Choosing a word of the year is a powerful way to focus your intentions for the year ahead. In this post, learn why choosing a word of the year might be right for you, and how to find your perfect word.
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Table of Contents
- Introduction
- What Is a Word of the Year?
- What Makes a Good Word of the Year?
- A Common Theme
- A Guiding Philosophy
- Why I Love Using a Word of the Year
- Overflow, Not Overwhelm
- How to Choose Your Word of the Year
- 1. Reflect on the Past Year
- 2. Envision the Year Ahead
- 3. Brainstorm Possibilities
- 4. Seek Guidance
- 5. Trust Your Intuition
- Creative & Magical Ways to Engage with Your Word of the Year
As one year ends and another begins, many of us feel drawn to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re headed. It’s a time of transition, full of potential and possibility. But while traditional resolutions can feel rigid or overwhelming, the practice of choosing a word of the year offers a gentler, more intuitive way to focus your energy and intentions.
A word of the year is a single, meaningful word that becomes your guiding star for the next twelve months. It’s a compass rather than a map—a tool for mindfulness, growth, and alignment. Whether your word is Balance, Courage, or Joy, it’s a touchstone you can return to when life gets busy, helping you stay connected to what truly matters.
In this post, we’ll explore the transformative power of the word of the year practice, why it works so well, and how you can find a word that resonates deeply with your aspirations. Whether you’re new to this tradition or looking to deepen your approach, this guide will help you set the tone for your most intentional year yet.
What Is a Word of the Year?
A word of the year is a single word chosen to encapsulate your intention, focus, or energy for the coming year. Unlike traditional resolutions, which tend to be goal-specific, rigid, and often burnout-inducing, a word of the year offers flexibility and inspiration. It’s a compass rather than a checklist, guiding you through challenges and opportunities alike no matter what life sends your way.
Some popular words of the year might include Balance, Courage, Growth, or Harmony. These words encourage reflection and mindfulness in all areas of life, from home and career to relationships, spirituality, and self-care. However, you’re certainly not limited to those words! Your word of the year can be anything that feels right to you, evokes the energy you want to attune to, and will help guide you through whatever adventures the year ahead may hold.
What Makes a Good Word of the Year?
Your word of the year can be anything you want—but remember, the beauty of a word of the year is that it’s not a specific goal or task you want to accomplish; it’s a guiding star lighting the path of who you choose to be over the coming year. The word you choose will help you navigate the open and often choppy waters of goal-setting and accomplishments regardless of what challenges or distractions life has in store for you.
You may have many goals that you want to accomplish this coming year. Try to come up with a word that will help guide you in prioritizing and progressing towards all your most important goals, rather than a word that represents one specific goal. If there’s some common theme that connects them, that may be easy. If not, perhaps there is a common theme among what has previously prevented you from reaching those goals. Or, perhaps you want to live the next year of your life inspired by a particular philosophy, and that will help to guide and shape your goals and actions throughout the year.
That said, a word of the year should also not be too vague. Progress, for example, can be twisted to mean anything and justify your path no matter how far you veer off course. I’m prepared to believe there’s a counter-example; perhaps there’s someone out there for whom Progress might be the perfect word. Rather than getting hung up on my specific examples, just be mindful that your word is not so vague that it offers no guidance at all. The word you choose should resonate in your mind and soul like a clear bell.
My 2024 word of the year was Overflow, inspired by the Ace of Cups and my journey into motherhood (I share more about that in this video, and I’ll share more about choosing a word of the year with tarot soon!). My past words of the year have included Followthrough, Order, Freedom, and Create, all to great success.
A Common Theme
Here’s an example: the year I chose Plan, it wasn’t because I was romanticizing having a pretty planner or planning a big event or anything. It was because I had a ton of things I wanted to accomplish that year for Oil Coven and my personal creative projects, and I knew I was going to have to master the art and science of planning ahead if I wanted to have even a chance of success. I can’t honestly say I’ve mastered the art of planning, but I do a lot more of it now than I ever did before that year, and I can honestly say it really helped me accomplish a bunch of other goals that year! The common theme among my goals was that they would all require mindful planning and sticking to the plan closely, something that did not come naturally to me.
A Guiding Philosophy
To offer another example, in 2023 my word of the year was Create. I had spent the previous several years carefully shaping the trajectory of my life to be moving towards being able and feeling ready to have and support a baby, frequently telling myself I didn’t have time to work on creative projects just for the joy of it. Then, in November 2022, I suffered a miscarriage and lost my first pregnancy at 11 weeks.
The realization came crashing down that, ultimately, I could not control when or if I could create a baby, and that even (or perhaps especially) if I was going to have a baby soon, I didn’t want that baby to grow up thinking that their mama had to sacrifice all the rest of her creative potential to become a mama.
I wanted to create just for the joy of it, I wanted to pour my creative energy into things that I could control, and I wanted my potential future children to know that motherhood and personal creative fulfillment were not mutually exclusive. And so, I chose Create to be my next word of the year, and I devoted 2023 to creative work and creative play. (Incidentally, 2023 is the year I released my album Wildflowers, started my first junk journal grimoire, created my Darkness Between the Stars zine, learned to bake sourdough and make pasta fresca, and started sewing again after years of not touching my machine.)
Why I Love Using a Word of the Year
For me, choosing a word of the year is an empowering ritual and has become a beloved tradition. It’s a chance to pause, connect with my intuition and deeper purpose, and align myself with a meaningful intention. Once chosen, a word of the year is like a magical golden thread woven through the tapestry of my year amongst the colorful threads of everyday life—it’s a reminder of my priorities when things get chaotic, and a source of encouragement, a guiding star when I notice myself beginning to drift off course.
Where new year’s resolutions can feel constricting, overwhelming, and overly ambitious (especially as the list grows), a word of the year is just one word to help guide you towards your highest priorities. Where goals can help you say where you want to go, a word of the year can help you articulate how you want to get there. And perhaps most importantly, where a long list of new year’s resolutions is easy to forget and abandon by mid-January, one potent word of the year can live vividly in your mind all year. It’s easy to get lost in the sauce of resolutions; it’s much harder to ignore, abandon, or feel overwhelmed by one wisely-chosen guiding word.
Overflow, Not Overwhelm
When I chose the word Overflow for my 2024 word of the year, I wanted that to mean that I would spend time making music, working in my junk journal grimoire, playing with art supplies, cooking and baking, and taking luxurious baths every week, and doing a little bit of at least one of these things pretty much every day. That’s a beautiful dream, and during my pregnancy it was almost a reality, but the first six months of motherhood have proven to be pretty all-consuming and have made it literally impossible to live that dream.
If I had set those specific goals for myself, when circumstances changed and made it impossible to live up to them, I would have felt disappointed in myself for failing to achieve what I committed to. Instead, I had the word Overflow to guide me as I made adjustments and navigated how I could still fill my own cup and pour from the overflow while also fulfilling my oath to be the best mother I can be.
Things ended up looking different than I’d imagined. I can’t honestly say I poured from the overflow every day. Some days I poured from an overflow of tears. But I always had that word, Overflow, to inform my daily decisions and guide me back to the path. And while I may have felt challenged by motherhood, I never felt overwhelmed by my own failure to live up to the life I had envisioned. I was able to have a lot of grace for myself and adapt to the challenges of each new day, with pouring from the Overflow as my guiding star.
The beauty of this practice is its adaptability. Your word can reveal new layers of meaning as the year unfolds, offering guidance in ways you might not expect.
How to Choose Your Word of the Year
Choosing a word of the year is a personal process, and there’s no one right way to do it. That said, if you need a little structure and guidance, here’s a step-by-step guide to help you find your perfect word for 2025:
1. Reflect on the Past Year
Take time to journal or meditate on the previous year. What were your triumphs and challenges? What lessons did you learn? This reflection can reveal patterns and themes that might inspire your word.
I’ve compiled some journal prompts to help you with this step:
Journal Prompts to Reflect on the Past Year
- What were the most significant moments of the past year?
- What accomplishments are you most proud of?
- What challenges did you face, and how did you grow through them?
- What themes or patterns emerged in your life last year?
- What habits or routines served you well?
- What areas of your life felt out of balance?
- What moments brought you the most joy or peace?
- What do you wish you had done differently?
2. Envision the Year Ahead
What do you hope to create, experience, or achieve in the coming year? Imagine how you want to feel as you navigate your goals. Words that evoke these feelings often make excellent choices.
I’ve compiled some journal prompts to help you with this step:
Journal Prompts to Envision the Year Ahead
- What are three things you want to invite more of into your life this year?
- What are your top priorities for the year ahead?
- How do you want to feel as you move through the year?
- What new skills or habits do you want to cultivate?
- What aspects of yourself do you want to nurture or strengthen?
- What would a successful year look like to you?
- What boundaries or changes will help you protect your energy?
- What is one bold step you could take this year to challenge yourself?
3. Brainstorm Possibilities
Write down any words that come to mind, no matter how random they seem. Don’t censor yourself—sometimes the most unexpected words carry the deepest meaning.
It can be helpful to look to external resources to brainstorm words, which is why I’m currently creating resources to help you discover your word of the year using ancient runes, tarot, oracle cards, and essential oil blends. Believe it or not, all of these methods have helped me choose my word of the year in past years! If you have an idea of the direction you want to go but none of the words on your mind seem quite right, an online thesaurus or reverse dictionary may be helpful.
4. Seek Guidance
Asking for spiritual guidance can bring clarity if you feel stuck. Something like an oracle deck, a rune set, or a bag of essential oils (yes, really!) can help you brainstorm possible words to add to your list, narrow down your options, and guide your final decision. You might even consult a spirit guide directly if you dabble in hedgewitchery, lucid dreaming, or shamanic journeying.
For example, for 2024 I was really struggling to pick a word. My top priority was motherhood, but I didn’t want to fall into the trap of losing my personal identity and creative power in the trenches of motherhood. I was tempted to give Create a second year in a row, but that didn’t feel like it reflected my goals as a mother. I turned to my Muse Tarot deck for guidance, and lo and behold, I pulled the Ace of Emotions (Ace of Cups). The word Overflow hit me like a wave, and I knew in that moment that that word encompassed my desire to serve my family from a vessel that could only be filled through creative play and other forms of self-care. Before I pulled the card, I was lost in a haze of conflicting priorities. After I pulled the card, everything made sense. My priorities weren’t conflicting—they fed into each other.
5. Trust Your Intuition
Once you’ve narrowed your list, sit with each word. Speak it aloud or hold it in your mind during meditation. Pay attention to how it feels in your body—your intuition often knows what’s right.
Try to choose a word that will both guide and inspire you. For example, words like Magic, Inspiration, and Songbird are all inspiring to me, but wouldn’t necessarily provide guidance for me in difficult moments (this may be different for you). On the other hand, words like Health, Budget, and Tidy would all provide much-needed guidance for me (lol), but I don’t find any of those words particularly inspiring. I made this mistake the year I chose Plan. While having that word of the year still helped me, I missed having a word that inspired me to dive deeper into its many layers of possible meanings. A better word for that year might have been Clarity, Ritual, Rhythm, or even Map.
Various forms of divination can help you settle on a word of the year that works for you, but ultimately, the word should be your choice. The tools can help you decide—key phrase: you decide.
Creative & Magical Ways to Engage with Your Word of the Year
Selecting a word of the year is just the beginning of the journey—keeping it visible and engaging with it regularly helps you stay connected to its energy. Here are some creative ways to make your word an active part of your life:
- Create a Decorative Wall Hanging: Use your word as the centerpiece of an art project. You could paint it, embroider it, or even craft it with natural materials like twigs or flowers. Hang it in a space where you’ll see it often as a daily reminder.
- Design a Journal Spread: Dedicate a page in your journal (or even your journal cover) to your word of the year. You can paint it, collage it, stamp it—whatever inspires you!
- Wear Your Word: Find or create jewelry personalized with your word of the year. Wearing it as a necklace, bracelet, or ring can keep its energy close to you.
- Candle Magic: Carve your word into a candle (or decorate a candleholder with your word), charging it with your intentions. Light the candle during meditation, journaling, or whenever you need to reconnect with your word’s energy.
- Work Your Magic: If you do spellwork, create a spell or ritual to align yourself with your word. You could create a word of the year sigil, craft an enchanted roller bottle inspired by its meaning, or plant an herb or flower associated with your word in your garden.
- Daily or Weekly Reflection: Write your word in your planner or on sticky notes and place them around your home. Use it as a prompt for journaling or meditation to explore how it’s showing up in your life.
- Digital Inspiration: Set your word as your phone or computer wallpaper, or add it to your email signature. Small, consistent reminders can make a big impact. Want me to make you a custom lock screen? Click here!
The more you engage with your word, the more it will weave itself into your daily life, offering guidance and inspiration when you need it most.
Want me to make you one? Click here!
Choosing a word of the year is a simple and powerful practice to invite focus, intention, and transformation into your life. By selecting a word that resonates with your aspirations, you create a compass to guide you through the highs, the lows, and the wild cards of the year ahead. Whether you reflect on it during quiet moments, integrate it into your creative projects, or let it inspire your daily decisions, your word has the potential to become a valuable ally in your journey around the wheel of the year.
Now it’s your turn—what word will you choose to guide you this year? Share it in the comments or tag me in your posts; I’d love to hear how this practice helps shape your magical year ahead!
Until we meet again – be well, seek beauty, and leave a little magic wherever you go.
Blessings,
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