The Mama Judy and Jill Podcast

Episode 30: How to Choose An Inspiring Word for the Year

• Jill Gottenstrater and Judy George • Episode 30

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In this episode, we offer a simple exercise to choose a single, guiding word for the new year. This is a powerful exercise that I (Jill) have done for more than a decade and serves as an anchor focus to guide your steps throughout the year. 

Mama Judy also offers an innovative approach to adapting this exercise. She reveals how to leverage it as a tool for evaluating and enhancing your artistic practices, helping to identify what's flourishing and what needs rethinking.

We hope this episode guides you in finding YOUR word for the year! And when it does, we'd love to hear from you (leave us a comment on YouTube or Instagram). 

If you'd prefer to watch this podcast, you can find us over on our YouTube page (The Mama Judy & Jill Podcast).

We'd LOVE to hear from you! Click here to send us your thoughts and ideas for a future episode.

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Speaker 1:

Oh good, you made it. We are so glad you're here. Welcome to the Mama Judy and Jill podcast, an intergenerational chat about life, art and the creative process. I'm your host, Jill, and joining me is my wonderful co-host and bonus mom, Mama Judy. Let's get started.

Speaker 2:

Hi everyone and happy new year. If you are just listening to this, we are publishing the first Wednesday of 2024 and we're so glad that you're here. Hi, mama Judy.

Speaker 3:

Hi Jill, here we go with a brand new year with all kinds of possibilities.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yes, I love that. Well, today we decided that we were going to talk about. You may be familiar with this concept about choosing a word for the year. This is something that's been around for a while. I've been doing it at least for 10 years, mama Judy, and I've talked about it being called a focus, perhaps, but really, when I say a word for the year, basically what this does this process is it helps guide you in intentional living, intentional creativity. It helps gives you a focus for the year, and so it's just a fun process to get going. A lot of people do new year's resolutions right, and so that's great if you like to do that, mama Judy, and I don't choose to do new year's resolutions as much as something like this exercise you know, jill, that's and the reason that I don't like new year's resolutions.

Speaker 3:

it sets you up for disappointment if you don't do them and of course we all know we want to lose the 10 pounds. All the typical new year's resolutions, and they're too to me, they're too constricting. So, as you mentioned, the word focus, that's a broad thing. I can do that in many ways If I choose a word to make that the focus of my year. That allows me more flexibility. That allows me to find that word everywhere. It's not tied to a specific act. That's why I started focusing on something rather than sitting down and writing out my 10 new year's resolutions.

Speaker 2:

Right, and as I was doing this exercise, I actually did this exercise that I do every year today, this morning, before we decide to podcast, because I wanted to have that fresh in my mind. And what you just said is, and I'll walk everyone through an exercise, it's really fun, it doesn't take that long. But what I found was just like you said, when I came up with my word, I then thought how it can affect this part of my life or this part of it. You know different ways to think about it and I'll talk about that when we come to that part of the exercise, but it really does give you a lot of freedom, but a very powerful intentionality I love the word intentionality and tension. All right, so I'm going to, I'm going to walk everyone through the exercise and, mama Judy, you just ask questions as they come, if they come, because you know I'm so familiar with this.

Speaker 2:

It's a very simple exercise. I'm going to just show a little basic thing that I want you to sketch out on a piece of paper. So get your journal out. It could be a piece of computer paper, whatever you want, and this is a really easy and fun way to do choosing a word for the year. So you get a piece of paper out, you're going to draw one big square on your piece of paper and then you're going to make it into four quadrants, so, okay, one big square in the middle of your sheet and then draw, you know, like a cross through the middle. So you have four little squares inside your big square, right, okay, and on your page, leave a little room around the border of the paper so that you have some room to write outside this box. Okay, and I'm going to tell you what to write inside these boxes.

Speaker 2:

But a big part of this, a choosing a word, is reflection on what happened before. If you're looking at a calendar year, you're going to reflect back on what happened last year the good, the not so good, the bad. You're going to do a lot of reflecting because that's going to inform how you want to move forward. Ooh, all right, okay.

Speaker 2:

So your first thing is to sit down and what we're going to reflect on and these are the words you're going to write inside each of these four squares what worked, okay, in one little box, what didn't work for another box and I wrote the word more here what you want more of and what you want less of. Oh, I like that. Okay, very simple and clear. I think this whole exercise this morning you could sit and do it for an hour, but I think this probably the whole exercise to come up with my word today probably took me no more than 30 minutes. Now, in years past I may have had to think more about it, but for whatever reason, I've also fine tuned this exercise that it feels like it pulls it out of me better than it has in years past.

Speaker 3:

So you sit. Jill that's a good point to remind people. If this is their first time, it might take them a little while and be okay with that.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

Because it's something new.

Speaker 2:

Right and I've even done it in years past where I've had to sleep on. It came back. But don't put so much importance on choosing the right word that you freeze and you can't make a decision, because it's kind of a big commitment to choose a word for the year and so you kind of freeze. And what happened? Maybe I think this was about six or seven years ago I chose a word, felt really good about it.

Speaker 2:

Three weeks in I was like I hate that word, I don't want that word anymore, so I changed it, and that is okay to do it.

Speaker 3:

Oh good, I'm glad you brought that up so that again, what we don't want to do is get ourselves into a box that then we feel horrible if we can't live up to whatever we've told ourselves we're going to do. Right, we want to set us all up for fun and success.

Speaker 2:

Yes, exactly, and I wrote some things down. So I'm going to use some examples, because I did this exercise, not everything, but just to help as I describe this. So you just sit down and you look in your box and so I first started working through what worked and so a few things, and I just write words or little phrases. Here are a few things that what worked for me in 2023. Okay, okay, speaking up, therapy, podcasting with mom and Judy, choosing me over everyone else, good Creative expression, book club reading Okay, so that's just to give the listener some ideas of what it could be. It could be gardening, walking my dogs, going for a swim, whatever. That might be what worked.

Speaker 2:

So next, I just moved right over what didn't work. So when you sit down and you're thinking about this, there are going to be things that come to mind that you're just like oh, I hated when that happened or that was so uncomfortable. I never want to do that again. So just a couple. I mean I have a little bit longer list, but over committing that didn't work. I over committed myself too much and I got burned out on a few things. Being less creative in the kitchen that didn't work for me. I found that I was spread a little too thin, that I wasn't being creative in the kitchen as much, I did not cook as much as I normally do last year, and that didn't work. And you love to cook, I love to cook, yes. So what worked and what didn't work? Off the top of your head, mama Judy? Okay, I didn't tell you I was going to do this, but can you think of a couple examples, maybe one or two that might pop in for you, for both of those boxes?

Speaker 3:

Yes. Well, at least on the one that, what works. And this is a wonderful exercise that you do. And, I'll be honest, I probably won't do the exercise. And here's why, friends, I think about these kinds of things all the time. So I probably won't go through the formal process, although I think it's a phenomenal process.

Speaker 3:

But, as you were talking, what worked for me was the word yes. Remember last year I told you my focus word was yes, it worked great. I had, I had, several new things come my way that perhaps in the past, with my resistance, I would have said no to. So that worked very well. I'm trying to think on the other side. To be honest, I can't come up with something that didn't work. Okay, but let me put a few more words. With that Part of it is I'm retired, I'm not working, I'm doing pretty much what I love to do, so I'm not in an environment very often that maybe would cause these things to come up. So I don't want to take away in any way from people doing that process just because I can't come up with something off the top of my head Well, and I remember in years past.

Speaker 2:

So this is just an example and you may come up with something, but it's fine if you don't like, that's a beautiful thing. But I remember in years past you were kind of over committing to some stuff and I think you were even teaching some workshops and you realized I am too many hours teaching. It was burning you out, causing you to have like a little bit of health problems and that sort of thing.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely and actually, Jill, that's a good point, A part of what you had put down on the what didn't work. I've already gone through that and gotten rid of them.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

So yes, over the years I've done that. I just didn't know. I didn't know you had an exercise. You could do it and put it on paper, yeah, and I think it's just great, and in fact I am going to take that exercise and put it by my creative desk.

Speaker 1:

And.

Speaker 3:

I'm going to use that particular exercise because I already have my focus for 2024. I'm going to take your exercise and I'm going to put it beside my creative desk and I'm going to fill it out as I'm creating, because there are things I didn't like in the creative process that didn't work. There are things that I love, so I think it'll be really interesting to do that as I'm creating.

Speaker 2:

Just an ongoing thing.

Speaker 3:

I love it too. An ongoing thing.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I'm going to do that as well. That's really great. Okay, so we've got two more boxes right within our little sheet that we drew, so the lower boxes are what do you want more of? So we've reflected what worked, what didn't work. What do we want more of now going forward? What do we want less of? So obviously, some of those things kind of just tie in. So this again is a pretty quick exercise. But what do I want more of? I just put exercise and strength. I need to be building bone density, muscle. I want more of that kind of stuff, even though I do some. I want more. I want more time at focus, time with God, that's something that I like let go a little bit, and I'm not happy about that.

Speaker 2:

So I want more easy, relaxing, special travel.

Speaker 3:

That's an oxymoron travel and relaxing.

Speaker 2:

That's why I had to put it that way, though, because I thought I don't want more travel, but I do want some special travel, but that's relaxing. So it's got to be easy and simple and not too complicated. That was important to me, even if that's a trip to Brevard, which is like an hour away no, that's perfect. Yeah, and then the less. What do I want? Less of Overthinking. There were a couple things. I actually this is slightly embarrassing, but I'll say one more thing. I have a little tendency to ask William, my husband, william, do you want to do XYZ or whatever? And he'll give me an answer, and then I'll start going well, but I mean, what if we did? But this could be cool if we did it this way, and how about? Well, wouldn't it be neat to do this? And so I basically take his answer. He just gave me turn it around, and we're doing something he didn't want to do, but he goes ahead and does it. I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not. I'm going to do less of that, okay.

Speaker 3:

That's great Overselling.

Speaker 2:

Yes, well, overselling and just like taking somebody's answer and turning it around like that's not respectful, I feel like to him and I mean I don't do it that often, but it is something that I've noticed. I do.

Speaker 3:

That's a very good point to. If someone doesn't want to do what you want to do, respect that and let it go. Don't try to convince them to do it. Maybe because we all do that. Maybe, if it's important, I'll tell you what. Let me step back. What we do is we delineate, is it important? So when I go to ask for something, I'll tell you what I mean. If I only want one answer, then I try to delineate out how important the right answer is. Like, for example, jill, if I were asking you to go on a ski trip and you don't like skiing, I would say something like you know, it's really important for me for us to go skiing together. Now I've told you something that if I just said, do you want to go skiing? Isn't there what you know before you make an answer? This is something that is very important to that person. Oh, that's powerful. I kind of got us off on a different rabbit hole.

Speaker 2:

You just gave me a little therapy, but that's help for my marriage. So, william, thank you Okay.

Speaker 3:

Okay, so next Jill, but that could go to mine. What I would like more of is more clear, concise communication With who you are, such a clear, concise communicator With everybody. Okay With. Communication is a very difficult thing with people because everything is processed through our own experiences, our own personality. I want to get a little sharper on communicating more concisely and clearer, Okay so.

Speaker 2:

Good, more of that. I love that. Okay, okay, all right. So any other thoughts on that before we move on to the next part? No, okay.

Speaker 2:

So, again, I'm just showing this on YouTube, but it's a little four squares here. You're going to now have all these little notes jotted down inside this paper Now, around the edges. This is where you just let the words come to you. What kind of words are you feeling, based on what you just reflected on and what your goals and your aspirations and what your intention is for the year? What are the words that come to your mind? Let them come freely and do not edit it. So you just start writing around this whole box. You just write words, write words.

Speaker 2:

Even if I was writing, I wrote a couple words earlier today and right off the bat I just wanted to, like, erase it. No, just leave it, because you don't have to use it. So you just write all these words that come to your mind and you know so it could be intention, trust, let's, let's throw out a few words that people like I've used in the past. I've had the word clarity, joy, one year. Intention was one year. Oh, trust, I've heard that word from many people. So, again, just let the words come. So I'm going to go ahead and throw out my little list and I'm going to read them all, because there's not that many, because I felt pretty strongly about these and it's not like you're going to have a hundred words. Most likely, I think I have probably 10 here or something. So I had the word explore. Okay, mental, evolve, trust, impactful, bold, meaningful and mentor Okay, so those were my words. Okay, you got your words out there. Now I had the words on the page. I then looked at them and if, if, something just was like nope, that's not your word. I immediately crossed them out. So you put an X through them and you just cross them out. You're eliminating words that don't fit for you.

Speaker 2:

Now it came down to a couple of words for me, and your next part of your exercise is if you choose a word I'm this is not the word I chose this year, but I'm going to choose it. To give for the example, let's say I really like this word trust, but I want to explore it a little more. So I would encourage you to get a dictionary out. Look up the word trust, read it. Does it really resonate with you? There may even be something within the definition. You might pull a different word out, or it'll really make you feel more strongly about that word, or you might think, well, I think there's a better word to describe that and so just like, let it be a fun little word exercise.

Speaker 2:

The other thing you can do is looking at the aesaurus. So if you find a word and it just doesn't feel great like the word I chose for the year which I'll tell you in a moment I chose and I didn't love it at first. So I went to my aesaurus and just the word felt hard and I'll tell you why. In a second I still ended up landing on it better. So that's part of the process. It's fun, just play around with the word until you find the word that feels good to you. So any questions on that so far, mama Judy.

Speaker 3:

No, actually that's a great process and as you were talking, I realized that in my own informal way. I kind of do that naturally, Because, again, maybe I should put down, I don't think so much, but I'm always thinking of these kinds of things as I go throughout the day. It's just my personality or my consciousness, awareness level, and so I realize that much of what you've talked about I've kind of skirted the edge. You just what you did is you gave people a tool that they can sit down and use, if this is something they haven't done before.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 3:

I chose my word already, and when we're ready to reveal our words, I'll give you the background on why I chose it.

Speaker 2:

Okay, and when I was doing the exercise today, I was actually thinking this doesn't seem like Mama Judy's gonna wanna do this exercise. I literally thought that today. But I thought it's because you are a deep thinker and you are. You're always reflecting. You've even said that on other podcast episodes. You've always just kind of mentioned, like, I do a lot of reflection in my daily life and you do a lot of this. So this is you're right. This is just running in the background for you at all times.

Speaker 3:

It is, it truly is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, okay. So I chose my word for the year and it still seems it sounds hard. You know how a word can feel like it has hard edges or it can feel soft, like the word. I didn't choose this, but the word gentle is like a nice word and even joy and stuff. I chose the word bold and it feels kind of hard, but what made me feel really good about it? And I did the thesaurus and I did the whole dictionary, but what? And I came up with like fearless, confident, you know, like some of those things, but bold just seems to fit. And then because and because I was still feeling like, well, this is, it sounds kind of hard. What I did and I would suggest you do this regardless is well, bold in what Cause? I think bold just sounded like I'm gonna come running through like a bull in a China shop or something, which is not me at all and it's not my intention either.

Speaker 3:

When you do that, when you run through China shop, be sure, and video it for us.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yes, I will. So what I did with that feeling and whether I'd chosen that word and wanted to work through it a little bit more or not, here's the next step of the exercise, and the final part of the exercise is where do I want to be bold? And so I wrote in my decisions, in my choices, in my creativity, in my professional life, in my friendships, in my health, in my impact, in my boundaries, in loving people and in protecting people. And then, when I wrote that out, I felt like I love this word. This feels so good, but I had to kind of unpack it to make it not seem like this kind of big, aggressive thing. It's not at all. It's a very loving, full of life, confident word for me. So that's my word for the year.

Speaker 3:

That's perfect. That is a beautiful process. Before I tell you my very simple process, when you were talking about how some words can feel harsh or soft, if you just look at the word gentle and bold, just the letters alone convey that, because the G for gentle is very soft and round and it goes down. The B for bold is very straight. It ends on a very straight D. So, yes, there is a reason. We absorb that visually too when we look at those words. That's how we get some of that feeling. So, to get past that, which happens without even thinking about it, your process, your exercise is perfect. I think that's beautiful. Good, I like it. Yes, I do too. I'm going to choose your word and steal it in my creativity, because I do need to go out beyond my comfort zone. So, yes, I'm going to take your word and just borrow it around the edges.

Speaker 3:

Okay, love it and you can borrow mine, all right. All right, I do yoga, I do all kinds of things to keep my body supple as it ages. Flexible. Last year I chose the word yes because I realized there were times I was disavowing an opportunity because I was automatically going to the word no. So I looked around and I thought I loved what happened to me by saying yes, how can I expand that? And it occurred to me as I'm laying in the middle of the yoga mat in a yoga class going you can be more flexible. So flexibility is my word, my focus. Flexibility in my bottle Maybe that's telling me something Flexibility in my body, flexibility in my mind, flexibility in my creativity. So we kind of both did the same way in our own way yes.

Speaker 2:

And do you think, mama Judy, obviously it came from having your year of yes, but do you think if you'd chosen a different word, would you have come to this word flexible? Or do you feel like you had to go through the yes, all the different great yeses, and to come to this word? I'm curious.

Speaker 3:

I think I had to go to yes first, because yes was a huge shift. I didn't even realize that my first response to a lot of things, especially new and unknown things. See, we're going way back to what we talked about before fear of the unknown. It's all subconscious. I was putting up resistance to ideas and it was actually Mac, your dad, that pointed out. Do you realize? You say no before yes, and it never occurred to me and I thought, ooh, let's choose yes. So I had to go through the yes Right. Yes was my portal.

Speaker 2:

Ooh, I love that, a portal. And when you said dad was saying you say no so often in this exercise, if you're listening and that could be one of the things that you would put in the box what didn't work, I said no too often, right? And so what do I more in the more column? What do I want more of? I want more yes, opportunity, that sort of thing.

Speaker 2:

And I love how we came to it in different ways. Agree, I am such an exercise type person. I love doing worksheets and all that but the way that you came about it, just so very naturally, but very thoughtful, and you've probably you spent way more time thinking about it than I did ultimately, because it's like you just go through day by day, by day.

Speaker 3:

And at night. Yes, and that's good, jill, and I think what we have also shown in the way we've approached things and come to the same end result we each have a focus for the year. The important message that that conveys is you know what Jill has given you a great tool. If you have never done this type of thing, or you are a person that likes to do exercises, or you can do it like I do. In your head, think about it. All the time battered around, the most important thing is what's your intention for this year? What do you want to focus on in your existence? Because what we focus on in our art, if it's something like being bold or flexible, we'll also carry over into our life, and vice versa, exactly. Yes, and again, friends, you don't have to lose those 15 pounds by riding it on a resolution. Be flexible and be bold in whatever you want to do. Yes, we didn't work those words in mom and Judy, I did, didn't.

Speaker 2:

I I did. Well, I hope this exercise was interesting and fun and I hope that you all listening will take 30 minutes to do this. It really is fun. And then, when you do the journal, what I'm gonna do I journaled it out on piece of paper. I'm gonna do some sort of collage with it, color it up, put some paint on it or whatever, probably even paint over it, but we can all use it in our collages, our artwork, if we want to also.

Speaker 3:

Yes, and, like I said, I'm gonna take that literally, make that exercise and I'm gonna have it in my art room so that when I come across something that I love in the piece that I've done, I'm gonna write it under I Want More Of with notes. Well, how did I get that so that I can repeat what I want more?

Speaker 2:

of Right and just recognizing what you didn't. You said the process like oh, I didn't like doing that part, just recognizing that. Then you don't have to waste your time on that as you're moving through doing different projects.

Speaker 3:

Yes, so it's very valuable.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Well, thank you all for joining us. This was fun. If you do this exercise, we would love to hear what your word for the year was. So let us know in the YouTube comments or on Instagram. Really, I would love to hear your words. I think it's so interesting just to hear what people choose.

Speaker 3:

I do too, jill, and I would like to just reiterate and reemphasize that we do love your feedback, and I've gotten feedback from people that have given it to a friend who then told me so-and-so loves this about your podcast. Be bold, write it out and tell us what you think. Yes, that would be wonderful. All right, everybody Onward, happy New.

Speaker 2:

Year. Happy New Year. All right, love you, Mama Judy. Love you too. My dear Talk to you soon. Bye, Okay.