, accomplish, flourish, evolve, thrive, progress. And some other word of the year ideas that might help you choose yours: cherish, nourish, focus, support, help, learn, balance, create, encourage, calm, mindful.
Have you chosen a word of the year? If you would like yours pyrographed onto a wooden heart sign like mine, please email me with your word and address to helen@whenIgrowupblog.com and I’ll send you a paypal invoice for £4.80 to include postage. (UK only.) The heart is birch plywood and measures 6.5 x 7cm and I’ll send it with a random coloured strip of fabric or ribbon for hanging unless you let me know if you’d like a particular colour. 🙂
Here’s the video I made for my YouTube channel to go with this post:
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