When I first started using a word of the year as part of my new-year planning, I will admit it was foreign to me. As a hard-core, goal-setting lass, I didn’t understand just having one word. I have learned over the years that it’s not an either-or option. You can have a word of the year and goals—and after starting this practice seven years ago, I have come to find that I really like having both.
My first yearlong word of the year was “intuition.” I was really trying to understand myself better, trust myself better, but ultimately I wanted to know my Heavenly Father better. That year was a year of incredible growth. I remember thinking about intuition while I was training for a half marathon and while I was potty training my daughter. Thoughts about trust and revelation came to my mind when I was driving down the street and doing the dishes. It was only something I had percolating in my mind, but it seeped into many aspects of my lives and was a focal point of my thoughts. From that moment, I was hooked. I knew a word of the year would be a mainstay for me in addition to my annual goal-setting practices.
I also learned another key that year through the lens of intuition. As a mother (and also someone who pursues professional goals), I was pretty good about running the regular guilt script in my head. If I went to a meeting, accepted a speaking engagement, or set up a client consultation, I felt guilty for not being home with my kids. If I stayed home and said no to the event or client meeting, I felt guilty for not growing in my professional career.
Guilt if I do, guilt if I don’t.
Yet the word “intuition” helped me make decisions about what was truly right for me and my family and helped me trust that God would be my partner as I carefully and prayerfully made each decision.
A couple of years later as I was preparing for the launch of my book Make It Happen Blueprint, I chose the word “savor.” I had a book tour scheduled, lots of travel, and lots of book launch events. It wasn’t that I wanted to savor and remember every moment of that launch. It was that I really cared about making sure that the moments that I was home mattered to both me and my children. What I was really craving was feeling a sense of presence in my life, and “savor” was a great reminder to focus on the moments I was in.
I still set goals every year. However, I first asked myself two very important questions:
How do I want to feel this year?
How do I want to grow this year?
We often joke in a personal development world that you don’t use the word; the word chooses you. I’ll brainstorm words that work a write them on sticky notes and put them somewhere I’ll see regularly. As I pass, I look at the list and take off the ones that aren’t right and add new words for consideration. Ironically, I don’t often get my word from this wall, but I think it’s part of my process. As I’m reading or driving or thinking, a word will come to mind and will encapsulate the two questions above. If it feels light and exciting, I keep it, but if there is any heaviness or dread, it has to go.
For example, one year I wanted to pick the word “health” (insert eye roll). I had been studying different kinds of eating plans and spending a fair amount of time at the gym. At the same time battling my sweet tooth and my love for all things with carbs, I felt like I needed to make this a priority (and if I’m being honest, I wanted to shed some pounds). After a few days, the word felt heavy and forced, and I had to make a different word choice. Again, if it lights you up and you want to tell everyone about it, that’s a good sign. If you cringe when you think about it and you don’t want to tell a soul, you haven’t quite found your word yet.
Choosing a word of the year is one of my favorite things about closing out old years and preparing for new ones. And yet, I also know that I can’t rush the process, and the right word comes on its own timetable.
Last year I experienced this on a significant level.
As I closed 2018 and prepared for 2019, I was committed to have my annual plan and word of the year set before January 1. Two days before Christmas I was in a car accident. At the same time I had bronchitis, and the cracked rib and sternum I had pierced me with pain at every cough. Shortly after the new year, my husband was down—in bed, with a condition that brings him chronic pain, and he was experiencing a major flare-up—which meant I was pulling both mom and dad duty, recovering from being sick, and recovering from the injuries associated with the car accident. At. The. Same. Time. I remember this time feeling dark and lonely and a lot overwhelmed.
As I prayed for direction in my life and business for the new year, in addition to finding my word of the year, I kept drawing a blank. Previous words like “miracles,” “savor,” “light,” and “peace” didn’t resonate. I watched other friends post their word of the year, and I didn’t have one.
About the same time, I was studying spiritual gifts. I had just completed President Nelson’s challenge to read the Book of Mormon before the end of 2018, and when I finished Moroni 10, I hung around for a while and looked up many scriptures about spiritual gifts in the following weeks. Studying spiritual gifts was part of my post-accident healing and sickness. As if inspiration, I had the thought, “That’s your word.”
It was a weird thought, “Spiritual gifts isn’t something you do or be. It’s something you learn,” I said in prayer. The thought continued, and so I trusted.
As I continued to pray about what that meant, I had an image flash in my mind of our kids’ playroom. The floor is covered with toys and train tables, and the walls are bare. The image that flashed in my mind was to put up giant, poster-sized sticky notes (that I used for client strategy sessions) in the playroom, where I could capture key thoughts, scripture references, and stories.
Again, I resisted. Explaining to Heavenly Father that it would be weird for me to put up posters in a place where my kids play. But would it? Perhaps they could benefit from the words on the walls, and perhaps they could benefit by watching Mom immersed in study of singular spiritual topic.
I’m embarrassed to say that thought and image pressed on my mind for over ten days before I heeded it. One day I got out the poster papers and started writing each spiritual gift on its own poster. Then I wrote the scripture references from the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants. Soon the walls were covered, and I couldn’t wait for the times when I could sneak in there to read a conference talk and record my thoughts.
Over the last twelve months, that room transformed from a playroom to a room of personal revelation. As I read, studied, and prayed, the pages filled up with insights from General Authorities, and I was also able to recollect spiritual experiences where I had been given or been a witness to spiritual gifts. I set my scriptures on my daughter’s play kitchen, and then I wrote on posters and color-coded my scriptures.
And since this is an article about selecting your word of the year and not about spiritual gifts, I won’t go into the details about all that I learned and experienced, but let me just say I was changed in that playroom surrounded by posters, princesses, and pirates—and I might not have had that kind of learning if I hadn’t followed the path of the word of the year. It also never would have happened if I hadn’t trusted that this year would be a year of significant growth—despite the ever-present challenges. In some ways, spiritual gifts and my words of the year saved me.
Even these many months later, as I prepared for a new year in 2020, I do not feel done with spiritual gifts, and yet I have felt like it’s okay to find a new word to helping me along this year and along the new decade.
When Lessa, the newsletter editor, reached out to see if I would write this article, I was still without a word of the year and a little embarrassed that it was so. With great study, meditation, and even some pleading (right before the deadline), I finally found it.
This year, my word is actually a phrase, as it has been a time or two before. My phrase is “Do the next right thing.” This is a common theme in the new Frozen 2 movie, and while it’s a little cheesy for this middle-aged woman, when it dawned on me, it fit like a missing puzzle piece.
This is the year I write two books, my first spiritual and religious narrative nonfiction, and I’m also working on a book for the corporate audience I serve most frequently as I travel the country to speak at corporations and associations. I have so many to-dos running through my mind I have found myself a smidge paralyzed and not moving forward. With this phrase I can ask myself and the Spirit what is the next right thing—and then do it.
Over the past few days, I have been more productive using this simple tactic as my core value and mission.
If you already have a word of the year, I would love for you to share it. If you don’t, I would invite you to ask yourself, “What do I want to feel this year?” or “How do I want to grow this year?”
I have found that starting with this before I set goals helps the rest of my goals become clear in priority and purpose. If you have already set your goals for the year, all is not lost. Perhaps in your goals you may find a common thread or theme that will help you stay focused.
If you already have a word or phrase, or if you find one, place it in multiple places where you will see it regularly. I made a backdrop for my phone and printed words or phrases on 3 x 5 cards that sit on my bathroom mirror for twelve months. There is no right or wrong way, however I recommend both digital and physical reminders for greatest results.
It has been so fun to explore and write about a word of the year with permission to use a spiritual filter. When I share this concept with private coaching clients one-on-one, or on a stage to hundreds, it’s typically focused on high-performance practices for professionals. And while I always encourage they use this principle on their personal life as well, I crave to share with them the spiritual benefits of having our hearts work with God on the direction that he would like to see us go in a new year. As I consider all that our prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, has asked of us over the last couple of years, I have felt a deep desire to be more purposeful in my days, and focused in my vision. As I develop personally and professionally, I also focus on becoming who God needs me to be spiritually so that I can do my part in the gathering of scattered Israel, myself included. Anything we do to progress better prepares us to be instruments in the Lord’s hands and also puts us on the covenant path where the Savior can shepherd us home.
Wishing you all the success spiritually, personally and professionally in 2020 and beyond!
Michelle McCullough is a national speaker, a best-selling author, and a cohost on the faith-based podcast The Living Room. Michelle can’t live without chocolate chip cookies or her iPhone and is afraid of her two kids growing up too fast. If given a magic carpet, she would like to go to Italy for the artwork and the carbs. And a little something we should all know about Michelle, her middle name is Sunshine. You can find Michelle professionally at speakmichelle.com, though she blogs on spiritual things at sunshineinthemiddle.com.