2024 Word of The Year - A False Start

I was introduced to the concept of a Word of the Year while listening to my friend Jessica’s podcast, Ill-Advised with Jessica Ell. As a branding and marketing girlie, you know I jumped at the concept of adopting a “theme” for the year!

At the start of the new year, I thought that my word of the year for 2024 should be “abundance”. There is a guy on TikTok who says “abundaaannnceee” in the nicest voice whenever he harvests his crops, and I think I got influenced because the word “abundance” just sounds so good. I also was in a particularly weak stage of my healing journey where I was still open to doing what sounded good instead of what I actually needed to do to improve my life - choosing “abundance” as my word of the year was no different than putting on a stupid face mask and expecting it to magically perfect skin you haven’t really washed in a week.

I picked this superficial word of the year, and then 2024 started, and nothing felt right. Turns out this is because I jumped the gun - I don’t want more of all of this shit that is in my life, and the reason blindly focusing on abundance felt wrong was because I was failing to dig deeper and use my word of the year to consciously define something I want to work for.

It hit me like a ton of bricks - the word of the year for me is actually “peace” because I haven’t the faintest idea what that means, looks like, or feels like in my life. I’m really great at existing in chaos because I have never known an alternative, and that’s why this year is about doing a hell of a lot of things differently.

I don’t know what its like to be part of a peaceful relationship.

I don’t know how to enjoy calmness in any area of my professional life.

I don’t know how to take a break and not feel guilty about it.

I don’t know what I actually like to do to recharge and relax.

I need to focus on “peace” this year because someone like me who has never known its quiet embrace can misread a peaceful situation and inadvertently sabotage themselves right out of a good thing. I’m also just tired - tired of always fighting, always running, always doing something.

So how does someone who has never known peace even start to practice it? Honestly - I’m asking people bold-faced questions about how they relax and recharge, and then copying them to see what fits me and what doesn’t. I’m asking ChatGPT for ideas because why the hell not. I’m paying attention to the choices I make and taking the time to ask myself, “What could I do to make this 10% better?” and then going ahead and doing that. My approach is to actively try to do things opposite to the way I normally would to see what makes me go “oh yeah - that’s the good stuff!”.

I’ll check in on my peace journey later in the year!