My word of the year is prevail.
It’s a strong choice and even has a brutal side, though I’m opposed to brutality as a technique for getting anything good to happen.
It’s also got a polite face. The gentility of, Could I prevail upon you to pass me the herbed butter, yes, there next to the ornamentally-carved crudité—although that’s not what I’m talking about either.
I’ve chosen prevail because I’m done with down-trodden-ness as a state of being, as a feeling I am compelled or allow myself to feel. I need to get up on top of some things in life, and I like the way prevail feels in my mouth and mind when I say it. It’s just the right progression of plosive start, clean-sharp vowel sounds, and an embracing but nevertheless finalizing curl of consonant at the end.
A very tidy word in a time when I need propulsive energies, order, and reassurance.
Why choose just one?
Choosing a word of the year is a practice I adopted from the Give Me A Word Retreat offered annually by Christine Valters Paintner, online Abbess of the Holy Disorder of Dancing Monks and a tremendously inspiring author. If you have a spiritual bent (if, for that matter, you have a creative spirit at all) I do recommend investigating her body of work.
In the past, words I’ve chosen have been more encouraging and contemplative.
2023 – onward
2022 – let’s
2021 – able
2020 – engage
…and so on back to the early 20-teens when I first discovered the practice.
Each year I’ve written my word on an index card in a font suggestive of its tone (some quite artful) and pinned, taped or framed it near my workspace. They’ve provided an anchoring focus when the surface of my desk and depths of my mind are, well, an unholy jumble of chaotic activity and stagnation. Yeah—it happens. That truth, alone, could be enough to choose a word like prevail.
This year’s card is simply handwritten, all caps, underlined in green. The word and I are facing things directly.
Here, broadly, are the challenges —
Accomplish well-established goals in defiance of the resistance that’s frozen them mid-stride.
Complete the dozen-or-so, well-under-way creative projects I’ve been nursing along—some unfinished for years.
Act on professional decisions made and re-made (and re-re-made) with authority and assurance.
Energy up!
As verbs go, accomplish, complete and act are imperative and pretty vigorous. Even writing them feels like it ought to register on my step counter!
And that’s the energy I’m going for: off the sofa, standing desk, take a walk in the woods prevailing.
Are you taking steps to keep your productive energy flowing in the new year? Write and share your strategy (and subscribe so we can keep encouraging each other)!