New Year – New Intentions: What's Your One Word for 2024?

What’s your “One Word” for 2024? This is a practice that I engage in at the start of each new year and I invite you to join me.

Every year since my mid-20’s I have chosen one word at the beginning of each year. One Word that guides my focus, mindset, and intentions for the entire year. Sometimes my ‘Word’ carries over to the next year if it continues to serve as a clarifying, guiding theme. I am not talking about setting a goal, objective, or resolution. I am suggesting that having One Word, fiercely aligned with your values, can be a driving force of insight, inspiration, and deep transformation.

To choose my One Word, I reflect on what went well, what didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, what I learned, and what I want to see differently for myself in the coming year. I ask myself questions like, “what do I want more of?", “what do I want less of?", and “what do I need as a foundation to successfully achieve my goals and live fully into my intentions and purpose for the year ahead?"

I then create a state of stillness where I visualize the responses to my questions and think courageously about what may lie ahead. Then, I write down all of the words that powerfully come up for me. Often a few words will immediately resonate, with anything from excitement to calm. As I pay attention to what I am experiencing on an emotional level, one word often leaps off the page and that word becomes my anchor word for the year. Before I settle on that word, I ask myself one final question, on a scale of 1-10 how committed am I to living into that Word; having it guide my attention and actions for an entire year? I anchor on the ONE WORD that I determine I can be 100% committed to for 365 days in a row. My One Word for 2021, living in a pandemic world, was Health. Every choice I made was aligned with nurturing and maintaining good health. My One Word for 2022 was, Possibilities which guided me to get curious, adapt, and explore possible changes without fear. My guiding Word for 2023 was Peaceful, as creating possibilities in 2022 had led to a having a lot on my plate to juggle, and creating peace and stillness was needed to help me see my path forward more clearly.  

My Word for 2024 is Reflection. Building in purposeful pause for deliberate self reflection is a core ingredient to growing in self awareness, and decision-making as I carve a path forward as a solopreneur. Assessing what’s working for me, what’s not working, and what I enjoy doing most will be key to success and enjoyment as an independent consultant.    

Once your One Word is clear to you, make it visible to you every day. Maybe it is on a sticky note that you glance at several times a day on your computer, maybe you set it as a frequent alarm notification on your phone, or maybe you are old school like me, and you prefer to print it out in bold, bright letters and hang it in a prominent place in your office. Whatever you choose to do, when you review your word, allow it to land as a guide for your states of being and doing, thinking, and acting each and every day.

Try This:

• Follow the steps of the exercise above for yourself, as soon as possible, off the top of this new year.
• If you are responsible for a team, ask your team members to also privately engage in the process with the intent of sharing their word with you.
• Check in with yourself frequently on how you are living into your One Word. What is changing for you as a result? Where might you feel stuck?
• Check in with your team members on a regular basis (frequency to be determined by you jointly). You may be amazed at the open, vulnerable, real, useful, and supportive discussions focusing on One Word can generate.

Does engaging in the One Word practice only benefit you as a theme for that one year? The great news is no! Most often you will find that you have created new patterns of behaving, new habits that are now the fabric of how you show up in this world. As you forge bravely forward into 2024, I wish you a year of great health, energy, and personal reflection!

Please share below – what is your One Word for 2024, and why?