How to Choose a Word for the Year and Stay Focused on it

The basic idea behind having a word for the year is to pick one word in January that resonates with you and that you would like to focus on for the entire year. This practice has gained popularity over the last 10 years as the idea of traditional New Year’s resolutions has decreased in popularity.

I’ve been doing a word of the year for the last 6 years and have chosen words including nourish, abide, be, play, connect and listen. This practice has been most meaningful for me when I re-visit my word regularly, preferably daily. Currently, I write my word for the year in my daily journal each day on the line asking “Focus of the day.” This helps me continually come back to this idea and re-focus each morning keeping my word at the forefront of my mind. I like to take my word and journal through what it means in relationship to my family, children, husband, relationship with God, friendships, professional life and so on, basically running every aspect of my life through the lens of the word. I’ve also seen people put their word for the year in a small frame somewhere in their house as a reminder. A few of the years I even got a necklace like this one or this one to physically wear my word and be reminded of it. One other thing I like to do is to think of someone who embodies my word to me and then adds more of them into my life thinking of them as a mentor for that principle for the year. If it is a friend, I try to spend more time with them that year. If it is an author or podcaster, I will consume more of their material. For example, the year play was my word, I read all the Bob Goff books I could get my hands on.

Are you ready to choose a word? Here are some questions to ask yourself to start thinking about it.

1. What are my goals this year?
2. What do I want to grow in this year?
3. What verses/songs/quotes are meaningful to me right now? Is there a keyword or phrase in them that stands out to me?

Inspiration to help choose your word:

Abide
Abundance
Adventure
Authentic
Available
Awake
Balance
Be
Believe
Bold
Breathe
Brave
Build
Calm
Celebrate
Compassion
Confident
Connect
Consistency
Creativity
Cultivate
Daring
Dream
Empower
Enjoy
Enough
Faith
Fit
Focus
Forgiveness
Gentleness
Give
Grace
Gratitude
Grow
Honest
Hope
Humility
Influence
Integrity
Intentional
Intuition
Joy
Kindness
Learn
Light
Listen
Love
Mindfulness
Nourish
Nurture
Organize
Passion
Patience
Peace
Perseverance
Play
Pray
Present
Progress
Radiant
Reflect
Relationships
Release
Reset
Rise
Risk
Seek
Simplify
Sing
Slow
Smile
Steady
Stillness
Strong
Today
Thrive
Whole
Wonder
Yes

Have you chosen a word to focus on for 2020?

Mine for this year is going to be listen. I want to listen to my body when it tells me I’m tired or need to eat carbs. Listen to my intuition when I don’t seem to be enjoying a book I’m reading and put it down without finishing. Truly listen and understand the words of people I spend time with, not just thinking about what I’m going to say next. Spend more of my prayer time listening to God than talking at Him.

Shannon Mangerchine
Shannon lives in Central City, New Orleans with her husband, Jeremy, and three sons, Noah, Eli and Zeke. She left a career in Human Resources to take on her dream of being a stay-at-home mom. During this time, she and her husband founded a non-profit called Bastion Resources with the purpose of inspiring others to live a life of intimacy with God. Shannon is passionate about creating community and engaging in meaningful conversation around the dinner table. Recently, she created The Intentional Daily Journal to help people live with more purpose and clarity, which is available for purchase on Amazon. In her free time, Shannon enjoys all types of fitness, trying new restaurants, reading and discussing books with her book club, coffee dates with friends and hanging at the park with her family. Shannon is constantly creating new healthy recipes and sharing them on her blog Dinner Done by 9am.

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