Orlando Therapist Guides You in Choosing Your Word of the Year
Orlando Therapist Guides You in Choosing Your Word of the Year
As we are rounding out the year, take a moment and reflect on the year. Do you feel a sense of accomplishment? Do you feel like the year was a struggle and really tested your limits? Or do you feel like it was a blend of both ease and difficulty? In either case, there is a lot of information to garner from reflecting on the year.
As an Anxiety Therapist, I help clients identify their values so that they can live a life of intention.
That is why I prefer intentions rather than resolutions when it comes to gearing up for a new year.
In my opinion, there is so much more hope and inspiration in establishing intentions rather than resolutions. The word resolution has a staunchly rigid feel to it, while the word intention has flexibility and room to breathe.
Rather than listing off all the things you wish you could commit to this year, digging a bit deeper and determining your values can be more effective in driving healthy behavior. Exploring your high and low moments can allow you to understand areas where you have grown and persevered, and areas in your life where you need to grow.
As a therapy group practice owner, I facilitate intention setting in our weekly staff meetings. For our year-end meeting, I decided to dig a little deeper and help our staff determine their word (or words) of the year.
During our end-of-the-year meeting, I walked everyone through a practice that allowed them to determine their word of the year. The intention behind this practice is to live a values-based life where your own individual values will drive how you make decisions and how to turn difficult experiences into learning opportunities.
After the meeting, my team raved about how helpful my questions were in helping them extrapolate growth and learning opportunities from the previous year. As per usual, I decided to turn these questions into a blog so I can share them with the world.
Perhaps you can follow our example from the meeting. Dim the lights, turn on some peaceful meditation music, have handy some colored markers and paper, and begin your reflective journey. In preparation for this activity, you will need a list of values. You can download our values list here.
1. What are you proud of?
Take a moment to reflect back on the year and list moments, big or small, when you felt a sense of pride or accomplishment. What about these moments feels satisfying to you? Did you accomplish a goal that you set for yourself previously? Did you exceed your own or someone else’s expectations? Did you master a new skill? Take a look at the values list and see what values are driving this sense of accomplishment. Pick 1-3 values that were driving your accomplishment.
2. Think of situations that were difficult this year, but you handled them in a way that made you proud.
As you’re reflecting on the year, think of tricky or difficult situations where you were challenged or possibly confronted by another person or a life circumstance. Now, in reflection, ponder how you handled that difficult situation in an honorable way. Write out the details. Review the list of values and determine which 2-3 values were driving your behavior during the challenging moment.
3. What are some habits you have in place that are supporting a healthy lifestyle?
Perhaps you live a healthy lifestyle, you eat nutritious foods, you exercise daily, and you spend time with family. Make a list of healthy activities and behaviors that you engage in. Take a moment to dig in and determine 1-3 values that are motivating these healthy habits that you have already established in your life.
There are a lot of things you may have in place as healthy habits, but the value that's actually driving the healthy habit might be slightly different for each person. It’s about understanding the values that are driving those healthy behaviors, which allows you to continue to have integrity with yourself and live your most authentic life.
4. What were some challenging events that happened last year that pressed you to grow?
Take time to reflect on last year and think of any challenging events you went through. List some ways these challenging moments pressed you to grow. Perhaps you didn’t get the job you wanted, but it inspired you to go back to school. Or you were having problems with your kid, so you decided to take a parenting class.
5. Are there any patterns showing up that need your attention?
There is so much information in looking at patterns that happen in our lives. We can start by identifying healthy patterns, such as which values are driving certain healthy things we do or when we’re reflecting, we may notice that we have some unhealthy patterns. This is a great opportunity to dig a little deeper and see what actually needs our attention.
Are you noticing a particular pattern of overworking during the week and then having no energy on the weekend? Or are you noticing a difficult pattern in your relationship? Where perhaps you want closeness, but you can't seem to have closeness?
Take some time to think about these patterns and become aware of what may need your attention going into next year.
6. Is there anything holding you back from living authentically or with integrity?
Is there a job, a relationship, a social situation, or a pattern within yourself that you are noticing that is holding you back from living your best life or being your best self?
7. As you reflect on the year, what can you see as a new growth edge?
By this point in the reflective questions, you may be able to see clearly what it is that you know is your new growth edge as you are going into next year. Maybe there is one thing, or maybe there are a few things. Just take a moment and list those items there.
8. What three words or values do you think you need to develop to help you through your new growth edge?
As you consider the growth edge that you will be bringing into next year, what are three words or values that you will need to lean into that will support you as you are continuing your personal growth process?
If you can, narrow your three words down to one word so that it can be your anchor as you are going into the new year. As I learned when I did this with my team, they did not want to narrow it down to one word so they chose three words. That is fine too but try to pick between one, two, or three words that are going to be your anchor as you go into the new year.
9. Visualize yourself incorporating these word(s).
Now close your eyes and see yourself putting these words into action. Take a moment to visualize what your life will look like as you are moving through the new year, leaning into your anchor words. See yourself waking up in the morning, going to sleep at night, really leaning into your values…
What will look different and feel different in your life as you put these words into action?
Now envision challenges coming your way and see yourself handling these challenges from a place of integrity where you are leaning into your word or words of the year…
10. Create a Vision Board.
If you have the opportunity to take this challenge even further, create a vision board that illustrates how you see yourself carrying yourself through next year. You can cut pictures out of magazines, or you can print pictures from the internet. Or you can sketch out your pictures. The goal is to create a physical representation of the visualization from above.
In 2025, our team took this practice a step further by inviting our resident art therapist to guide us through a Zentangle-inspired activity. Using our chosen words of the year, we created personalized coasters as a form of intentional art-making. This experience allowed our words to become something tangible and visible, something we could return to again and again. We highly recommend this activity, as it creates space to slow down, reflect, and truly digest the intention behind your word, much like a vision board you interact with daily.
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Additional Orlando Therapy Resources
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20 Tips to Manage Holiday Stress From an Anxiety Therapist
Anxiety Therapist Shares 21 Ways to Avoid Holiday Burnout
Anxiety Therapist Shares: 10 Tips for Dealing With Difficult Family during the Holidays
Other Therapy Services Offered at Mindful Living Counseling Orlando
The team at Mindful Living Counseling offers a variety of therapy services to help with different challenges, including anxiety. Other therapy services we offer are EMDR Therapy, Eating Disorder Therapy, Trauma Therapy, Teen Therapy, and Toxic Relationship Therapy. We also offer Guided Meditations. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out!
About the Owner of Mindful Living Counseling
I'm Lauran Hahn, LMHC, and I'm offering EMDR Intensives at Mindful Living Counseling Orlando. I discovered EMDR Therapy about six years ago and was completely blown away by the amazing results it gave my clients who struggle with anxiety. I became really passionate about EMDR Therapy and decided to pursue further certification. Today I am a certified EMDR therapist, as well as an EMDRIA-approved consultant and EMDR Facilitator at ConnectEMDR.