I’ve been reflecting on my word for 2025, Courage. Courage is a value, and living our values takes practice.
Practice has been on my mind for about a month now. Ever since a young lady (11 years old) shouted out, Practice makes Progress, during a community discussion about a creative film I’d just seen. I felt so encouraged and inspired to learn that this is the message she had learned from one of her teachers. Out with the adage that practice makes perfect, because we all know that is just not true!
So, as I danced with discovering my word for 2026, practice was at the top of my list of possibilities. In past years, I’ve explored quite a few methods for finding my word of the year (WOTY). This year, after over a decade of this practice, it’s become more intuitive. That is a perfectly cyclical example of practice making progress.
As I do when I am considering words that I want to focus my intentions and attention on, I look at how they are connected to other words. So I explored the visual thesaurus (below) and kept digging. Yes, some of these words are synonyms, some reflect aspects of practice and I’m sure I’ll dance around with all of them over the coming year.
More than any of the anything above, I realized that giving myself permission to practice means exploring failure, doing things imperfectly and allowing whatever will be to come to the surface. In this, I realized that ALLOW was also a word I wanted to explore this year. Carrying over from my exploration of courage, which sometimes felt heavy, as if I was lifting or pushing things, I am opening myself to something softer in practicing and allowing.
Finally, one additional word came to me as a gift. Generosity landed with me through a spontaneous and intuitive process of writing down words (values/intentions) and releasing them until only one remained. Generosity remained.
And so, this year I find myself working with a word sandwich, or salad of three: PRACTICE, ALLOW, GENEROSITY. I am excited to discover what I will learn about myself and the world around me through an exploration and application of these three words in 2026. Each word remains a part of me when I choose them. I explore them with curiosity, deep intentionality and intensity.
My previous words over the past DECADE of selecting a WOTY.
- 2011: CLARITY
- 2012: SOAR
- 2013: RADIANT
- 2014: PLAY
- 2015: CHOICE
- 2016: HARMONY
- 2017: ACCEPTANCE
- 2018: FEARLESS
- 2019: INTENTION
- 2020: INTEGRATION
- 2021: POSSIBILITY
- 2022: HOPE
- 2023: DELIGHT
- 2024: COMPASSION
- 2025: COURAGE
I would love your thoughts on the Word of the Year (WOTY) process. Please comment on this post to let me know your word (s).
Love this! How about the mantra, Allow. Generosity. of Practice. They all enhance each other. win win win.
A colleague recently shared their 2026 mantra this week: Get Ahead of Things. Ambitious, but its early days. Sounds even more oppressive than Courage if you ask me.
Discussed the concept of Practice Makes Progress just yesterday at lunch with a friend. Habit stacking, understanding what gets us motivated to make habits into lifestyle, and understanding progress is not necessarily a straight line in the continuum.
My 2026 WOTY is Reclaim. Not sure exactly how that is gonna play out, but the word came to me early on and it felt right.
Reclaim is a wonderful word. I’ve also been playing around with the mantra Practice and Allow Generosity or Generously allow practice. These will keep me busy exploring in 2026! Thank you for your words, I love hearing that mine landed in your ears and heart. XOXO