The Word of the Year Activity to Set Up Your Year The Best It Can Be

Take this moment for you today and do yourself a favor. 

This short but impactful activity is the moment for the next year that will set up your year for 2025 in the best direction so it can be the best it can be.

In this special mini-episode of the Dare Greatly Podcast, I have a message you need to hear, right now, just for you: this year, you can make a difference with how it goes.

You have the power to make this year more intentional and to steer the ship in the direction you want it to go. The year doesn’t have to just happen to you. 

You can make the choice, set your course, enter the GPS coordinates in your inner compass, and navigate your next right steps, work toward your true desires, and create the change you’ve always wanted, so you can have what you always wanted. 

This is the year to be intentional. To decide. To make up your mind. To take back control. To stop worrying what other people think, and start focusing on what You think of you. 

Because this is what I know: only you decide how much power other people have over you. You are the master of your own destiny - you and God - and you get to work that out together as you decide how to spend your time and your energy. And when you take back your power and say yes to the right things that are aligned with your true purpose, your life ignites in powerful ways.

And so start your year off with this one exercise and let it be your North Star, your guiding star. I know you to be someone who wants to feel like you are living your purpose, that your life has meaning, and that you are capable of living into that. 

I know you are feeling hopeful with the New Year, and new possibilities. And, you’re someone who not only has amazing potential and a vision for your life, which I love this about you, but you’re also full of desire to do the work and learn and uplevel the things that it will require to make great things happen in your life. 

Some of those things will be mundane. Some of them you won’t want to do. And the truth is, it’s going to require you to say yes to that and be willing to do it anyway. 

And the reason I know you are capable of doing those things is because you are a person who shows up for yourself, like you’re doing now, here listening today, to learn and to take one small step in the right direction. 

And so I wanted to start this year off today by personally inviting you to choose a Word of the Year to be your focus, your direction, your north star. This small but mighty exercise holds so much power if you let it. In fact, as you are thoughtful and choose your theme or word to focus on, it will unlock more confidence that you are in fact, heading in the right direction. 

I didn’t do this until I was 48. And now, four years later, I want to invite everyone I know to do it. It’s something I wish I would have done sooner. It took me a while to figure out that I have more power than I realized. And you have power. And sometimes when I engage in conversation with you, and I hear your wisdom shine through from hard won lessons you’ve been through, and I see your big heart and how much you care about your family, your kids, your partner, your community, and the beautiful and heartbreaking world we are all navigating together, and I see how much you want to make a difference for good in the people’s lives you touch, I see that we all have more power than we realize. 

And it took me a while to really believe this. But now that I do, I’m all in on believing in my own personal power, I have power, and you have power. It would be irresponsible of me not to share the different ways I’ve learned to tap into it. 

And so one of those ways is to choose a word or theme to guide your upcoming year to help you navigate your next chapter. 

Your next chapter is going to be beautiful. It’s going to be just what it needs to be. Not because of what happens to you. But because you know how to be a co-creator with how you respond to the world around you and the people in it, regardless of what they do or don’t do. You know how to use your own power to navigate all of that. Not because it’s easy, but because you’ve learned and discovered for yourself that you have the power to choose how you respond, and you have the power to decide who you want to be when other people are making their choices. 

It’s our ability to respond, our response-ability to use our power for good that gives us our personal power. 

It’s taken me a looooong time to learn this. For too long, I thought I could only be happy if things outside of me would cooperate. But I had it backwards. And if you’re like me, this can be so confusing. It can be exhausting and overwhelming and super frustrating, that feeling that everything is out of my control, that feeling of being powerless.

And so much of my time and energy has been spent trying to control things that aren’t my job to control. 

Each year, I get better and better at learning this though. And so I’m sharing this with you in hopes that you can experience the freedom, the peace that comes from letting go of trying to control things that aren’t mine to control: like how other people vote. Or my husband. Or my kids. Or the real estate market. The outcome of the macro economy. Whether my young adult son makes his bed or not. Whether my young adult daughter decides to change her major in college or not. Whether my husband is getting enough protein in his diet. Haha  I can let them make their own choices, and I can be a sturdy parent in guiding my young adult children, but I can’t control them, and I don’t want to anymore. It’s not very fun. 

This year is going to be even better. It’s going to be the best yet. And same for you. This year is going to be your best yet because like me, you’re going to use your power in the most useful way you can, you’re going to be intentional and more able to respond to what’s yours to respond to, more respons-able, and less reactive, less controlling and frustrated with things that aren’t in your control. 

The best psychologists out there teach this to their clients all the time, when you focus on what is within your power, and choose your responses to other people's choices, versus letting their choices have power over you, versus reacting, then you free yourself from the weight of all the frustrations that weigh you down. You become more empowered, less reactive. You take responsibility for what you can control, and you stop wasting your power on things beyond your control. 

We’re talking about more freedom here. More empowerment. 

And so what does that look like? How do we do that? 

You choose ahead of time your theme or mantra, or word of the year for this next chapter. You decide ahead of time and let it anchor you back to your vision of who you want to be when things get messy. 

Anytime someone is frustrating you, or a situation is weighing you down, you come back to your theme or word of the year. 

I did this for 2024 with the theme Grace, that was my word of the year. And boy, did I go on a deep dive with that word, it has so many applications, many meanings - both in the giving of it, and in the receiving of it. 

I experienced some really hard challenges in 2024, where I relied on the power of Grace to increase my capacity to handle them, to navigate them. That word, Grace, that concept, was an anchor. I’m so glad I chose that word as my word of the year. 

For example: My body isn’t responding to the workouts and food protocols I’ve tried to relieve the menopausal symptoms I’m experiencing? Give my body some grace. Give myself some grace. 

Or my son who came home from his mission decided he didn’t want to go to college and wanted to enter a blue-collar trade instead? Give him some grace. Give myself some grace in that. Turns out, it’s been a beautiful thing for him. Thank you - grace. 

My dad got sick fast and we lost him sooner than any of us thought? Boy, did I rely on grace for that. Going through his things, settling his estate, all of that went much smoother because of my theme - intentionally choosing grace. 

Anytime something comes up in your life that is confusing, or frustrating, or beyond your control, you’ll come back to your word or theme and you’ll let it guide you through.

When you say your word to yourself, or your theme, you’re going to recognize you have power to choose how you’re going to navigate what life puts on your path. And it is so empowering.

One year, I chose the theme, ‘vibrantly serve,’ and it was a beautiful way to navigate that year because I was able to show up in my motherhood and in my marriage with a giving heart. I was able to build my coaching practice without entitlement. I was able to perform as a musician with an open heart and it didn’t drain my energy, it fed it. 

Another year, I chose the word ‘harmony’ - which was really cool, because lots of things that could have been defined as friction were going on in my life. But coming back to that word, just like in music - sometimes the sounds will come together and create dissonance - a lack of harmony, but even dissonance resolves in the greatest music - there are dissonant moments in every great symphony, in every sonata, and same with life. 

What is so fun about this concept of harmony, as a musician, I know I have power to create the sounds I want, I can resolve the dissonance whenever I choose. I can navigate the dissonance and come back to harmony. This is the truth. 

When you start to own your power of being a creator, versus a reactor, you start to feel empowered, and you start to feel proud of yourself. And the world around you starts to respond to that energy as well. Your kids notice. Your spouse notices. Your boss notices. Your clients. Your students. All the humans you come in contact with notice the subtle shift, and it creates a magnetism. People feel more drawn to you.

And so I want to invite you to own your ability to respond to what will happen this next year. You have the power to do that. Your ability to respond is your respons-ability. 

When you direct your intention to what you want to focus on with intention, you’re going to feel lighter, and freer, and more confident, and you’ll know what is yours to control and what is yours to let go of. 

Maybe you want to be less judgmental and more loving - and so you choose the word Compassion this year. Maybe you want to be more trusting and less fearful, and so your word of the year is Trust. Maybe you feel confined and boxed in and want more freedom, so you choose the word Boundless. 

Just a few more ideas, and if you want, you can download my Word of the Year cards, they’re on my homepage of my website, if you want more ideas, those are a fun resource, go download them right now, I’ll link them in the show notes here, but some other ideas:

Maybe life feels rigid, tight, inflexible, and you need more flow, then you choose the word Flow. Or perhaps you notice too much black and white thinking, so you choose the theme Middle Path or Middle Ground’ , that could be such a cool theme. Or maybe things feel a little flat and boring, you could choose the word Wonder or Wondrous. 

Do you see the potential this activity holds? 

This is your invitation to do this one thing, this one activity to set up your year the best it can be, and choose your focus, choose your theme to guide your year with more intention. And when you do this, it makes your next chapter so much more fun. Which can change everything. Right? 

Set yourself up with some goodness. Have fun with this. 

That’s my invitation to you. 

Oh, and if you’re wondering what my theme is for the new year, I’ll tell you: it’s ‘small and mighty’... because I’m small - I’m 5’1”, and I’m also mighty. I want to let that theme guide me this year.

And if you’re curious as to why I chose that, well, that’s a good story for another day. So stay tuned. 🙂

If you’re thinking of someone who you want to do this with, if you liked this message, then your next step is to share this episode with them. You can also go download the Word of the Year cards for more ideas on my website. 

Have a beautiful day my friends. 

Take care of each other out there.

See you next time. . . 

Connect with Danielle:

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