My Word of the Year

I’ve never done a “word of the year” before.  Each January, Facebook friends far and wide post about their words, but it wasn’t until this year that I finally decided to try it out.  I guess I just started hanging around enough people who use this practice that I wanted to be like the cool kids.  Plus it helped that my friend, Teresa McCloy, actually put together a step-by-step guide that made the process less mysterious and random, and more doable and helpful.  (There’s a link to her guide below if you’d like to try it, too!)

Boy, was I surprised by my word!  I can’t fully say I chose it. Yet I can’t just say that I was passive and was given it.  It was a partnership between me and the Holy Spirit (like all the best things in my life have been).  I did my part, but the inspiration surely came from an unexpected word.

The first step was to come up with a list of potential words – words I’d been hearing or thinking, words I’d been noticing standing out to me as I read or talked with people, words that inspired me as I thought about the coming year.  “Easy-peasy,” I thought.  My initial list included words like growth, higher, try, reach, expand.  I’ve been thinking about how to grow my business a lot.  I was pretty sure my word was one of those.  “Higher” seemed to call out to at least three of my top CliftonStrengths (Belief, Connectedness, and Achiever) and was a strong contender.  However, since my Deliberative strength is pretty dominant, I follow processes thoroughly.  I pressed on to add a few more to my initial list:  renew, center, harmony.  I’m still not sure where “harmony” came from.  I thought it was a pretty un-Kathy-like word.  But we’re just brainstorming, right?

Teresa’s next suggested step is to look up the meanings of each word in consideration.  I thought, “Well, that’s a little silly.  I’m smart and I know what these words mean – that’s why they’re on the list.”  Turns out, there’s more value in this step than I’d thought!  My dictionary (yes, I used an actual dictionary…after I dusted it off) pointed out different meanings that I didn’t initially think of, and it pointed out origins and etymologies that were interesting.  So I dutifully read my dictionary and exercised my ability to sing the alphabet as I flipped back and forth to look up each word.  I finally got to “harmony.”

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

And my body immediately and unintentionally emitted an amazed “ohhhh.”

THIS spoke to me.

All the parts of my business:  different types of clients, different methods and tools I’m using, different positions as an independent contractor.  Combining them into a pleasing and orderly whole… this was something I wanted. 

But deeper still:  All the parts of my life:  my business, my family, my friends… I knew that 2022 had been largely focused on building my business, and that I had wanted 2023 to bring more balance.

And deeper still:  All the parts of my self:  my thoughts, my feelings, my body, my spirit.  I knew that the thinking side of me had been dominating, and that I needed to pay more attention to my feelings and my spirit.  I wanted to be better integrated into a “pleasing whole.”

And then there were more definitions:

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

One of the hardest parts of losing my previous job and reinventing myself was trying to reconcile my story.  For decades, my story was all about youth ministry.  “My parents met because of youth ministry, I was raised and mentored in youth ministry, I worked in youth ministry.  I am doing what I was born to do.”  Until I wasn’t.  And I couldn’t figure out what could come next that would still fit with that story.  It felt like I needed to rip up that really good, tight, “perfect” narrative, and start over with a blank page, writing a whole new story, one that felt pretty disjointed and disconnected.

This definition of harmony gave me hope that there could be a way of looking at other parts of my life – not just the youth ministry parts – and interweaving them together – with the ministry stuff - into one integrated story of my life, one in which I could see that I’m still doing what I was born to do.

“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’ve always loved to sing, but I’ve always said that I’m not smart enough to sing harmony.  It’s hard!  However, I’ve found over the last few years that I didn’t give myself enough credit.  I’ve actually learned a couple of harmonies and learned how to sing them even with a strong melody line beneath.  And I’ve learned that once I know the harmony, it’s hard to go back to the melody. I can’t “un-hear” it.

This, too, speaks to me on a deeper level.  I think I’m living my life as a chord and singing the harmony line of life while the melody progresses.  While all the regular stuff of life is happening, I’m tending to HOW it’s happening.  I use the REALIFE Process to order and align my life, I’m living from my strengths, I focus on purpose amidst the day-to-day, and I’m intentional about my “being” while busy “doing.”  And this year, I want to use my business to help others learn to live that harmony line, too.  I want others to find the joy, balance, and purpose I’ve found in this.  Once you’ve learned how, it’s not enough to just live in the melody.

So I found my word.  Or my word found me.  Somehow it’s both.  It’s not the word I wanted, and not the word I thought I’d have, but it’s the word I need for 2023.  I really wanted it to be “higher” or “reach” but as I reflected on those words, I realized that I already do those things naturally… and sometimes perhaps too much.  Harmony helps put some guardrails on my naturally forward-moving, striving tendencies.  Harmony invites me to remember that there’s more to me than my business, that there’s more to me than my thinking abilities, and that my story can still make sense as a whole without throwing out the previous version.  Harmony encourages me to keep sharing these messages with others and showing them the beauty and power of living in a chord. 

And it also delights me that it rhymes.  Harmony for 2023!

That’s my word.  What’s yours?  Yours will surely be different, and you’ll have different – but no less important and personal - reasons.  If you’ve never done this before, I encourage you to try it.  You can find Teresa McCloy’s process and free step-by-step Word of the Year Guide in episode 209 of The REALIFE Process Podcast with Teresa McCloy; download in the show notes.)

I invite you to trust the process, and see what word will accompany you, guide you, and encourage you this year.  Let’s all meet back up here next year and see what happened!