Looking for word of the year ideas? This is the place you will find them with over 100 faith-based ideas to inspire your year!
In 2018 I started this blog and subsequently launched into a journey of following the online world. Little did I know the adventure I would soon be on. In January 2019, I bought my first Powersheets from Cultivate what Matters and found myself contemplating something I had never heard before and that was a word of the year.
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Picking a Word of the Year
How does picking a word of the year work?
You know all those New Year’s Resolutions that everybody sets, but very few people continue to pursue them past the middle of January? Well instead of picking resolutions, a word of the year allows you to frame your mindset around a single word that focuses on your goals. You can set goals, but everything ties back to the single word you chose.
For example, in 2019, I chose the word, “stability”. Every goal I set centered around that word. Even if I didn’t necessarily meet the goal, I was still focused on my overarching theme.
The goal is your overarching theme, but then you will have subcategories of more specific goals and ideas.
Breaking Down the Word of the Year
For example, in 2019, I chose the word “stability”. I was coming off of a very frustrating year and heading into an unknown period in my life. Yet I had some very distinct goals in mind with my business and the lifestyle I wanted.
My word was stability and it shaped how I thought through the rest of my goals.
Knowing I wanted to anchor my year with stability, all of the rest of my specific goals were created in a way that led to stability. For example, I wanted our finances to be more stable so I made a goal to save at least $5,000 that year. I desperately wanted to quit my job to be a stay-at-home mom, so I narrowed my blog focus and made a goal to take a class in Christian blogging.
Another way of making your ‘action steps’ is to format a personal growth plan. The free printable even has the word of the year at the top of the page to focus on your goals.
Here are some additional steps you can take to decide upon your word of the year.
1. Reflect on Last Year
I have listed above over 100 ideas for a faith-based Word of the Year. Are you still struggling to narrow it down? Here are a few questions to ask yourself.
What was my largest struggle last year?
What was my greatest victory last year?
2. Look ahead to the Future
What Bible verse has been impactful to me recently?
What has God been convicting me of lately?
How is my family doing? In what ways can I best support them?
3. Pray and Seek God’s Will
One of the most important things you can do when thinking about your word of the year is to pray and seek God’s will.
God, what do you have in store for me this year?
How do you want me to mature and grow spiritually this year?
God, how do you want me to serve and lead the people you have placed in my life?
Faith-Based Word of the Year Ideas
I always like to contemplate the Fruits of the Spirit as options for my year before I move on to others.
- Love
- Joy
- Peace
- Patience
- Kindness
- Goodness
- Gentleness
- Self-control
- Faithfulness
- Abundance
- Able
- Accomplish
- Adventure
- Align
- Authentic
- Available
- Aware
- Balance
- Become
- Better
- Bless
- Bold
- Breathe
- Bright
- Calm
- Celebrate
- Centered
- Challenge
- Change
- Commitment
- Compassion
- Confidence
- Connect
- Conquer
- Creativity
- Cultivate
- Daring
- Dedicated
- Delight
- Devotion
- Discipline
- Distance
- Dream
- Embrace
- Empower
- Expansion
- Express
- Faith
- Feast
- Fit
- Focus
- Forgiveness
- Fortitude
- Foster
- Free
- Friendship
- Giving
- Grace
- Gratitude
- Grounded
- Honesty
- Hope
- Humility
- Integrity
- Intentional
- Journey
- Joy
- Learn
- Listen
- Magnify
- Meek
- Mindful
- Nourish
- Nurture
- Organize
- Passion
- Permission
- Persistence
- Play
- Power
- Present
- Progress
- Purpose
- Radiant
- Recovery
- Relationships
- Release
- Reset
- Resolute
- Rise
- Risk
- Savvy
- Service
- Serendipity
- Simplicity
- Slow
- Smile
- Stability
- Strong
- Teach
- Thrive
- Tranquil
- Whole
- Yes
Make the Most of your Word of the Year
Now that you have chosen a word of the year, how do you make the most of it? Don’t let it just sit in a folder somewhere, that’s no better than setting goals and forgetting about them by mid-January!
- Place your word somewhere prominent.
- Don’t hide it! Frame it and place it where you frequently will see and read it.
- Take action steps.
- Now that you have your word, you need some action steps! Downloading the personal growth plan is a helpful way to formulate these.
- Do regular check-ins
- Are you living out your word of the year ideas? At the beginning of the year it’s helpful to do this every day, but as the year progresses you could do ‘monthly check-ins’.
You are not married to your word of the year! Feel free to change it up and modify it as the year progresses. Often God takes us on a path that we did not expect. Submit to his timing and will and switch up your word if you need to! Go back to the word of the year ideas list and chose another, it’s that simple.
Resources
Has this inspired you to pick a word of the year from my word of the year ideas list?
I hope so, and I hope that it is a helpful tool in guiding your year.
A few resources that I use and love when I’m focusing my year.