My 2024 Word of the Year
I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to make things harder for myself than they need to be. Like my “word of the year” process.
Last year, my word came to me pretty easily. It was a word that surprised me, but it came out of a very simple process. And I really appreciated having that word to guide me and ground me last year. So I was looking forward to this year’s process, and hoping (assuming?) that it would be a similarly easy process of discovering and discerning my guiding word.
The short version of this story is that it wasn’t an easy process…. And then it was. So I’m sharing it here with you, in case you’ve ever been in a similar spot – whether it’s related to choosing a guiding word of the year, working toward a goal, or making any decision at all – I suspect you’ll find some things here to which you can relate.
The beginning
I had a guide for the process. I knew what step I was going to add in (looking up dictionary definitions for my shortlist). I blocked off time in my calendar. I started in with great gusto.
I quickly identified 10 words that resonated with me. Then I looked up definitions, sat and prayed about those words, and eliminated 5 of them. “This is going well,” I thought. “These are good words.”
Then I hit a wall.
The wall
Each of my 5 finalists were good – they related to my life professionally, personally, and spiritually. I liked all of them. But none of them really hit me the way that I’d noticed last year when I found my word.
“Well, it’s only December 27. I have more time. Maybe I just need to let these simmer,” I thought. This is a strategy I use from time to time, and sometimes it helps. So I gave it more time, I spent more time in prayer, I tried to pay attention as I moved through my days and notice if any of those words were coming up for me, or showing up as coincidences. But as the remaining days of 2023 ticked away, I was feeling more desperate. The prayers were more like babbling and begging.
The attackers
I thought about just giving up. I mean, why was I creating all this stress during my week off? “Well,” I answered myself, “because you’re supposed to write a blog about it and share it by January 4. You’ve talked about your word for 2023, and even said how motivated you were to do it again for 2024. You have to come up with this.”
Are you seeing how I was making this harder for myself?
Even when I tried to silence the pressures of responsibility and tell myself that you wouldn’t really care, and you really would understand, if I didn’t have a guiding word for 2024, then the gremlins in my mind took over. “Oh sure, just give up. It’ll be another thing in your life that you did once, but then gave up.”
Wow. OK. Apparently my self-worth is in cahoots with my “responsible planner” side, and just said, “I’ll see your stress and pressure, and I’ll raise you one.”
Accountability and planning are good things. But left unchecked for me, they create unhelpful pressure. Add that to the self-worth gremlins, and I was soon swimming in a pretty toxic stew.
Enter insomnia.
I battled through one fitful night that included a two-hour stint of tossing, turning, and to-do list planning. (When one thing in life is out of my control, I go into overdrive to control the things I can.) The next night, after ringing in the new year (still without a guiding word!), my hubby and I turned in, looking forward to our last long night of sleep before returning to our normal early (and dark) wake up time.
My stress had other plans for me. After 5 wonderful hours of sleep, I was awake, and there was no going back to sleep. So up I was in the early dark hours, just me and my prayer books and journal.
The dawn
In those early murky hours of the beginning of 2024, I put pen to paper and began to name all big (and little) things that were literally keeping me up at night. Then I began to ask God for the things that would allow me to spend the day worry-free.
As dawn slowly emerged in the gray morning, so too did my word. My begging prayers were answered, and as usual, in a way I did not expect. My list of “requests” prompted me to wonder what being “worry-free” would actually feel like. “Well, that’s easy,” I thought. Instead of worrying about things, I’d just enjoy them.”
That’s when the deep knowing feeling I’d been waiting for came.
Instead of bringing clarity and energy to one of my 5 “word of the year” finalists, the Holy Spirit whispered a new word to me.
Enjoy.
Why it works for me
I realized as I journaled that the pressure I’d been feeling wasn’t just about choosing my word of the year. I’ve been feeling it about my business overall. While I’d been taking time to review my year and plan for the coming year – a process that I enjoyed last year – I was not finding that same positivity and satisfaction. As I thought about the last few months of 2023, I realized that my sense of enjoyment had been dwindling slowly for a few months.
Instead, worry, fear, and a scarcity mindset were becoming more frequent companions.
And yes, I could have chosen a word like “trust” or “abundance,” to push against that limiting mindset, but that’s just it – it would have felt like a “push.” I wanted my word to challenge me, but I knew it wasn’t meant to be a word that would add pressure or push me against the grain.
Trying to shift my thoughts from “fear” to “trust” or from “scarcity” to “abundance” wasn’t going to work. It was too big of a shift all at once. I needed a shift that was more believable to me, one that I could embrace with a genuine smile instead of with gritted teeth, one that would beckon me, not bear down on me.
Enjoy is an action, not just a feeling. And I can use it to help shift my beliefs. As a coach, I frequently help clients to see that changing their thoughts and beliefs can change their emotional reactions, and then in turn those more positive emotions help them choose different, more desired, behaviors. It was time for me to put this into action in my own life.
My whole life
Enjoy is a word that I’d like to guide all the parts of my life: professional, personal, and spiritual.
Professionally, I’m learning that entrepreneurship is hard – in all its stages, not just when launching. There are going to be continual challenges. But I believe that one of the gifts of entrepreneurship is that I get to do the things I find most enjoyable most of the time. All the time? No. I know that nothing is “sunshine and roses” all the time. But I think that if I have my own business and I’m not enjoying it, I should probably change something. And I have the freedom, autonomy and power to change something.
For me right now, I don’t think I need to make major changes to what I’m doing in my business, but I can benefit from the mindset shift that the word “enjoy” evokes. If I focus on the ways I enjoy my work, the resulting sense of adventure, gratitude, and peace will keep worry, fear and scarcity at bay.
Personally, the guiding word of “enjoy” might bring some interesting developments. It reminds me that the rest of life is not to be “gotten through,” but to be enjoyed. It helps me stay in the present moment when I’m with family and friends. It encourages me to try new activities, new foods, new forms of exercise, new experiences because I might discover something I enjoy. It invites me to deepen my commitment to regular rest and renewal, knowing that those are often a pathway to greater enjoyment in all facets of life.
I’m most intrigued about how “enjoy” might guide my spiritual life this year. So often, we tend to think of the spiritual life in terms of “disciplines,” or worse – shoulds and oughts. Can I allow myself to relax and remember that God just truly enjoys being with me? Can I shift my perspective about my prayer time – that it’s simply time for me to enjoy being with God? Can I ask God to help me fully enjoy my life and the gifts I’ve been given – without feeling selfish, self-centered, or ego-driven?
There’s more I could say about why enjoy is the right fit for me this year. There’s more I could say about the depth of its meaning, and how it’s not just a “worry less, enjoy more” superficial sentiment. But my purpose in sharing this story isn’t to fully explain what I hope to gain from my word of the year.
My real purpose in sharing this story is to encourage you, wherever you are in your journey.
If you’re still trying to figure out your word for the year, I hope you’ll find reassurance here that your word will come to you, if you’re open and you keep paying attention.
If you’ve got your word, but you sometimes feel like others don’t fully understand why it’s important to you, I hope you’ll know that I’m in your corner – no matter what word it is.
And whether or not you’re not a “guiding word” person, I hope you’ll be reminded that there is a deep knowing that’s always available to us, to guide us, direct us, and inspire us, when we get honest and give that wisdom space to come forth.
As this new year begins, I hope that you will enjoy 2024 and all the adventures that it will hold!
And if you’ve chosen a word for this year, I’d love to hear it! Hit reply or leave a comment to let me know!
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