One of my strengths and weaknesses is my ability to create ideas at the drop of a hat. And, even without any hats dropping. I’m naturally a divergent thinker which says I’m both creative and likely to go off on a tangent at any time.
This means I need to work extra hard to stay focused. One of the ways I do that is to create a word for the year. I shared my full process for coming up with my Word For The Year here.
Also, as a visual thinker and designer of ideas I love to turn this into a simple graphic to represent my word for the year. I usually print this out and put this around my workspace to remind and inspire me. Here’s my example for the year, plus some words from other people and a couple of graphics I created.
My word for the year is: Adventure. The inspiration for this comes from the #2 book on my list of Book of the Year 2017 – Kelly McGonigal’s The Upside of the Stress. She suggests that if I reframe the events that occur to me as ‘stressful’ then I change the way I and my body react – and be healthier as a result. I’ve given up being stressed and now I have ‘adventures’.
[Tweet “#wordfortheyear examples from @janterkelsen @trevoryoung @chrisbrogan @ryanoneilknight @tessnobile”]
So how did the word ‘adventure’ work for me in 2018? Short answer: Huge! It prompted me to move out of the house I’d been renting for ten years and adopt the nomadic and mobile lifestyle of ‘house-sitting’. I paid a grand total of $124 accomodation for the entire year lived in more than a dozen places and had some wonderful experiences looking after dogs, cats and even a rabbit. Each time I was drove to a new place, I tapped my steering wheel and said, ‘I’m off to another adventure…’
[threecol_one]
[/threecol_one] [threecol_one_last]
My word for 2015 is ‘Us’. Last year I spent too much time being solo man. This year I want to change that to include more people and collaborate more often with others. I was going to choose the word ‘we’ and given I want to visit some friends in the ‘US’ this year I thought the double meaning would add a little extra sparkle. Perhaps I can add the stars and stripes to my image too!
What’s your word for the year? And how do you use it to inspire you?
After more than 25 years as a psychologist, Maria Di Pietro often knows something about…
It takes years to become a master. But is the amount of time the crucial…
Sometimes other people can see something in us that we can't yet see ourselves. After…
Most people assume education is the transfer of knowledge. But in my On Experience conversation…
What happens when a familiar pattern makes us too certain about what we're seeing? In…
When I was studying in the US, after my friends went to bed on Friday…