Joyful New 12 months!
Right here we’re once more. It’s the start of a brand new 12 months — that magical time when your journaling app sends you a passive-aggressive reminder to “set your intentions” (and also you nearly consider you’ll reside as much as them).
What are your New 12 months’s traditions for beginning once more? Do you write resolutions? Do you set intentions? How about targets? How do you be sure to’ll maintain working towards them?
I’ve discovered that setting a single phrase as my aspirational and guideline for the 12 months makes it simpler. My New 12 months journals monitor my phrases for no less than 20 years.
In case you’re curious, right here’s the checklist for the final 10:
Creativeness (2024)
Stability (2023)
Freedom (2022)
Love (2021)
Magnificence (pre-COVID 2020)
Happiness (2019)
Scale (2018)
Execute (2017)
Evolve (2016)
Manifest (2015)
I additionally assign a phrase for what the earlier 12 months turned. The truth is, I select a phrase for the outdated 12 months first. The 2 phrases hardly ever match. 2018’s “scale” become “alternative” at 12 months’s finish, and 2016’s “evolve” turned “advanced.”
The years after they don’t align reveal my struggles. 2019’s “happiness” gave approach to “rambling,” and final 12 months’s “creativeness” gave approach to “pivot.”
Specializing in a single phrase provides my intention a reputation and offers the muse for each motion I plan and take slightly than a algorithm I’ll probably break.
Drumroll, please: My phrase for 2025
I discussed that my finish phrase for 2024 was “pivot.” I went by means of a variety of change this 12 months (as lots of you probably did).
The character of my work right now is totally completely different than in January of 2024. The mannequin by which I do it modified. The enterprise world has modified. Geopolitics has modified. And our beloved advertising and marketing observe faces a number of the greatest disruptions in over a decade.
A few of this transformation felt exhausting and discouraging. Different parts sparked positivity and pleasure. However I really feel grateful for all of it. As I discussed in a latest publish, shifting my focus from “I’ve to” to “I get to” helped tremendously.
So, I nearly selected “gratitude” as my phrase for 2025. Right here’s why I made a decision on a unique phrase.
It’s really easy to fall into the entice of interested by what we don’t have. And it’s a lot more durable to recollect all that we do. However that retains folks caught in a shortage mentality.
Gratitude can tip the scales again within the different route. However, in case you’re not cautious, you’ll be able to go too far. Then, what I name “rationalized gratitude” turns into poisonous.
Rationalized gratitude appears like a merciless interior monologue: “Sad in your job? Be grateful you might have a job!” Or, “Want extra money? Be pleased about the cash you might have and spend much less of it.”
This type of “gratitude” is definitely a shortage mindset in disguise. It tells you there isn’t sufficient to go round, so you need to really feel fortunate to have something in any respect.
If you’re training gratitude, it’s OK to acknowledge that life isn’t good. And it’s OK to acknowledge that you’ve got issues others would possibly be pleased about however aren’t best for you.
After I assumed lengthy and exhausting concerning the “pivot” I’m nonetheless within the course of of constructing, my phrase for 2025 emerged. It’s abundance.
Abundance is a phrase that feels expansive, hopeful, and deeply aligned with a contemporary begin. Abundance, for me, isn’t about accumulating cash, stuff, or extra of something.
Abundance is about circulation — a dynamic, energizing rhythm of giving and receiving, of noticing and amplifying what already exists.
Motivational speaker Wayne Dyer as soon as mentioned, “Abundance shouldn’t be one thing we purchase. It’s one thing we tune into.”
That straightforward fact has stayed with me as I’ve mirrored on the type of 12 months I need to create.
For me, abundance isn’t about striving, hustling, or pivoting. It’s about attunement. It’s about opening my eyes to the richness of life that’s already right here — in creativity, relationships, alternatives, and even uncomfortable challenges that stretch me.
It’s about trusting that life has a rhythm and that by taking part totally, I’ll obtain what I would like once I want it.
This concept of abundance as circulation feels particularly significant as I proceed to pivot my skilled profession towards offering fractional advertising and marketing companies.
I’m drawn to the thought of making one thing sustainable and balanced: A enterprise that thrives not by means of fixed hustle and 225 days on the street however by means of regular momentum.
I need to deepen relationships with colleagues and associates, generate concepts with folks I encounter, and contribute my experience in ways in which really feel energizing and reciprocal. And, in return, I need to really feel impressed and free, with the type of peace of thoughts that comes from figuring out I’m aligned with my goal.
Abundance, on this sense, touches each side of life. It’s the liberty to decide on the best way to spend time and power, the creativity to think about new potentialities and produce them to life, and the gratitude that fuels a mindset of “sufficient,” even whereas I aspire for extra.
Abundance isn’t static — it’s a river, all the time transferring and regularly replenished, so long as you keep in tune with its circulation.
So, as I got down to reside my 12 months of Residing Richly (the title of an imaginary ebook I wrote in my notes), I discovered myself writing these questions in my journal:
How can I give extra generously with out worry of operating out?
How can I create house for inspiration to seek out me?
How can I honor the circulation of abundance by trusting in what’s but to come back?
I hope that by sharing this intention I’ll encourage you to consider what abundance would possibly imply for you. It’s not one thing we have to chase or hoard. It’s already right here, ready for us to tune in.
What’s your phrase for 2025? Let me know on LinkedIn (and tag Content material Advertising and marketing Institute).
It’s your story. Inform it nicely.
HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT:
Cowl picture by Joseph Kalinowski/Content material Advertising and marketing Institute