If you know what a word of the year means, what the benefits are and have already chosen yours for 2022, that’s great. If not, in this episode I’ll tell you all about it.
It’s February and it’s definitely not too late to pick a theme for the whole year and a word that describes it. I’ll also share different variations of this, such as monthly themes, words for different areas of your life and so on.
I’ll tell you what mine is for this year and why, and together with that, you’ll hear about the experiment I’m doing to challenge myself, take bolder actions and reach goals that were gonna take me years, but I’m just ready for bigger things this year. There’s already progress and some things are planned for the next months.
Hopefully, this will inspire you to pick a powerful word of the year for yourself and let it guide you as you make decisions, accept opportunities, start new projects, manage your money, or anything else. One word can have an influence on all that.
Listen to the episode below:
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Show Notes:
- [01:23] What’s a word of the year
- [02:28] How one word can help you achieve massive growth
- [04:45] Different ways you can apply this concept to your lifestyle
- [06:04] 3 steps to picking the right word
- [09:34] Examples of powerful words you can choose from
- [11:11] What my 2021 word of the year was and what it brought to my life
- [12:37] My big plans for 2022 and the common theme between them
- [15:02] How turning 30 can help me reach my goals faster
- [16:35] The EXPANSION experiment + progress so far
Mentioned:
Transcript
What’s a word of the year
This is a popular concept in the personal growth world and it’s as simple as it sounds, but it can work better than New Year’s Resolutions. You pick one word and keep it in mind every single day of the year.
You can set your goals around it, or you can just let that one word be all that you accomplish over the course of 12 months and have more progress than if you would have set individual milestones for different areas of your life.
I can guarantee you one thing – while a New Year’s Resolution can either be achieved or not, with the word of the year thing, you will have progress. It might only be noticeable in December but you’ll end up shocked by how far you’ve come without ever realizing. That’s the power of focus, of aiming at one thing, and of picking the right word of course.
There’s also no pressure involved. If you’re doing this for the first time, you can just think about your word every now and then, and you’ll still see that you’re going in the direction of the vision you created for it.
Benefits of having a word for the whole year
Other than focus, the benefits of having a word of the year include:
Clarity.
You have one guiding principle for the year, and even when everything else seems to be going down, you can go back to this word and end the year strong;
You live more intentionally.
That word will be something you deeply crave in one or more areas of your life, or something you want to become, or something you want more of in your life. In any case, it will help you spend your days with more intention.
You’ll look at the bigger picture as well as at the day to day activities and notice what aligns with that word, and what gets you further away from it. So you can organize your life based on that, you can remove what no longer feels right, and you can add more of what brings you results.
You will know when you’re on the right path.
Usually, it’s really hard to tell, things can look pretty ugly and we might still have no idea whether we’re getting closer to our goal or not.
But the word of the year goes together with a certain feeling and that will tell you whether making a certain decision, being with those people, or taking any action resonates with it. You will just know.
That’s when you get to step away from the wrong things. If you don’t, you’ll probably have that inner knowing that you’re going against your nature and further away from the vision you claimed.
It takes you further than you imagined.
We can give so many meanings to a single word. As we change, which can happen literally every few months if you’re focused on growth, so does the meaning we give it. I can almost guarantee you that if you pick a powerful word for 2022 now, by December, it will have happened.
You will examine your new life and that word will be there in so many ways, in so many different areas that there was no way you could have predicted that. This single focus and intention that one theme gives you can help you double or triple your results. That’s the main reason why I decided my word for 2022 to be Expansion.
If you want another example, here’s my word for 2020.
Before I dive into it, let me share some tips on how to pick yours.
Different variations
First, there are many ways you can go about this. You might have one word now, feel like you’ve achieved what it can offer in 3 months, and feel like another, bigger and better word, is more appropriate for the next 9 months.
That’s totally normal. In fact, it’s a good thing. You needed less than 12 months to create the new vision and now you can move onto the next level.
If you’re operating more short-term and just get bored sticking to the same thing for a whole year, pick a word of the month. That can drive massive results in a short amount of time, and it can be really challenging and inspiring. In case you get exhausted, take a month off. Then get back to it.
You can also have one word for your business, one for your personal goals, one for your relationships, depending on what each area is lacking and what you’d like to achieve.
Knowing that, I hope you can let go of any pressure that goes with picking your special word. Nothing here is final, you can change things any time, you can literally skip levels in personal development and achieve more in 2 months than you did last year in 12. So leave room for that. Now let’s see how to choose the best word of the year for yourself.
How to Pick The Right Word of The Year
Step 1: Write down what you want for each of the key areas in your life.
If you want to do a whole goal setting process properly, you can first review your previous year in detail. See what happened, how you feel about it, what you would do differently this year and how you would feel at the end of this year when that is achieved.
Then, you can get to a few specific goals, define how achieving them looks like, how you’ll stay accountable, and break them down into small steps. Maybe even plan which ones to take every month of the year. Then, you can break these down into even smaller steps and have your weekly tasks added to your calendar so you can always see progress with those goals.
You can give them all a theme, something in common that will guide you. That will be your word of the year in this case.
But none of that is necessary if you don’t work well with specifics or with deadlines. You can still accomplish a lot without the standard goal setting process.
That’s when the word of the years can help you tremendously. But you gotta be honest with yourself and state your true desires for every aspect of your life.
A good starting point is to evaluate every area and give it a score from 1 to 10. Say how satisfied you are with it. Then, take the areas with the lowest score and think of how you can improve them.
What needs to happen? Who do you need to become? What do you need to remove or change so you can increase the score?
Look at all that you wrote and decide what’s the one word that describes the kind of progress you’re looking for.
Step 2: Make sure it feels right.
Once you do that exercise, leave everything for a few days. Let the word sink in and see how you feel about it.
If you’re empowered, excited and even more sure this is the direction you want to go in 2022, perfect. You have your word and can start living intentionally.
If not, maybe you can consider another one. We’re combining logic and intuition here, which is a combination that helps in any other big decision you make, in life and business.
Step 3: Live it.
The word can be anything, a noun, verb, adjective. That’s up to you. It’s also about whether it’s a more internal progress that you wanna see, or you want to have a more action-oriented year, or you just wanna slow down and become happier because of that.
There’s no wrong word. Of course, you aren’t gonna choose a negative one. It will be an empowering one, one that you won’t get bored of, or tired of, and which won’t cause you any pressure.
The moment you claim it, you devote yourself to it. You connect with that word and you attract anything that it symbolizes.
There’s nothing in particular that you need to start doing once you know the word and the theme for the year. You just need to get into the energy of it, to bring it with you in your mind wherever you go, to own it, to become the person who represents that word. You will know what actions to take, what steps make sense, and what is totally wrong. Because that word will guide you.
Just be aware of it, and don’t forget to have fun. This is an amazing way to welcome more growth in your life through challenging yourself.
Examples of words
Some examples of words include Alignment, Expansion, Bold (these 3 are my favorite ones these years so I had to start with them). It can be Family, Love, Peace, Fit, Magic, Integrity, Discipline, Flow, Ease.
It can even be ‘Yes’, imagine what you can accomplish this year and how much you can get out of your comfort zone if your theme of the year is one big YES.
It can be Passion, Celebrate, Less, Thrive, Freedom, Driven, Energy, Dream, Big, Surrender, Explore, Trust, Embody, Shine, Confidence, Queen, Abundance, and anything else you feel like.
How powerful are all these? You probably immediately associated a feeling with most of them, or had an idea of what aspect of your life they can apply to, or just an image popped in your mind. Well, that’s how your intuition speaks to you.
So if you don’t find another way to pick the right word, google a word of the year list, read 20 or 30 out loud. Write down the ones that feel good and empowering, and in the next few days, choose the winner.
Why mine is Expansion
Now, let’s talk about Expansion, because this is my word. I just knew it.
In 2021, it was Alignment. And it was crucial that I first felt aligned, removed so many things and stopped doing activities and broke mental patterns that were keeping me stuck, living a life that didn’t feel good. And I gotta tell you – I was totally out of balance at the end of 2020. But by September or October the next year, if there was one word to describe how my business felt, how I felt about my love life, and anything else I was doing, it was Aligned. I felt good and I was taking decisions from that place.
It was fun to recognize in the moment of taking a decision what the old me would have chosen and see why it was so wrong. And instead, pick the option that was aligned.
I also got better at defining what alignment meant for me and spotting it immediately. It was sort of a skill I got better at. Now, it’s my second nature. I chose what resonates with me, I’m ruthless about removing anything that’s out of alignment, and I don’t even think about it.
How I’m going to welcome expansion into my life this year
So once that was done, I was ready to bring more things to my life, to make bigger moves and take bolder action. I knew I had it within me but I was taking my time, slowing down my progress. Fear often stands in the way between me and the decisions that will take me further, and I don’t want that anymore.
I want to expand my life, and here are some specific examples of what that looks like to me this year:
- Expanding my physical space.
Going from the studio I currently live in and that I’ve been living in for the past 2,5 years, to an apartment. Not with 1 bedroom, but with 2, because one will immediately turn into my first ever home office which I’m gonna design in an amazing way.
- Expanding my ability to give and receive love.
- Expansion in terms of travel.
Not going to the usual destinations in Europe that I can quickly and easily get to, and which are cheap and comfortable, but going outside of the continent and doing things I’ve never done before, even if it’s for a short period of time.
- Expanding my wealth.
Not just by growing my business, but by investing, learning more about money, managing it better, getting started with my goal to eventually build generational wealth. Expanding my capacity to receive, hold and spend money – this has more of an energetic aspect to it, but it’s quite challenging.
- Business expansion
In terms of business, as you might have heard me share in the last episode, I’m simplifying things this year. I won’t release many new things, won’t be launching all the time, or creating new lead magnets. But my business will still grow in a new direction.
That’s because I’m creating and releasing my most expansive offer ever – Bold Business School. The membership program that will help you create not just a course, but a dream offer and a digital product business set up for unlimited profit and freedom.
Those who join will take BOLDER actions than ever, stay accountable, get the strategies and mindset work they need to build their audience and email list, create a powerful foundation for their business, get their program out there, make it irresistible, prepare for their launch and execute it smoothly.
If you want to be the first one to know when it’s one, have the chance to become one of the founding members for the lowest price ever, then I invite you to join the waitlist.
- And overall, expanding my knowledge, my business, my emotions, and my environment.
This is quite scary and challenging. I can already feel a whole new level of resistance, fear, doubts, and so much more coming to the surface. So as usual, I’ll deal with all these feelings one by one, and keep my vision in mind.
The vision is bigger and bolder than any next year. That’s because I gave myself permission to break the norms, to stop giving deadlines to my goals because anything can be done and achieved and acquired much faster than we think.
I wanna speed up the process not to get quick results or for any materialistic reason, but just because I’m not afraid to want that and to want it now. Before I was slowing down my journey, I was making excuses, I was playing a smaller game. I was trying to do things the more normal way so I don’t confuse people in my life or make them feel uncomfortable. But I’m turning 30 this month, so time isn’t really a factor anymore.
I feel like a big burden was lifted off my shoulders because there were so many expectations, especially for women, for what should be done till 30. These are coming either from family, society in general, or just people who look like they are on the right track and expect others to do the same. But of course I never wanted to live the life these people are living, so now that the big 30 passes, it doesn’t matter much what year things will happen.
Ironically, that might be the sole reason why it all falls into place much quicker.
What’s the expansion experiment
That’s what Expansion looks like and this word excites me so much that I’ve turned this into a bigger challenge and a game of some sort. I called it The Expansion Experiment and that’s what 2022 is for me.
I know what I wanna get done, and I leave room for inspiration and opportunities to find me and allow me to expand ever more.
It’s only the second month of the year, and in January, I started investing for the first time in my life, in stocks. This year, I’ll also devote time regularly to learning how all this works. For now, I just wanted to get started so I let someone in my life help me. It’s also one of my weaknesses to be overly independent and that limits me, so I practice letting go of the need to do everything on my own whenever I can.
This month, I’m traveling in an expansive way. The destination is Dubai, the ticket is booked, and although it will be a short trip, not my usual favorite escape to a tropical destination that continues for a few weeks, I will make the most of it. I will challenge myself to do new things and Dubai definitely offers many of these.
The apartment search is in progress and a lot has happened already. I’m waiting on something right now, I’m not in a rush because I don’t just want an apartment, I want my dream apartment. That means the perfect one for this stage of my life.
I’m also starting with the content for Bold Business School this month and perfecting the offer and the framework so it can be the best program, the best membership experience.
You’ll hear more about the Expansion Experiment in other episodes, maybe some will be dedicated solely to a single thing that was achieved and I can share the exact steps I took. This was just the introduction to it and I wanted to show how your word of the year can be taken further than being just a word. It can help you build momentum and have your most expansive year in your life.
So that’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed this one, and I’ll see you next week. Please let me know what you think, what your word of the year is and whether you have any questions about it. You can DM me on Instagram @letsreachsuccess. Don’t forget to share this episode with anyone you think it can inspire.
I love you and I’ll see you next time.
