How to Choose A Word of the Year
/For several years now, I’ve jumped on board the popular new year’s tradition of coming up with a “word of the year.” To be totally honest, while I am drawn to this practice during the ‘fresh start’ energy of the end of December and the beginning of January, I will often forget the word I choose by spring, or feel like I want a new guiding word altogether. I think one year my phrase was “Be Beth.” Another year, it was “Pay Attention.” In 2022, I started off with the word “Try,” but quickly lost sight of what that meant as Jonathan and I were swiftly ushered into new parenthood. In the summer of 2022, I decided to choose a seasonal word. I chose the word “Read” because I wanted to remember to find tiny moments for myself in the midst of caring for a newborn.
While I might quickly forget the words that I choose to guide me, I still think it can’t hurt to spend some time reflecting on how you’d like the coming year to feel and seeing if you can’t pinpoint that feeling in a word or a simple phrase. When you look back at the end of the year, you might be surprised to see how that word showed up in your life even if you were not being intentional about it. Here are a few really simple ways you might brainstorm your Word of the Year:
Pay attention to words that keep cropping up in your daily life. Do you see signs (literally) that tell you what your word might be?
Think about what area of your life you’d like to be more intentional about this coming year. Career? Family? Friendships? Your health? Creativity? Finances? Faith? Home? Maybe you want to choose a word that helps you stay focused on that one area. For example, if you want to focus on friendships, you might choose a phrase like ‘reach out’. If you’re thinking about your home, maybe your word could be ‘comfort’.
Think about how you want to feel. This is a pretty broad suggestion, and to make it more specific, you could first think about the area of your life you’d like to focus on (see question #2), then think about how you’d like to feel in that area. Maybe you’re thinking a lot about your faith these days, and you want to feel a sense of connection. Maybe you're focused on your health, and you want to feel stronger or more centered.
Consider if you’d like to focus on feeling or action. Now, feeling a certain way is going to make you act a certain way, and vice versa, but one thing I’ve noticed over the years of doing this “Word of the Year” thing, is that the words that were somehow less concrete were the ones I forgot more quickly. When I chose the word “Read” during the summer of 2022, I actually got a lot more reading done (go figure). So maybe you want to focus on a feeling for 2023, but maybe you want a word that is going to remind you to actually do something very specific, like “Walk” or “Write” or “Speak Up.”
Rely on a thesaurus. This one is a little bit like #1, in which you trust God or the Universe to guide you seemingly randomly to your word. Open up a thesaurus (a physical one probably works best in this exercise) and choose the word that makes you pause. You could also write down a whole messy list of words that make you pause, then choose your word from that messy list. (This is not an exact science.)
A final note on choosing a word: If you need it, I give you complete permission to change your word at any point during the year. A year is a long time, and of course we will change along the way. This is allowed.
My word for 2023 is TODAY. This word came to me sort of out of the blue, but once I’d decided on it, I kept seeing it in different places around my house–in quotes I’d taped to the kitchen cupboard or bathroom mirror, on calendars and to-do lists, in journals I kept. If you think about it, TODAY is a pretty pedestrian word. Maybe it’s not divine messaging that keeps this TODAY cropping up for me; maybe it’s just a really common word. Still, this word seems important somehow, so I’m going to see where it guides me.
Thoughts on TODAY
Today is today: If it is hard, tomorrow can be better. Don’t let a bad day color all your days.
Today is not yesterday: Step away from the romantic vision you have of yesterday. It too had its dull edges and deep valleys.
Today is not tomorrow: Prepare how you must. Worrying is not preparation.
Today is a chance: To make it good. To choose kindness. To be brave.
Today is a gift: “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). If you think about it, finding something to rejoice in each day is a tremendously strong and courageous act.
Today wants you here: Look up. Slow down. Pay attention.
What’s a word that might guide your year?
Thanks, as always, for reading.
-Beth