Tag Archives: word of the year

The Word: 2022

Word of the year

Choosing a word of the year can be an intensely transformative journey — even when you lose sight of your word, it doesn’t lose sight of you. I should know. This is my eighth year choosing a word of the year. There have been years when I have forgotten all about my word (I’m looking at you, 2020), but that word has still worked its magic in my life.

Words, they say, are spells. They have an inherent magic and power that can work in ways you may never have anticipated to bring you the exact medicine you need at any point of time. The first word I chose, eight years ago, was Transform. It is a spell that’s been woven into the very fabric my life, impacting it far beyond just one year.

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The word: 2019

word of the year 2019

It’s funny how we can take to some rituals like a duck to water. After spending decades setting resolutions – and promptly breaking them – I stumbled upon the concept of a word of the year and it just…clicked. There’s a delicious expansiveness to choosing a word as a touchstone for the year as opposed to setting resolutions. Where one is focused on a singular outcome, which means you can either keep your resolution or break it, the other encompasses myriad possibilities and unfolds in, sometimes, unexpected ways.Continue reading→

The Word: 2018

My word of the year generally makes itself known to me around the end of November or start of December. This year, it was much harder to tease it out. There were a lot of thoughts swirling around in my head, and I reached November feeling pretty battered and bruised.

Illuminate proved to be a lot more intense that I had anticipated, and I knew that I needed to really absorb and live the big lessons I learnt, to stand more fully in my power, to reclaim my sovereignty. I felt the need, too, to step up and show up – there are so many ways in which I still hold myself back, allowing my inner critic, Prissy Missy, to have full reign over deciding what I can and cannot do.Continue reading→

Magnify your intention with a word of the year

Intention plus action equals magic! Decoding the year aheadOne of my absolute favorite things to do in December is to start planning for next year. Pen and paper, a hot cup of black coffee and some soft music set the scene, while I sit wrapped up in a quilt,  reflecting on the year gone by and planning for the coming year.

But it wasn’t always so

There have been years – more than I care to count – when the change of the year was met with a dreary ho-hum, couldn’t care less attitude. Years when I broke my resolutions within days if not months…years when nothing seemed to happen…nothing seemed to change.It all changed when I stumbled upon the concept of intentions and choosing a focus word of the year. To be sure, it wasn’t a dramatic, sudden change. It took some time for me to work out how having a word of the year works, and even longer to understand how intentions work. But work they do – sometimes in ways we didn’t even expect!Continue reading→

Decoding The Year: Turning the goal setting process inside out

“I’m breaking up with resolution setting,” I fumed. “It’s only February and I’ve fallen behind on everything!”

This was me, some years ago, ranting and railing to the husband. And as I got ever more angry with my lack of stick-with-it-ness, he quietly said: “Are you sure you’re approaching this whole goal setting thing the right way?”

That made me stop in my tracks and think – my resolutions were a list of things I “should” do:

  • Lose 10 kgs
  • Exercise everyday
  • Be more organized: Clean the living room and prepare for office at night
  • Organize the <insert latest pain point in the house>
  • Weekend getaways every month

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The Word

I’m fairly new to choosing a word of the year – last year was the first time I did this exercise. My word was Transform. I mapped out the areas of my life that I wanted to change and put down some milestones against them. And then, I wasn’t quite sure how to make it work…how it would be any different from regular New Year resolutions that you make on 1 January and break by the end of the month – if they even last that long?

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