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“In order to design successful habits and change your behaviors, you should do three things. Stop judging yourself. Take your aspirations and break them down into tiny behaviors. Embrace mistakes as discoveries and use them to move forward.”

— Dr. BJ Fogg, Tiny Habits

Practicing Your Word for the New Year

Last week, we talked about how to select your word for the new year. This is a practice that I started doing instead of choosing a new year’s resolution for the upcoming year. I prefer this method because it puts me in the right energy and it gives me focus for the year as opposed to selecting something that’s a goal to achieve.

As I said last week, there’s nothing wrong with new year’s resolutions - I just prefer to select a word that I want to practice embodying for the year. It feels more uplifting for me than a resolution and it puts me in the right energy for the new year.

So if you haven’t read that blog post yet, go back one week and read it. In that post I walk you through steps to brainstorm, narrow down, and ultimately select your word for the year. It’s the same practice that I use, and it’s a really great exercise for reflecting on the year and deciding on what to focus on in the upcoming new year.

So for 2020, my word was Discipline. I’ve never been an inherently undisciplined person but I knew that I needed to apply this in new areas of my life in order to see the results that I was looking for. And I did see new results - I started applying discipline in new and unexpected ways that felt fun and exciting. Although I’ve not mastered the art of discipline yet, I will continue to practice this word and I can rest assured knowing that I did that word justice in the year 2020.

I promised you last week that I’d share with you my word for 2021. And that time has come! Drumroll please...my word for 2021 is Intrepid. The definition of intrepid is resolutely fearless and dauntless. Synonyms for this word would be brave, courageous, and bold. I liked this word because I knew that for 2021, in order for me to see new expanded results beyond what I’ve seen this year, it’s going to require that I become more confident, fearless, and intrepid. I also liked this word because intrepid is often used to describe explorers and adventurers. And that’s what the jet set life is all about really - it’s about fiercely and unapologetically loving life and getting out into the world and learning about it and seeing what it can offer you.

And I’ll be frank with you - my word of the year kind of scares me - which is completely normal! It’s okay to have some doubt around the word you select because you are focusing on a word that will challenge you to grow.

Being intrepid will require that I feel discomfort. But that’s always what will happen when you try to become someone new. When you work on expanding yourself and your self-image, it will always feel uncomfortable. As I think about last year, the word discipline struck the same level of discomfort in me too - but that’s how I know it’s the right word for me. Because I know it’s the area and direction in which I need to grow into more. Now, your word may not scare you at all - maybe you just feel pure excitement for it - and that’s good too. But I want to challenge you to choose something that will really push you to reach a new level of whatever it is you’re trying to achieve. Whether it inspires you or scares you just a little, that’s what we want - and the word intrepid makes me feel both of those things - excited and just a little nervous.

So now that we have our selected word, we need to understand how to start practicing that word in 2021 - how we can apply it in our daily life. We don’t choose a word for the year just to forget about it in a month. This is something that we are committing to for the entire year. We want to become a living, breathing example of our word. In order to really get what you want out of the new year, you need to show up and breathe life into the word you chose. What we practice, we get good at. So we have to start practicing our word in our day to day.

We are going to go through a writing exercise again in this podcast, as we did with my previous episode to choose a word for the year, so get out a pen and a journal for this one if you’d like to take some notes or go deeper with this practice.

What does your word for the new year mean to you?

So the first thing that I want you to consider is the significance of this word for you. A year can be a long time to practice embodying a word, so we want to first make sure that you have a deep ‘why’ established around this word. Why is this word important to you? Why did you choose to select this particular word for the new year?

If we can’t understand our deep ‘why’ for the word, we are destined to not integrate this focus into our life. People often fail at making their dreams a reality because they have not figured out what their big ‘why’ is for achieving this goal. So they ultimately fail. And I actually go through an entire exercise around getting to your big ‘why’ in my Vision Voyage course, but we are just going to touch on this today.

So make sure that you understand why you chose this word for the new year. Your why should be inspiring, motivating, and significant. Because if it isn’t, you won’t show up for it.

Visualize the end of 2021

Now, I’d like for you to picture yourself at the end of 2021, having successfully embodied and practiced this word for the entire year.

What are you celebrating?
What aspects of your life changed because you practiced this word throughout the year?
What aspects of your life look different because of this word?
How do you feel?
What have you attracted into your life?
What is there more of in your life?

I want you to focus on your future and practice living that today. So how do you imagine that this word will impact you in 2021? What will have happened to you during the year?

I also want you to consider what would there be less of in your life in order to practice your word of the year. What did you have to let go of in order to live into this word. For me, since my word is intrepid, I know that I will have to let go of self-doubt. I’ll need to practice stopping negative thinking in its tracks as it creeps into my mind. So as you consider what you want more of in your life, also consider what you want to have less of.

In order to practice living into this word that you’ve chosen, you will need to audit your thoughts and beliefs around the word you’ve chosen. Which thoughts and beliefs align with your word? Which don’t? How will you practice releasing those thoughts and beliefs which don’t align?

For example, let’s say your word for the year is wealthy. You want to achieve more wealth in your life. You may currently have a thought like, “I’m not good with money,” or maybe money makes you uncomfortable. So how can you change that thought to something that better aligns with your word.

It may be too hard to jump from “I’m not good with money,” to “I’m great with money,” because our brains will call us out and say no, that’s not true. So try a small shift from “I’m not good with money,” to “I keep thinking that I’m not good with money.” This allows you to take a step back and separate yourself from the thought.

Then when you hang out with that thought for a while and you feel comfortable with it, you can move on to the next thought which may be, “I’m learning how to be good with money.” And gradually, you will gather enough evidence to reach that final thought of “I’m great with money,” and you’ll believe it through and through.

So bringing it back to our visualization exercise, how will your thoughts and beliefs change in order for you to embody your word for the year? What beliefs no longer serve you? What thoughts align with your word?

As I mentioned before, my word for the year - intrepid - already casts some self-doubt for me in my head. But I know that those thoughts won’t serve me and won’t help me get any better at practicing my word. So I’ll need to release those thoughts of self-doubt. And as I picture myself at the end of 2021, I imagine a woman who’s as calm and confident as a cucumber. And she’s thinking thoughts like, “I’ve got this. This feels easy and fun.” So these are the types of thoughts that I will need to practice thinking about in the new year in order to better embody my word intrepid.

Another aspect to visualize for the end of 2021 is how you show up. What are you wearing? How are you feeling? How are you speaking and communicating with others? What does your posture look like? How do you engage with others?

Maybe this question doesn’t correlate very well with your word, but for a word like mine, where I want to be bold and fearless, these are very important questions to ask. In order to be intrepid, I need to carry myself differently - someone who is confident and self-assured in her words as she speaks with others. Someone who looks polished and has good posture.

This may not seem relevant but when we practice living our word in the outside world, it helps us align our thoughts and beliefs on the inside.

Tiny Changes

So now that we’ve considered the big picture of your transformation by the end of the year, we need to break that down into tiny changes that you can start making today. What are some new habits that you need to start practicing? What are some poor habits that are preventing you from practicing your word of the year? How are you caring for yourself?

As you incorporate these very small changes into your life in the new year, it will have a compounding effect. When you take small, seemingly insignificant actions, you’ll see big improvements. There’s a book by Darren Hardy called The Compound Effect that breaks this down really simply - one of the key lessons that I really like from it was - success is doing a half dozen things really well, repeated five thousand times.

Another important lesson that this book teaches is to be patient with this process. We have current habits today that have been formed over years - so if you are trying to work on a new tiny change or eliminate a poor habit that doesn’t align with your word of the year, just know that it will take both time and continuous practice.

Think of it like a merry-go-round or a carousel. They start slow. The hardest part is the beginning - when you start, it will feel hard and slow to get the merry-go-round to move. But as you keep pushing, you will gain momentum and it will become easier. And as that momentum continues, it will require less work to keep going.

Three Goals

And finally, in this exercise, I want you to consider three goals that you want to achieve by the end of the year that align with your word. What three goals will you achieve based on your word of the year?

And in this exercise, don’t worry about the how right now. Don’t worry about how you will achieve those goals. Because the how will reveal itself with practice - when you start practicing your word of the year. Today, just commit that you will show up for the three goals that you’ve set for yourself.

Remember that when you practice at something, failure will be part of it - that’s why it’s practice. So part of this process is to fail then try again. Failure is not a full stop moment; it’s merely a stepping stone toward your success. Realize that to become a new woman, you will have to practice - and sometimes you’ll have to recommit to that practice. Remind yourself that you are working on a new you and that there will be times when the old you will try to creep in, because it’s what’s familiar to you.

But stick with it and be kind to yourself in the process. I have a whole blog post about this - how you need to show yourself compassion when dream making. It’s all part of the process, and it will take time to adapt and grow. So please don’t beat yourself up during this process - it’s about growth, not perfection.

So as we bring this exercise to a close, I want to encourage you to review all of the notes you've jotted down and ask yourself how you can start incorporating these things into your daily life. I’m so excited for what the new year holds for you, and I can’t wait to see what you accomplish in 2021!