journal and coffee during the holiday season

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“Such a simple concept, yet so true: that which we manifest is before us; we are the creators of our own destiny. Be it through intention or ignorance, our successes and our failures have been brought on by none other than ourselves.”

— Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

How to Choose a Word for the New Year

2020 is coming to an end, and well, let’s just say that it is a year that will go down in infamy. What a way to open up a new decade, right? It certainly wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but it wasn’t all horrible either.

I believe this year has been a time that’s forced us all to really evaluate what matters most.

People learned how to work from home. People lost their jobs. People were forced to be isolated and quarantined. And out of all of this, I believe we collectively have come to better appreciate things that we once took for granted. Things like going to lunch with friends, hugging your family, traveling around the world.

Before this year, these were things that I didn’t give much thought to. I was always happy and grateful for them but it just felt like they were a given. But they aren’t. These blessings in life are gifts and they are not guaranteed. So this year has brought to me the realization that even the smallest of things are luxuries that we should be thankful for in our day to day lives.

For me 2020 was an unexpected year for growth and reflection. The year started with me starting a new chapter in my career at American Airlines. I had just earned a new dream job that I was so proud to have...one month in, it appeared that it would be a year full of hard work, prosperity, travel, and fun, but then the entire trajectory of this career path came to a screeching halt.

And then it was over in a flash. In a blink of an eye I went from dream job to no job. It was at that point that I had a choice. I could wallow in self-pity and focus on all of the career potential and money that I would lose out on. Or, I could look forward. I could try to find a way out.

My Word for 2020

I chose the latter. And my 2020 word of the year was tested more than I had ever thought it would. My word for 2020 was discipline. When I chose the word “discipline” for the year 2020, I figured I’d be exhibiting discipline in building better habits. You know the usual healthy habits that require discipline - regular journaling, healthier eating, exercising more, getting out of bed on the first alarm...

But instead, my discipline was tested in a much different way - in ways that I would never have imagined.

I was challenged to find discipline in a world that had shut down. I was challenged to find discipline at a time when my job, my career, and my entire way of life had disappeared.

It would have been easy to just give in and give up in that moment. It would have been easier to just veg out and stay in bed all day scrolling through TikTok videos.

But I knew that I had chosen the word discipline for a reason. And I needed to keep my focus on that word even though I was being challenged to abandon the concept altogether.

This spring, we were all given the unique opportunity to slow down our lives, whether we wanted it to slow down or not. And we were faced with the question of, “How do I want to spend this newfound time that I have?” Maybe you experienced newfound time because you were laid off like me, or maybe you just had a slightly different schedule because you weren’t commuting anywhere anymore, but either way, you likely found yourself at some point this year with more time that you thought you would have to yourself.

I didn’t want to look back on this spring after I was surprisingly forced into unemployment and think to myself that I wasted it away. I remembered my word, “discipline,” so I mustered up whatever discipline I had left in my body, and decided to create something new.

And as a result, I created this podcast - The Jet Set Life. I used this platform as a way to share my story with others, in the hopes that they could find solace in my story and feel encouraged to keep working toward their dreams. Then I created Vision Voyage, my online workshop to help women start achieving their goals in 30 days at a time. And I use this platform as a way to help women supercharge their way to living the extraordinary life of their dreams.

Why Choose a Word for the New Year

So in the spirit of a new upcoming year, it’s time for us to go through this exercise and select a new word for the year. This is an incredibly powerful tool for helping shape and create what you want in a single year.

This is different from making a new year’s resolution, which I actually do not take part in anymore. I prefer choosing a single word rather than making a resolution because frankly, I grew tired of looking back on years past where I hadn’t kept my new year’s resolution. And it didn’t help create the type of energy that I wanted. Instead, I just felt discouraged.

How many times have you made a new year’s resolution then broke it? How many times have you been really good about it in January but then gave up a month or two later? I’m not asking to make you feel bad. We all have experienced this at some point or another. But the problem I have with resolutions is that it doesn’t feel like a fun or creative exercise. So we set ourselves up for not fulfilling our resolution.

Now, I’m not telling you that you can’t make new year’s resolutions or that they’re inherently bad because that’s not the case. I just prefer the positive focus and energy that choosing a word for the year provides instead.

Last year was actually the first year that I really practiced this exercise of choosing a word for the year to focus on. And it’s been really enlightening to see how the word discipline has helped me grow in 2020. It’s inspired me, kept me moving forward, and it’s given me clarity. Which is the whole idea behind choosing a “focus word” for the year.

My manifestor babes out there have probably heard of this exercise as setting your intention. When you set an intention for yourself, you are consciously practicing how you want to feel. And we get good at what we practice. So by choosing a word or an intention for the year, we are able to practice how this word feels in your body. And when you can embody this for a year, it will transform your life.

The law of attraction states that like attracts like. When we set positive intentions for ourselves, we attract positivity into our life. So as you start practicing on embodying your word for 2021, you’ll start attracting experiences and things and people into your life that align with that intention.

But for those of you who are not as woo-woo, the principle still applies. When we get clear on what we want, it drives momentum toward that vision. When we can clear up mind drama and get really focused on our desire, we can become unstoppable.

So by choosing a word for the year, we are helping ourselves to create and realize what we want in the world.

How to Choose a Word for the New Year

As we go through this exercise, I’ll pose some questions for you to narrow your focus and I’ll provide some tips for making your selection. And let me just preface this by saying that you can’t make a wrong choice.

The first thing I’d tell you is to take your time with this exercise. There’s no need to rush. Some years, the word will speak to you loud and clear while other years you may want to dig a little deeper. In 2019 when I set my 2020 word “discipline,” the word came very clear to me. I felt like I had a deficit of discipline, and I knew that I would need discipline in order to grow into who I am today. So when the word popped in my head, I just knew. But this year, there’s not a word shouting out to me just yet, so just be patient with the process and let the word come to you as you go through the exercise.

As we start the exercise, make sure that you’re not under any stress. You don’t want to choose your word as a reaction to something you’re presently under duress about. We want to choose a word that drives our momentum forward and takes us to the next level of our life, not something that keeps us the same.

So get into the right headspace - find a quiet spot, maybe by the fireplace. Turn on some relaxing music, and put yourself in an environment that’s most conducive to choosing your word for the new year.

Brainstorm Session

Grab a journal and a pen and start jotting down some ideas and responses to the prompts that I’ll give you.

Question #1

Now that we are calm, in a good headspace, and have a journal, just start to brainstorm and write down all of the things that stuck out to you in the past year, or maybe even prior to that. What would you like to experience more of this year? What did you enjoy? On the flipside, what did you not enjoy? What did you tolerate? What would you like to leave behind in the new year?

And as you begin to write down these ideas, I’ll remind you again that there are not right or wrong answers. And this is not a time for you to make excuses and say that you don’t know what you want more of in life. Deep down, you know what you want - you may just be too scared to admit it.

So what we are not doing right now is acting confused. And we are also not focusing on the how either. The “how” is not our business - that’s the universe’s business. All I’m asking you to do right now is to jot down what you want more of and what you want less of in 2021. Don’t worry about how it will happen. The how will reveal itself in time. Right now, we are just focused on the what and the why.

Okay, so what are you tired of tolerating in your life? And what do you want to experience more of in the coming year? Maybe it’s inner peace. Maybe it’s excitement. Maybe it’s love. Maybe it’s vacation. Maybe it’s a bigger space. Write it all down - it doesn’t matter if it’s a feeling or thought that you want to experience or if it’s physical things outside yourself.

Now if you write down things - take it a step further and ask yourself why you want that thing. How will it make you feel if you have that thing? Maybe you want a vacation because you want to feel relaxed. Maybe you want a bigger space because it will make you feel at peace. Try to drill down to the feeling that you think that thing would bring you if you experienced it.

We are trying to select a word that evokes an emotion inside of us. When we practice feeling that emotion, we will attract more of that into our life. So for any physical items you wrote down, take it one step further and identify the feeling you’re trying to embody.

Question #2

The next question to consider is what characteristic would have a major positive impact on your life? What skill or talent would positively affect your new you for the year? Some examples may be leadership, discipline, confidence, communication, level-headedness. If you could work on mastering or improving on a new personal characteristic, what would it be? What would have the greatest impact on your life? What would positively improve it or transform it the most?

Question #3

Another question to consider is how do you want to feel at the end of 2021? It’s similar to the first set of questions but imagine yourself at the end of next year. Picture how you are feeling. In one word, what are you feeling? Write that emotion down.

Question #4

What would you like to become in 2021? What would you like to see more of in yourself? Yes, these questions all have a similar theme but I want to ask them all to help you really brainstorm and get it all down onto paper. Maybe you want to become more joyful. Or more forgiving. Or more patient.

Question #5

Okay now that we’ve written down (1) what you want to have more or less of in your life, (2) how you want to feel at the end of the year, (3) what characteristics would positively impact your life, and (4) what you want to become more of in the year, it’s time to switch gears a little. So let’s move on to your 2021 goals. What goals do you have for 2021?

Maybe you want to grow your business. Maybe you want to hit six figures. Maybe you want to learn a new skill or gain a certificate in a particular area of study. Maybe you want to lose weight and get healthy.

Write down your 2021 goal and consider what you need to become in order to reach these goals. Who do you need to be in order to achieve these goals? What does the woman who’s already reached those goals look like to you?

As you’re writing these things down, remember that this is a brainstorm session - so write any and everything that comes to mind. We want to take all those thoughts and dreams and goals and feelings and record them down on paper. No judging or editing at this point. Just write it all down and let yourself be creative and open with the process.

Narrow the Focus

Now that we’ve brainstormed and jotted some notes onto paper, let’s narrow the focus. Out of all the words that you’ve written, what three stand out to you the most? Which words really speak to you? Which three words feel good or feel right in your body? Which three words excite you?

As you’re narrowing down, also notice which words give you a little anxiety inside - maybe they even feel a little scary or challenging. Although it’s not always the case, sometimes the feelings that scare us the most are the ones that we need the most work on. So be honest with yourself and let yourself feel all the feels when you’re selecting three words. It’s okay if a word makes you feel worried or doubtful.

This was one of the reasons that I actually chose the word “discipline” for 2020. In general, many people associate discipline with negativity because they think it’s restrictive. I could probably do an entire podcast about discipline but I chose this word for 2020 because I knew it was an area in my life that I needed to work on. It didn’t necessarily make me excited and it caused me to worry a little because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to exhibit discipline but I knew that it was what I needed most. I needed the most growth in this area, so that’s why I chose it.

So star or circle the three that are speaking to you - whether it’s a word that excites you or makes you scared.

Select the word

And you can now guess where we are going to go with this - from three words, we need to narrow it down to just one. In order to select your word for the new year, it’s now time to ask yourself which of these three would have the greatest effect on my life in the coming year? Which would cause you to grow the most?

And this is the time when you may start doubting yourself, but don’t! Remember that you can’t make a wrong choice. We need to choose a single word because we don’t want to have split energy. Consider when you try to multitask. When you split your energy among several tasks, no singular item gets full focus, therefore the quality likely goes down for each item. And you’ll probably end up spending more time overall than focusing, completing a task, then moving to the next. For example, I don’t enjoy folding and putting away my laundry. So to make the experience more enjoyable, sometimes I’ll turn on one of my favorite T.V. shows. But guess what then happens? My folding is more sloppy and a task that would take 10 minutes ends up taking 30 minutes because I keep getting distracted and pausing to watch my show.

But when you put all of your focus behind a single task, you can probably complete it with high quality and with greater efficiency. Which is what we want to do here as well. We want all of your energy to go behind a single focus. This is how you have the greatest chance of seeing real and last change; when you can put all of your energy behind a single idea or intention.

The act of choosing a single word and a single focus for the year should feel empowering. When you can choose a focus, you’ll gain clarity, and with clarity, you can put all of your energy and momentum behind that one word. We want your thoughts, feelings, and actions to all drive yourself toward that word that you select.

Remember that we are choosing a word for the year in order to practice embodying it. And when we practice something, we get good at it. So keep that in mind as you are selecting your focus word. This will be the word that you keep in mind when you’re making decisions about where to take your life next. This will be the word that you keep in mind when you’re reacting to new situations. This will be the word that you keep in mind when you’re practicing becoming someone new.

Committing to the word

In this final step, we now must commit to our word for the new year. There’s a big difference between wanting something and committing to it. When you commit to something, you come at it with an entirely different energy. Consider what you’re willing to commit to. What does a woman who’s committed to something look like versus a woman who wants something?

How does it feel to commit to something versus to just want it? Wanting something feels easy. It’s easy to want something. But it’s difficult to commit to something. Committing to something means that you’ll see it through no matter what - come hell or high water. No second guessing, no doubting, no changing it halfway through the year when it gets tough. We want to fully commit to a single word for the entire year because that is how we see real and lasting transformations.

So what’s your word for the year? I’d love for you to share it with me. You can share it with me on the blog or on Instagram or Facebook at @thejetsetblonde. Take a picture, tag me, and use the hashtag #jetsetlife. I can’t wait to hear what word you’ve chosen to take you into the new year!