150 Word Of The Year Ideas To Set Your Intentions For 2025
Are you looking for a powerful way to set your intentions for the new year? Consider choosing a Word of the Year – a single word that serves as a guiding principle or theme for the year ahead. It can help you stay focused, motivated, and intentional in all areas of your life. This list of word of the year ideas will help get you inspired!
What Is Word Of The Year?
Simply put, a Word of the Year is a single word that represents a theme or intention you want to focus on throughout the year.
It’s not a goal, per se, but more of a guiding principle that helps you stay aligned with your values and priorities.
Choosing a Word of the Year can be a powerful way to create more clarity and intentionality in your life.
It can help you stay focused on what matters most to you, and provide a touchstone to come back to when you’re feeling lost or overwhelmed.
It’s the perfect tool for intentional goal setting.
Some of my past words have included Growth when I have been in a season of wanting to achieve big goals with my business. And for 2023, intentional, to remind me to be more intentional with my time and choices.
Related reading: How to set monthly goals + goal ideas
One Little Word Project
If first became aware of the one word concept back in my scrapbooking days via Ali Edwards and her ‘One Little Word‘ movement.
This community movement grew in popularity from 2006 and continues to this day. She also has a range of memory-keeping products for documenting the annual word experience.
How To Choose Your Personal Word Of The Year
So how do you choose your Word of the Year?
Start by reflecting on what’s important to you, and what you want to focus on in the coming year. Consider what you want to cultivate more of in your life, and what might be holding you back.
The best time to choose your word of the year is when you are preparing to set your goals for the new year.
I like to do this in December so that I can hit the ground running from January 1st, but there is no deadline for choosing a word. You can adopt your own personal word any time that feels right!
It can be helpful to journal and brainstorm ideas such as the challenges and triumphs you had the previous year, as well as any lessons you learned.
Alongside this, consider what things you most want to focus on in the coming year and any goals you want to set or habits you want to start.
Once you have identified what is important to you, think about the words that come to mind when thinking those themes and values.
Then look for a single word that captures all of these things, and symbolizes your intention for the new year.
You can also use my Word of the Year workbook to help you identify a word that suits you perfectly!
150 Personal Word Of The Year Ideas
Here are 150 personal Word of the Year ideas to inspire you to set your intention for the new year:
- Abundance
- Action
- Adventure
- Alignment
- Authenticity
- Balance
- Beauty
- Believe
- Boldness
- Brave
- Build
- Calm
- Celebrate
- Change
- Clarity
- Comfort
- Commitment
- Community
- Compassion
- Confidence
- Connection
- Consistency
- Courage
- Create
- Creativity
- Cultivate
- Curiosity
- Dare
- Dedication
- Delight
- Determination
- Discipline
- Dream
- Drive
- Ease
- Education
- Empathy
- Empower
- Energy
- Enrich
- Expand
- Explore
- Faith
- Fearless
- Focus
- Forgiveness
- Freedom
- Friendship
- Fulfillment
- Generosity
- Grace
- Grateful
- Growth
- Happiness
- Harmony
- Health
- Heart
- Help
- Honesty
- Hope
- Humility
- Imagination
- Inspire
- Intention
- Invest
- Joy
- Kindness
- Learn
- Listen
- Love
- Mindful
- Mindset
- Nurture
- Openness
- Opportunity
- Optimism
- Organization
- Passion
- Patience
- Perseverance
- Perspective
- Pivot
- Power
- Present
- Progress
- Purpose
- Radiant
- Recharge
- Reflect
- Refresh
- Release
- Renew
- Hustle
- Rest
- Rise
- Serenity
- Service
- Simplify
- Strength
- Surrender
- Thrive
- Simplicity
- Endurance
- Resilient
- Flourish
- Imagine
- Flexible
- Gratitude
- Grateful
- Trust
- Intentional
- Appreciate
- Unplug
- Couragous
- Strong
- Grow
- Positivity
- Relax
- Connect
- Wellness
- Nourish
- Commit
- Challenge
- Habits
- Goals
- Loving
- Trying
- Document
- Shine
- Glow
- Enough
- Acceptance
- Aware
- Authentic
- Unique
- Individual
- Generous
- Less
- Minimalism
- Mastery
- Transformation
- Vulnerable
- Intuition
- Transform
- Powerful
- Capable
- Mighty
- Tenacious
- Happy
- Content
Can I Have More Than One Word?
Choosing a personal word of the year has no rules! You can make it your own and that means you can choose more than one word if that suits your intentions.
You might want to consider different areas of your life – for example, a work-related word, a health-related word, and a relationship-related word. Or you could choose one word that encompasses all aspects of your life.
Do what feels most right for you!
Word Of The Year Workbook
In case you’re still not sure how to choose a word of the year for the new year, I put together a complete word of the year workbook to help you get unstuck! It has more than 50 pages (but don’t let that overwhelm you). There’s lots of space for journaling and vision board planning to get real clear on your new year goals too and a year of monthly check-in pages to keep you motivated with your chosen word.
You can grab it in my online store and dig right in!
For more inspiration, learn how to set New Year intentions (rather than New Year resolutions)
Have you chosen your word of the year for the new year? If you’re happy to share, tell us what you’ve chosen in the comments.