Do you have a word for the year? I do.
Thanks to a friend of mine. 10 years ago, during December, we were walking in the mountains of the Drakensberg and he asked me, “So, do you have a word for next year?” I hadn’t, and I had no idea what he was talking about?
The previous year he’d been challenged to come up with a word to focus on for the year.
The Instructions
The instructions are really simple:
- Pick a word that you think may have significance for you during the following year
- Don’t spend too much time thinking about what the word should be
- Once you’ve selected a word don’t spend too much time focusing on it
- Rather let it reveal itself during the year while you go about doing what you’re doing
A simple and slightly esoteric activity I thought to myself. During our walk, back in 2014, I decided that CRAYON would be my word for following year. I followed all the instructions to a T.
The most interesting part of the exercise was that I spent absolutely no time thinking about my word. Not until my word crashed into my everyday life. The first time was a song with ‘crayon’ in it that I heard on the radio one morning on the way to dropping my girls at school. Then I got given a children’s book about Crayons who quit from a friend who’d seen it, and remembered I had the word. The next incursion was a Billboard, and then finding a crayon in my laptop bag that I hadn’t expected.
There were several other ‘crayon moments’ for me during the year, and each of them brought me sharply back to the reason I’d chosen the word in the first place. A really meaningful, fun and interesting activity / experiment.
This year my word is GREYBEARD.
Do you have a word for 2025?
Do you have a word for 2025? If not, use the instructions above. They’re pretty straight forward. Use the form below to let me know what your word is?
Go on, I dare you 🙂
