2023 was my first experience with a “guiding word of the year” and it was a doozy of an experiment!  (Read more from last January about the process I used to come up with it – and my shock at the word I chose!)

Before I tell you more about my experience this year, let me fast-forward and say at the outset that I’m definitely planning to do this again and choose a guiding word for 2024.  If you want to join me, you can use the process shared in this recent episode of the Doing What Matters podcast.  (Give it a listen, download the resource, and block off the time later this month or in early January.)

Why do I want to do this again?

Because having a guiding word helped me live intentionally.

I chose a particular word because it resonated strongly and evoked deep longings in my heart and soul.  Making a commitment to this word wasn’t a magic wand.  Choosing it didn’t make it happen.  Rather, choosing the word helped me to lean in to those longings and make choices for what that word represented all throughout the year.

Having a guiding word was a way of inviting some gentle accountability and purposeful intentionality to my life.

If you’ve had a guiding word this year – or in years past – what are the reasons that you’d do it again?

My experience

My word for 2023 was Harmony.  I was pretty surprised that this was the word that came to me, but I stayed faithful to the process and tried to keep this word in mind frequently throughout the year.  And as reflect back, I’m grateful for the perspective and guidance this word provided.

I chose Harmony because three of its definitions struck a chord in me (not sorry for the pun).

1:  “Harmony:  a combination of parts into a pleasing or orderly whole.”

At the end of last year, I was craving some kind of “pleasing or orderly whole” in three significant ways.

• My business was feeling chaotic and haphazard.  I had different types of clients, different tools, different positions as an independent contractor. 

• My life was feeling out of balance.  The new business was beginning to consume me, and I needed more time with family and friends.

• My inner being – my thoughts, feelings, body, spirit – was also not whole.  I was allowing my thinking side to dominate my life, and my emotions, my body, and parts of my spiritual life needed some tending.

I can’t say that “I’ve achieved harmony in all these areas.”  I don’t think that’s ever really possible; I’m not sure that there IS an endpoint to that journey since we’re always growing and changing.  But I can say that I’ve moved toward harmony in significant ways this year.

My business feels much more like a “pleasing and orderly whole” which is interesting since I still have many different types of clients, I still use a few different tools, and I still have the same array of positions as a contractor.  I had originally thought that “Harmony” would mean streamlining or consolidating those things.  But I’ve been led back to the actual definition of harmony, which uses none of those words. 

Harmony hasn’t meant eliminating options.  After all, my word was not “Simplifying” or “Focusing.”  Harmony means combining the disparate parts into an arrangement that is pleasing or orderly.  I can definitely say that while there are still several different pieces to my work, they all “fit” (for now) and my work life doesn’t feel scattered or chaotic anymore.

Keeping Harmony in mind throughout the year helped me find (or create) the wholeness and balance I was seeking in my life.  There were several times – more than in the past – during this year when I consciously paused to be attentive to my needs – the full array of my needs, not just my need to be productive. 

I planned more times with friends and family, and I was better about being fully present in those moments.  I took time to celebrate – my business anniversary, my birthday, significant moments for family and friends.  Even the unplanned emergencies gave me a chance to practice harmony. 

When it comes to my inner life, I’m a work in progress.  (Aren’t we all??)  I still am – and will probably always be – dominated by my thinking side.  But I’ve come a long way this year in learning to intentionally pause and be present to my feelings and to what I’m sensing in my body.  I’ve taken steps to tend to the ways in which the spiritual parts of my need some healing.  Keeping “Harmony” in mind throughout the year reminded me to lean into these areas.

Side note:  It was really helpful to me that my coaches and spiritual director knew my word of the year.  When I was in a muddle, they would often gently ask something like, “What would it mean to bring harmony to this?”  If you choose a word of the year, I’d recommend letting a few trusted people know about it so they can help you live into it throughout the year!

2:  “Harmony: an arrangement and interweaving of parallel narratives which presents a single, continuous narrative.” 

A year ago, it was this definition that perhaps hit hardest.  I’d been struggling to figure out how the “new chapters of my story” (especially professionally) fit with the earlier parts of my life story.  My life felt disjointed and disconnected.  (As since Connectedness is a “top 5” talent theme in my CliftonStrengths profile, this created an internal problem for me.)

I dug deep on this during the year.  In the spring, I had the chance to work through the “Listen to My Life” process from OneLifeMaps.  It’s a process of visually “mapping” your life – everything from an overview of your whole life story to a deeper dive on past peaks and valleys; from a look at the present reality to your dreams for the future.  It was a powerful experience, and one that helped me see connections, patterns, and themes that I hadn’t realized before.  That process helped to unite it all into “a single, continuous narrative”.

I found a similar continuous narrative in my work as I took on new clients and projects this year.  When I began the year, I was plagued by the question “Am I still doing ministry?” – and in fact, I typically pushed back against anyone who tried to tell me that I was.  My attentiveness to Harmony this year helped me interweave the narratives and see that I’m still in the business of building the Kingdom of God.  I just do that in a wider array of settings – sometimes church settings, often not.  It’s holy work that bears fruit either way.

3:  “Harmony:  a combination of simultaneous musical notes in a chord; an alternative line of music that is played in conjunction with the melody to form a pleasing sound.” 

I don’t often sing the harmony line of a song.  However, I have learned that once I know the harmony line to a song, it’s hard to go back to singing the melody.

For me, the “harmony line of life” is The REALIFE Process®, and this year has given me the chance to practice singing that line over and over.  I’m living my life as a chord:  while the melody of life progresses (aka the “regular stuff of everyday life”), I’m attentive to HOW it’s happening.  I use the REALIFE Process to order and align my life, and I see the difference. 

I’m convinced that my ongoing practice of this way of being and doing is what’s contributed to the harmony I’ve experienced this year:  the pleasing order in my business, the balance in my life, the wholeness in my inner being, the weaving of my narratives.

And I found my greatest joy during this past year in sharing this way of “living the harmony line of life” with clients.  Whether it’s been through the Be Real, Be Teal coaching process, extended sessions with groups, or workshops at conferences, I’ve been able to share this process with others and see the impact it has on their perspective. 

I’m amazed by all the ways that Harmony snuck into my life this year.  It was typically in pretty quiet and unassuming ways… in ways that I might have missed if I hadn’t been attentive to that word.  Yet, as I look back at this year, I’m so grateful for that intentionality and for the gifts that Harmony has brought me.

What about you?

Enough about my year of living with Harmony. 

What about you? 

• If you chose a word of the year, how did that show up for you this year?

• What difference did it make in your life?

• Would you do it again?

I’d love to hear about your experience, so leave a comment or send me an email!

If you didn’t choose a “word of the year” for 2023, but are curious about trying the practice for 2024, you can find the process I’ll be using in the show notes for episode 260 of The REALIFE Process Podcast with Teresa McCloy. 

As for me, I’m already blocking time in the last week of the year to work through this process again!  Stay tuned for a post in January about my word for 2024!