Have you ever heard of a Word Path? Neither had I until I created the concept earlier this week.
In essence, a Word Path is an extension to the popular “Word of the Year” approach. It’s about deciding how you’d like to feel this year in your business and then understanding and planning the actions that will take you there.
Often the place to begin is with awareness of what you don’t want.
That was pretty easy for me – I don’t want:
- To feel pressured and stressed
- To have a diary that is bursting at the seams from over committing and underestimating how long things take
- To say yes to opportunities without pausing to ensure they’re a good fit
- To find myself at my desk way past 5pm
- To cancel or postpone commitments to myself, friends and family
- To get stuck in FOMO or trying to make someone else’s business model fit me
Take a few minutes to consider what you don’t want to experience this year. Once you have these emotions and facts clear, you can then turn to what you do want.
How do you want to feel in your business this year?
I know that I want to feel light, energised and joyful when I arrive at my desk each morning this year and I know these feelings will come from embracing spaciousness and simplicity in my business model and marketing activities.
I have a healthy level of self-awareness by this stage of life and so I’m reminded that my natural, shall we say, enthusiasm, can often see my leaping before I look and thus, I’ll need to be consciously discerning to make the choices and decisions that both reflect and create my end goals.
The practical and navigational power of the Word Path approach became immediately obvious when I sat down to plan my 2022 year.
I used it to:
- Prune my services menu
- Set my calendar of events
- Change my Podcast to seasons
- Utilise clever tech tools to automate some activities
- Block out the mornings when I have yoga, Narrabeen Lake walks and other regular exercise plans
- Establish a rhythm of marketing activities
- Book my breaks in advance
- Leave pre-organised space each week for learning and thinking
The year ahead now feels really good and very doable.
I’m going to pop my Word Path on my office wall to remind me to stay aligned as the year progresses because I know from experience that how I begin a year is not always how I continue it. I need visual anchors.
How does this approach feel to you? What might your Word Path look like? I’d love to know!
