This year is going to be different. You chose your word of the year, so you’re going to be focused, purposeful and accomplished. Things are going to happen, y’all. You just know it.
Now what?
How the heck do you actually FOCUS on your word for the year?
Beloved, this post is all about how you can practically focus on your word of the year in your day-to-day routines – even when you’re busy. After all, you want to live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved, so let’s dig in!
Not sure what the “word of the year” is?
Basically, you choose a word for the year to guide your growth, decision-making, and actions.
Choosing a word of the year is a simpler (yet more complex!) approach than setting New Year’s resolutions.
Ideally, throughout the coming months, you continually revisit that word to check that you’re living in alignment with that focus.
Many resources go into depth about this. Here are a couple to get you started:
By the way, you totally don’t have to focus on a word for an entire year. Perhaps during certain months or seasons (literal seasons or life seasons – like newborn days, back to school, tax season, work projects, etc.), you need to have a different focus word.
Here’s one of my experiences with a phrase or word of the year: What Happened When I Chose to Be Intentional + Pursue Peace. It was a massive game changer for me and my family!
For all my type-A folks out there, there is no “right” word. You can go with whatever word you want. (Yay!)
I encourage you to go with a word that is life-giving – i.e. it empowers you to move forward healthily.
Here’s a fun word of the year generator to try out!
Don’t choose a word just because you feel like you ought to. If it makes you feel like crap, it’s not the word for you!
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You’re not sure about how to set your focus for the year? Check out 4 Personality Tips to Help You Set Your Intentions.
In my own experience, when I chose to really lean into my phrase, words, or phrase of the year, it was a gamechanger.
Yup, we totally “cheated” and did two phrases. It worked for us. You do you!
A few outcomes of focusing on these two ideas resulted in:
While I can’t guarantee that you’ll have the same outcomes by focusing on your word of the year, I do believe that you can make some HUGE healthy steps forward by getting focused on what matters most to you this year.
I’d become uncomfortably aware of…
All that being said, I tried focusing on three prongs of grace:
While I definitely have more room to grow, focusing on grace was incredibly empowering and helped me lean more into God’s grace.
I had a lot of big and small upcoming changes in my life that I want to face with courage:
For me, choosing courage was actually really motivational – even if it’s a bit scary at times
In fact, it was a touchstone to remember to move forward – even when I was nervous or afraid – with small decisions (like running ads for the first time!), arranging nerve-wracking doctors’ appointments, speaking up when something felt wrong in my body (My reward? An emergency appendectomy. Yay.), and more.
Sometimes I get so SERIOUS and focused on the future that I don’t want to forget to play each day.
(My son is a constant reminder that play is important. I don’t want to regret not taking the time to play!)
So, I’m challenging myself to look for opportunities to incorporate more play and adventure in my faith walk, marriage, parenting, health, Coffee Chats and Yoga Mats, and more. One way to do that is simply to ask:
What sounds like fun? How could this be more fun? How can I do more of that here?
We’ll see how it goes!
For 2022, I focused on courage, so I’ll be using that as our word of the year example throughout the rest of this post.
In no particular order, here we go!
This is easily one of the easiest and simplest ways to practically focus on your word of the year – posting it around you. You could write it on a whiteboard; put it on sticky notes; or post it in your bedroom, bathroom, office, kitchen, as your phone background, etc.
You could choose to simply put your word everywhere or even pull empowering quotes and Scripture, too.
Basically, you’re using these little reminders as triggers for your focus word.
As lifehack.org says, “A trigger is anything that you put “in your way” to remind you to do something. The best triggers are related in some way to the behavior you want to produce.”
As Paul reminds us, it’s so important to be intentional with where we direct our thoughts (which also affects our time and energy!).
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things
Philippians 4:8
Do a quick search of Scripture that includes your focus word. Jot down the ones that most stand out to you as ones you want to revisit. (And if some of them look a little dicey – read a bit more of the passage surrounding that verse – it’s no fun being confused!)
You could then decide to memorize and focus on one verse a week, a month, a quarter… you get the idea.
For instance, when I focused on courage, I looked for verses that talked about courage and bravery. My goal was to focus on one of these verses each month to remind me to choose courage.
While researching for this post, I found this fantastic article What We Consume Determines The Lives We Live. There’s so much GOOD in this article (check it out), but this quote, in particular, stood out…
What we choose to consume determines the direction of our lives. We know this to be true concerning food so we adjust our diet and meal plans.
Joshua Becker, What We Consume Determines The Lives We
But for some reason, we are less vigilant when it comes to the other influences we allow into our lives. It is wise for us to pause often and review the influences we are allowing into our mind and our body. Let this serve as a warning.
That being said, look for content that nudges you to live out your word of the year. You can learn from those who’ve been there or are in the trenches right now. This could come from:
You certainly don’t have to nonstop consume content about your word, but it helps to be strategic by creating a game plan.
For instance, how many books do you want to read about your focus word? Number of podcast episodes? You get the idea.
If you can, make a list of resources you know you want to dig into – such as the names of actual books, talks, etc. Then break it down into smaller pieces. How many books do you want to read in a quarter? A month?
Since I focused on courage, I decided to consume content geared toward that word with this loose game plan:
Now, this is when stuff gets REAL. How do you consciously choose your word of the year as you make decisions or encounter life?
As we’ve talked about countless times on Coffee Chats and Yoga Mats, you can’t control so much of life. #bummer, right?
But… you do have an idea of some things that are most likely to come up in your life and can start thinking, “How can I choose [my word of the year] here?”
Here’s some happenings that you may know about in advance:
Start thinking about how you can start navigating those transitions proactively with your focus word as a compass.
What are the different roles you play? Here are some ideas to get you started:
Ask yourself, “What would it look like to choose my word of the year in these roles?”
For example, if you’re also focusing on courage, in your marriage it might look like this:
And… as for the rest of your year, you’re not going to know what’s going to happen.
Because you’re human.
And that’s part of the magic of being in the story right now.
The adventure is right where you are now.
By the way, Barking Up the Wrong Tree has SO MUCH great content about how to be more awesome at life. This particular post, A Navy SEAL Explains 8 Secrets To Grit And Resilience, can really help you with navigating life!
Some of it comes down to simply asking, “How can I choose [my word of the year/season] in this moment?”
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Like strengthening your muscles, developing this response takes time and practice. That’s okay. You’ll get there!
While it’s awesome to do-the-things, it’s also incredibly important to celebrate your wins.
From the tiny details (I actually got up 5 minutes earlier) to the big stuff (I ran a marathon!), celebrate your growth and steps forward. They matter.
Here’s just a few ideas for how you might celebrate your wins
The Intentional Life Planning Toolkit is the perfect resource to help you move from being overwhelmed by your distractions and demands to living life on purpose.
You’ll determine what an intentional life would look like for you and learn how to leverage your God-gifted personality, so you can thrive in your life, including your faith, priorities, schedule, responsibilities, meals, relationships, adventures, and more.
The Intentional Life Planning Toolkit may be just what you’re looking for!
P.S. Coffee Chats and Yoga Mats email subscribers get a discounted price!
If you’ve chosen a word of the year in the past, but feel like you dropped it like a hot potato midway into the year, try doing this instead.
Grab your favorite thought-recording tool (pen and paper, camera, laptop, recorder…).
Pretend you’re doing this on behalf of one of your favorite people – so treat them with love and grace.
Ask yourself these questions:
That’s it!
You might be surprised to see how often you lived out the intentions behind your word.
You’ve gained a bunch of practical ideas to focus on your word of the year. Now what?
Beloved, you’ve got to put them into action!
Pick 1-3 ideas from the suggested options and start integrating it into your life.
Grab your journal, planner, calendar – whatever you use to plan and dream – and start integrating these ideas into your life.
You can live intentionally with passion and purpose as God’s beloved. Start today.
I’m Cortney, a recovering over-achiever and God’s beloved who loves helping fellow Christian women like you embrace your God-given gifts so you have the confidence to live authentically.
I’m also a full-time mama to two sweet little boys, wife to my best friend, motivational speaker, and part-time Christian life coach. Chai lattes, strong coffee, podcasts, yoga, dance, and fairy tales nourish my soul and add sweetness to life.
Discovering the joy of embracing my God-given gifts and who He created me to be was a game-changer—a journey that brought freedom, unexpected delights, and relief from guilt. Finally, I felt free to be myself and ditch the pressure of being someone I wasn’t.
Incorporating those gifts into my day—from weekly planning to deciding on commitments, nurturing my marriage, and parenting—transformed everything. Now, I can’t imagine life without the perspective of fully embracing who God created me to be. I was missing so much without it!
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