Many people know what choosing a word of the year is all about. We take some time and consideration to choose a word that will guide us through the year. This practice has many physical and emotional benefits. Choosing a word of the year taps into our intuition and helps us with emotional balance and regulation.
The challenge for me in having a word for the entire year is how do I keep it in my visual range? Too often I’m excited about my word in the beginning, but eventually the excitement wears off. Then my word goes to the bottom of my list of priorities. There are strategies for this – check out this blog that touched on this.
Today I want to share another way to keep our word of the year relevant. This process is having a word of the day to pair with our word of the year. Even though I use the term “word of the day” the practice does not need to happen every day. It can happen daily, weekly, or monthly. However, I would caution against going more than a month without engaging with your word.
Here are the steps for this practice:
Have a card with your word of the year.
Then have several cards with other words that inspire you. These could be words that you thought about choosing for this year but didn’t.
Have your word of the year card facing up with the word showing.
Have the other “word of the day” cards facing down.
Then choose one of the cards facing down and consider how this word connects with your word of the year.
Consider this word and your word of the year card. What speaks to you when you look at the two together? How does the word of the day enhance how you engage with the yearly word?
My word of the year is health and the twelve words I’ve chosen for my word of the day are:
Brave, Perspective, Worth, Less, Bliss, Energy, Delight, Consistency,
Declutter, Journey, Balance and Cultivate.
I made a simple table in a Word document with one word in each cell. This will be for the daily cards. Then I printed it out and cut it apart. Tip: to make sturdy cards, I print them out on card stock and then put a piece of contact paper on the back of the sheet before cutting the words apart.
So if my word of the day is declutter, I can pair it with my yearly word. Some questions I might ask myself are: How is decluttering related to my health? Are there things about my health that I need to declutter? How can decluttering things in other areas of my life help improve my health?
These are just some ways that having another word to pair with our word of the year can help us expand the practice. Just like the word of the year practice is an intuitive process, so is the word of the day. We can trust ourselves that whatever comes up has some meaning for us.
As always, be gentle with yourself. Don’t force a meaning with the two words right away. Keep the two words in mind throughout the day. Most of the time, something will emerge.
I hope this process is helpful to expand your word of the year practice. To make this easier, I’ve created a printable that I use for my words. I’ve also included a blank table for you to put your own words in. Click here to download it!
If you used the word of the year practice or if you try this technique I’ve told you about today, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!!
Take care dear friends!
Kathy