My word for this year is SHINE.

Other words that have colored my previous years have been, PLAY, VISION, COLLABORATE and EMBRACE.

In other words, I’ve been choosing a “Word of the Year” for a while now. Choosing one word for the whole year has made quite an impact on my life. I enjoy the selection process, and I am often surprised by the words that come up. 

Have you heard about the word? No, not the bird. Everybody knows about that one. What I’m talking about is one word, intentionally chosen, that helps to influence and inspire you throughout an entire calendar year or predetermined period of time.

New Year’s Resolutions are so ten years ago. They don’t really work, and ultimately our unchecked list of resolutions leaves us feeling worse about ourselves than we started. Because most of us fail to follow through. I watched my parents play the resolution game every year (fun fact: they actually had a custom box made, a scoring system and everything) with zero interest at all on my part. In fact, I hate both to-do lists and SMART goals for reasons I may discuss in a different post. Making new year's resolutions happens to cover both of those bases pretty well. So I either never much considered them or I almost immediately forgot about them and failed. Maybe this sounds familiar.

The word of the year is different. It goes along with the concept of slowing down to speed up. Simplify to succeed. These sort of counterintuitive concepts, when applied in a certain way, can be powerfully effective. We can only hold so much information in our heads at one time. Three seems to be a popular number when it comes to retaining bullet points of features or attributes, even items on a to-do list, but why complicate things even that much? One word gives direction and focus without piling on a need to fill space or figure out the details. 

I first learned about One Word or Word of the Year from someone in my church group. We all ended up doing a brief, 4-day long Bible study to determine our words. Since then, I have completed that same study each time I decided to choose a new word, usually at the beginning of a new year. The reason that this Bible plan is so effective is because it offers the invitation to prayer and silence for the opportunity to listen for God’s direction. If you don’t read the Bible or believe in God, accepting an invitation to silence is still an important part when going through the process of choosing your word.

When you get quiet and listen to God or the universe as well as tap into your own powerful intuition, it will feel like your word actually chooses you. As you open yourself up and spend a few days in meditation or prayer, there will be a certain word that keeps showing up, and with it, the certainty that this is the right word for you. And as you begin to apply it to your thoughts, behaviors, beliefs and choices, you’ll start to see things in new ways and make connections you might not otherwise make.

Last week, I led a session to guide a small group of people to their own word as part of my Balanced Beginning workshop series. Some people already had a strong sense of which word they would choose, and others had ideas but no firm attachment. We walked through an exercise to find or reinforce the words, and afterward, I offered some different ways to integrate their word of the year into their lives. I’m not going to include the whole exercise here, but if you’re curious about how this could work for you, I am currently offering a free 30-minute Word of the Year session through the end of February to anyone looking for some support in this area.

Once you have your word, here are some things you can do:

1. Look it up in the dictionary to see which textbook definitions apply and how.

2. Create a graphic in Canva to share your word on your social media or print it out to display in your space.

3. Write your word in your planner or journal on a page where you will see it often.

4. Look for quotes that contain your word and write some quotes that resonate in places you will see them, post them on social media or include them in your Canva graphic.

5. Create a playlist on Spotify or another music player/service with songs that contain your word or that remind you of your word.

6. Use your word both in and out of context while writing or speaking. Try to include it in conversations or articles where its use or application may not be immediately obvious.

7. Draw your word and color it in or decorate it, then hang it up somewhere.

8. Tell three important people about your word so that they can remind you about it periodically throughout the year and hold you accountable (definitely do this if your word is “accountability”).

By taking the time to do some of the above (or add your own ideas) with your word that feels right to you, you will lock it into your conscious and subconscious mind so that even if you are not directly applying the word to a situation, it will still be there to inspire and influence your thoughts and actions. This is how vision boards work. This is how affirmations work. It’s how prayer and mantras and meditation works. And it does work.

As for me and my word, shine, it was a word that came to me out of nowhere. It came in a song. Something someone said to me. Something in a book that I read. A warm feeling on a bright day. It was energy. It was the Holy Spirit. It was intuition. 

When I think about shining, I think of the sun. I think of receiving light coming from outside of myself, and I think of reflecting it back. I think of a smile. I think about how light would not be distinguishable as light without darkness or shadow. I think about stepping into all that I am and all that I want and inspiring other people to do the same. I think about a candle or a match and how the flame doesn’t need to extinguish itself in order to light another candle or match. In fact, the longer it burns, the more it can multiply itself. I think about multiplying my shine. I think about what makes me special and owning it. I think about empowering myself and others to be themselves. I think about love. I think about light. I think about giving and receiving and multiplying it all. And all of these thoughts make me really, really excited for the year ahead.

Have you given the word of the year a try? What has been your experience with it so far? Do you have a word for 2022? What is it? What does it make you think about, and how are you going to apply it to your business and your personal life in the coming year? Tell me in the comments. And if you’re curious about this whole process, don’t forget to sign up for your free, 30-minute Word of the Year session in February.