Using your 2023 Word of the Year To Live Life on Your Terms

Wowza. Here we are in 2023. I’m sure the road here was a little (or a lot) bumpy. But let’s pause a moment to take a deep breath, let it out, and pat ourselves on the back for how far we’ve come. Congratulations. You’ve made it to a brand new year.

If you hung out with us in December, you know that we took time then to choose our 2023 Word of the year. It’s a practice we believe brings us clarity, intention, and direction for how we want our life to go in the coming months. If you haven’t yet chosen your word of the year, it’s never too late! The purpose of choosing one word is to have a simple reminder of where you’re going when life gets hectic. You can use it to bring yourself back to your intentions, goals, dreams, and desires.

See, the point of choosing a word of the year is to help you live life on your terms. It is so easy in this day and age to just… drift. We get into ruts – get up, go to work, come home, zone out, go to bed, and do it all again. It is easy to forget that we are beautiful, dynamic, magical creatures who are worthy of the life we crave. We forget that life is made up of choices. We are not helpless.

Imagine a drift boat on the ocean. Without someone using the oars, that boat is at the mercy of the waves. It could end up surrounded by sharks, or crashed on the rocks, or even just stagnant in still water. Too many of us live our lives as if we’re in a drift boat with no oars. The cool thing is, in life we do have oars! And we can grab them and start rowing any time we want! The oars are our choices. We can move, choice by choice, towards what we want and away from what we don’t. Is it hard work? Yep. Will we make mistakes? Yep. But we can keep rowing.

Your word of the year will help you as you make one choice at a time. Decisions will become much more clear if you have a touchstone to come back to daily. Think about it:

Let’s say you chose “Brave” as your word of the year. With that word at top of mind, you are much more likely to ask for a promotion, or submit your work to a contest, or talk to a good-looking stranger, or take the leap in a thousand different ways.

What if you chose “Peace?” It might make certain friendships much more clear. It could also help you decide where to go on vacation, or what color shirt to wear, or whether or not to become involved in coworker drama.

Living life on your own terms will bring much more fulfillment than just drifting around. Each one of us deserves to live a life we’re proud of. Imagine coming to the end of your life and looking back, smiling, and saying, “Wow, I am really happy with the life I led. Of course, it wasn’t perfect but overall I wouldn’t have chosen anything different.” That is ownership. That is grabbing the oars. That is living life on your terms.

So, if you haven’t picked a word yet, we 10/10 recommend you do it now. 😉 You can start living a life you’re proud of any time. 

Want more on this? We’ll be expanding in our e-mail Love Letters. You can sign up for those here.

Happy, happy new year friends. Let’s make it a good one.