2022 Word for the year
It’s hard to go into 2022 with a positive attitude when the Covid numbers here are scarily high:
And when some of those closest to me are going through really shitty times.
But… I’m an optimist and so I am going to do my utmost to come down on the side of hope and see if I can manifest a better year. And, really, given the circumstances, this year hasn’t been all that awful. Two out of the four of us are double-vaxed and boosted and the other two should be double-vaxed by the end of February. So far, we have (as far as we know) escaped Covid. We have managed to get out there a little bit (though not outside the UK still), with trips to London, Bristol, Cornwall, Edinburgh and Carnoustie. We have seen (not all of us for all of them) a bunch of musicals, the circus, live fireworks and ridden many fairground rides (and I am now sworn off them after bruising my rib on the Twister!).
The final quarter of the year has been filled with illustration work for me, working on multiple books, alongside 1–2 days of project management, which I’ve found a really nice balance. My illustration career goal for 2022 is ‘MORE BOOKS, PLEASE’ – so do get in touch if you have any book illustration projects you’d like me to work on from February onwards. I’d especially love to work on some plant-based cookery or nutrition books, but I’m very open to other projects, too. They don’t have to be books, either, though I definitely wouldn’t be sad if 2022 ended up jam-packed with book illustration projects.
So… my word for the year for 2022 is…
EXPLORE!
I like my words of the year to have multiple meanings and applications and this is, I feel, a good one.
- Obviously, I’m hopeful that there will come a point in 2022 when international travel becomes easier and I can get back to exploring Europe and maybe further afield, and be able to take the kids (currently there are many countries they wouldn’t be allowed in yet as they only have the one vaccine so far), if they want to come.
- But I’ve enjoyed some exploring in the United Kingdom this year and would love to do more of that, especially hoping to fit in a few solo city breaks and sit in cafés people watching, wander round art galleries and museums and get my city steps in. (And I’ll be sure to share any travels, domestic or global, on my travel insta, which has been somewhat neglected the last couple of years!)
- I also want to do more creative exploration – playing with different media and taking 15–30 minutes out of every day to do something different to what I’m working on at the time (and hopefully sharing that exploration on my sketchbook insta) – plus I’ve signed up for a few online art classes this year, so will hopefully be able to carve out enough time to truly delve into those. I also think there may be some style exploration, as I’m starting to feel the call of pixels and texture (see the picture above, for example). But I feel that call every now and then and usually come back ‘home’ to my flatter vector style, so we’ll see if that manifests or not.
- I want to continue literary exploration – reading is such an amazing way to discover new worlds, cultures, people, or just new stories about ordinary and fairly familiar life. You can see what I‘ve been reading this year on my reading insta, though I am actually slightly behind in updating it. I’d also really like to flex my writing muscles again and see if any of the many stories in my head will come out in something resembling coherent form! And if they don’t, at least I’d like to get back to writing here and in my newsletter – did you sign up to it yet? – about illustration, life and whatever else comes up.
- I want to get better at culinary exploration, particularly in terms of all the delicious food that plants can give us. I’m embarking on Veganuary this year and hoping to stick with it, and beyond. But, even if I don’t fully succeed, I want to experiment, and explore, more things to do with vegetables and rely less on eggs and cheese. (Hmm, maybe I’ll need a food insta! Or maybe I need to explore how to cut back on my Insta addiction!)
- And I want to continue exploring Tasha Goddard and who she actually is and what she actually stands for and believes in. Because that’s actually kinda fun and interesting and eye-opening.
Do you have a word for the year? Do you have intentions and hopes for 2022, or are you still wary of them? I know I went a bit crazy this time two years ago with a word for the year and one for the decade and a bunch of optimistic hopes. Yeah, oops.
Whether you’ve got a word for the year, a gazillion goals, or are just hoping to make it through the year intact, I wish you a HAPPY NEW YEAR and hope it proves all you want and then some more.
See you on the other side.
Word for 2020; Word for the Twenty Twenties
I am very excited that it’s the start of a new decade, so I get to pick a word for the year and a word for the decade. I am also stupidly happy for a decade with a proper name – the last two never really found themselves!
Word for 2020
So, for 2020 (I really love saying that – Twenty Twenty, 2020, 20:20…) I have chosen REACH as my word. As usual I have sought out a word that can apply to my life in a variety of ways. I am looking at:
- reaching for the stars – aiming high in those endeavours I want to aim high in (not doing so for every tiny thing, because that’s how you overextend yourself; or how I do, at least)
- reaching out to people – to those closest to me (talking, listening, loving and just being there), but also to people I don’t know so well (to those in need, but also to people who I may have dismissed in the past – so, listening to opinions that might jar with my own, hearing ideas and thoughts and desires that might be outside my experience)
- reaching out into the world – by travelling and exploring, both physically and mentally (I already have two srprs.me trips booked in the next two months, one solo and one with my youngest daughter, and I intend to squeeze more trips in through the year; and I want to keep feeding my brain by reading more and more novels, especially, but probably not exclusively, ones that show me worlds and lives I have not lived).
There are almost certainly some more applications of REACHING that I will stumble upon in the coming months and either embrace or set aside, but these are the main ones I feel I would like to focus on.
Word for the Twenty Twenties
And for the decade? My word is VOICE. And I can really see the potential in this next decade for:
- finding my voice – as an artist, a writer and a woman
- using my voice – to speak out, to be heard, to speak for others who can’t, to ROAR (it’s the Roaring Twenties, right?)
- voicing my opinions and concerns – just before the last decade started, I was blogging a lot and that me an output for my voice; during this last decade I did things like join political parties and committees and governing bodies where I had a voice; this decade, I don’t yet know exactly how my voice will get out there, but I feel it’s likely to include art, writing of some kind and, probably most important for me currently, learning to speak up within my immediate and extended family and with friends (which might sound like a doddle, but seems to be the hardest of all for me).
So, there we have it, my words for 2020 and for the Twenty Twenties. Tomorrow, I will diving into the traditional January 30-day yoga ritual (Yoga with Adriene – Home), which will be reaching in a very physical way. I’m also starting on a Year of Art School with Make Art That Sells, where I will be reaching in my artistic skills and knowledge, as well as doing some voice finding. At the end of the month I have my first trip of the year – excited to find out where I will go this time (so far, I have been to Malaga (in 2018), Bratislava and Krakow (both in autumn last year) on my srprs.me trips – I also went to Jamaica, Mexico and Korea last year, so I have quite a bit to live up to this year!) – and will be reaching out to the world there.
Happy New Decade to you all
Do you have a word for the year and/or the decade? I’d really love to hear them, if so.
Word for 2018 | Listen
Rather than New Year’s Resolutions, which always (in my experience, at least) tend to fall over within a week or two, I’ve spent a few years picking a word for the year (along with a gazillion other people – it’s not something I came up with all by myself). Last year’s word was ‘Inspire’, 2016’s was probably ‘Mindfulness’ or possibly ‘Serenity’, though I don’t seem to have written out down anywhere, 2015’s was ‘Success’ and, according to Facebook’s ‘On this day’ thingy, 2014’s was ‘Serenity’.
I’m never quite sure how well this word of the year thing works, but it feels more positive and motivational than a big lists of things to give up, so I still like doing it. Along with getting a gazillion (yes, I like that word, what?) diaries and journals, usually only one of which gets used beyond January (the day to a page one that sits on my desk and gets my daily/weekly (mostly work) planning written in). Maybe this year will be different, because I also bought myself a fountain pen so I can write beautifully in the beautiful diaries I bought. Hmm…
I’ve been finishing off the year working, which isn’t what I’d choose to do, really, though I’m reminding myself that I had a leisurely couple of months at the start of the academic year, including two trips abroad, which makes doing a bit of work in the holidays really quite bearable. But we also have family visiting and so will be seeing in the New Year this evening with a lovely meal and family games and/or films and children trying to stay awake until midnight, which will be wonderful and a perfect way to celebrate.
I have a few plans for this year, but they will stay in my head (or journals), so that I don’t jinx them.
My word for 2018 is going to be ‘Listen’ (which you probably guessed from the picture up there). This, I feel encompasses a whole lot of different kinds of listening, both physical, emotional and metaphorical, but it is definitely inspired by a desire to do a lot better at listening to my children and family. Part of this will involve putting the phone away more (I have a new phone and have lapsed back into bad social-media-checking habits since my refreshing detox in November) so that I can concentrate on people in the room, as opposed to people all round the world. But I also need to remember (or learn – maybe I’ve never done it) how to store the things that I listen to so that they are still there the next day or the next week, or the next year. I tend to store away things that I see (colours and images the most, I think, these days, at least) or read much more easily than things I hear. Which leads to me forgetting what people say to me.
So I will aim, this coming year, to:
- listen to my family
- listen to my friends
- listen to music
- listen to birds
- listen to silence
- listen to curiosity
- listen to inspiration
- listen to characters
- listen to ideas
- listen to beliefs
- listen to opinions
- listen to evidence
- listen to possibilities
- listen to water
- listen to breath.
And just listen in general.
I’d love to hear about your Word for the Year, or resolutions, plans or intentions if you do that kind of thing.
Inspire in 2017
I don’t think I did a word of the year last year – or, if I did, I didn’t record it. I have a feeling it might well have been ‘Mindfulness’ if I did do it. I spent the year cutting back on lots of extra responsibilities and commitments and concentrating on finding my own strategies for dealing with stress and anxiety, as I recognised in August/September 2015 that my almost two years of dizziness, numbness and other disturbing symptoms had been down to being in an almost constant state of stress.
I was very successful in this and have only had momentary flashes of the big symptoms (dizziness and numbness) over the past year and a quarter. I have a recognisable early symptom (my tummy goes rock hard!) that warns me if I’m starting to feel stress and haven’t realised it and then have a variety of techniques to calm myself.
It’s no longer a case of removing any causes of stress. I was fairly quick to recognise that this is impossible and that, however easy we manage to make our lives, there will always be something that will cause stress or anxiety – perhaps not for everyone to the same degree of course. For example, I swapped stress over getting the reading done for meetings or the anxiety over speaking to strangers for stress about getting the children to school on time and anxiety over talking to people I’ve known for years! So, now it’s more about recognising what is causing the stress and anxiety and either accepting that it is stressful, but will be over soon, or reassuring myself that it’s not something to worry about. When it’s an insurmountable stress or anxiety, I then use the calming and mindfulness techniques – one of the best ones is just stopping and concentrating on breathing; feeling the breaths going in and out, experiencing the smells that come when breathing through the nose, the noises or the silence, and so on.
Other techniques include doing a worry tree – a bit like a spider diagram of everything in your life at the time and offshoots of what you’ve been thinking about a lot there – might be children’s school applications, a political campaign, money issues, work deadlines, etc. etc. Often just writing them all down in a big brain dump makes me feel calmer, but it can also point and one thing that’s particularly worrying me, and then I can think about that and work out how to reduce that worry.
In general, making sure I do some free-flow painting and drawing regularly (ideally daily!) is an amazing help to my overall feeling calm, as is walking the dog, particularly in the evening.
What I’ve been trying to concentrate on more in the last month or so of the year (and I’m still needing to work on it more!) is to reassess my priorities. I have a tendency to put work at the top of all priorities. Deadlines would consume me and would fill my thoughts, even when I wasn’t at my desk. I suffered a constant overwhelming need to always give 100% (in fact, a desire to give 125%!) to clients, because why would they ever come back if I didn’t meet every deadline and never ever make a mistake and always come in under budget, and so on and so on. (And actually that need to give more than perfection is something I’ve had in most areas of life. While a parent governor, I never missed a single meeting and the one time I was late, I agonised about it for a week or more afterwards. Other people on committees or working groups in other areas of my life would cancel at the last minute, not do the actions they’d agreed to, forget to call someone they were supposed to call, but I could never ever let anyone down!) And I wouldn’t be able to give my full attention to other areas of my life, until I had met a particular deadline – even if it was a personal deadline I’d set myself. I wouldn’t listen properly to Chris and the children because my brain was full of whether someone would get some files to me on time to get them out to someone else in time to get them back and not have the project slip…
What I try to do now is to be in the moment as much as possible with whatever I’m doing and not to think about it (whatever it is) at other times. So, work is for the times I’ve sat down to do work and not to worry about while cooking dinner or doing the school run. When I’m talking to or spending time with the children, or with Chris, I try to put my phone away and put my other responsibilities away, too (unless we’re specifically talking about any of them, of course). (Yeah, I’m really rubbish at putting the phone away, but I am getting better!) When I’m out canvasing, that’s what I’m doing and that’s a time to talk and think about politics – I don’t have to spend every waking hour worrying about Brexit or about whether I need to get some campaign leaflets printed, or whether I can manage to attend an interest-sounding meeting.
My priorities at the moment are, in order:
- Family
- Art
- Politics and doing good
- Reading and writing
- Work and finances
The order may well change over time and I might push some things out and add new things. Making sure the top priorities get attention first, doesn’t in any way mean neglecting the others. In fact, I’m finding that it helps me be more efficient and able to concentrate on work, because I know I’ve met or am going to meet my other priorities. I’m still falling over a bit on the work one – and find myself trying to finish something because I really really want it finished that day, and then end up rushing dinner, or skipping a dog walk, or not having to time to paint. I’m doing it less and less, but it’s definitely still a work in progress.
So, whether or not I picked ‘Mindfulness’ for 2016’s word of the year, I think that’s what it was.
This year is ‘Inspire’ and I feel that this relates to all areas of my life and my priorities.
I want to inspire my children and family – to show them how it is possible to enjoy life and to be fulfilled, to show them that learning new skills is worthwhile, to lead by example in getting involved in causes that are close to my heart, to show them that you can succeed if you know what you want and work out how to get it, and in many other ways, too, I’m sure.
I want to inspire people all over the world with beautiful patterns – to give a bit of happiness every day from a splash of colour, of a black and white image they can calmly colour themselves. I want to inspire wonder and curiosity in illustrating for children and understanding and clarity in editorial illustration. I want to inspire people to go out there and show their own art and submit their own art to competitions or to brands.
I want to inspire hope in people who have lost theirs. Hope that we can build a better future for us all. Hope that we can provide food and shelter and education to all, irrespective of their upbringing or personal circumstances. Hope that work will pay. Hope that everyone can have the time and money to spend with their families, or doing what they love. Hope that the daily grind will one day be a small portion of people’s lives and that the rest will be filled with joy and love and wonder.
I want to inspire calm and mindfulness in others, if only by giving an example of how I have found my own, but perhaps in other ways, whether through art or writing or just chatting about it.
I want to continue to inspire confidence and calm in my editorial clients.
Oh yes, and I want to keep finding inspiration myself – in all areas.
So, here’s to 2017, may it shine light into the darkness that marked much of 2016 for the world.
Happy New Year!
Word for 2015
I used to make New Year Resolutions. I’d resolve to give up smoking, lose weight, save money, learn to drive… And I’d quickly fall at the first hurdle with most of them. And then I’d feel sad and grumpy and like a big fat failure. Resolutions seem to be made for giving up, even though you’d think they were made for keeping. I’m sure there are people out there who love New Year Resolutions and stick to them – I’m just not one of them.
In 2013, I stopped making resolutions and starting choosing a word for the year. This is where you don’t make any promises to do more of anything or to give anything up. All you do is pick a word to be your focus through the year. It’s kind of weird, really, and a little bit like the visualisations that I have generally eschewed (while actually doing something very similar, it turns out). You kind of take this word and place it in your mind – you could write on a big piece of paper and stick it to the wall, you could have it as your desktop wallpaper, you could write it on lots of sticky notes and scatter them around the house (though the people you live with may not necessarily appreciate that). Or you can just pop it in your mind and remember it’s there. I find writing it down a few times – and, of course, doing so in funky hand-drawn type or using bright colours – the most helpful, though as it’s just one word it’s a lot harder to lose sight of than the traditional resolutions. The word becomes the back-bone to what you do through the year. When you’re making a decision, it’s there in the background and it affects your choice. You might consciously say ‘Which decision will hold true to my Word this year?’ Or you might just subconsciously pick the choice that enforces your word. Or you might make a decision and then see how it fits afterwards.
2013 was Happiness.
2014 was Serenity.
And 2015? 2015’s word is going to be Success. I think my main focus for success is my design career and selling/licensing lots of work, getting new commissions and so on (so if you’re an art director or agent reading this, do feel free to get in touch!), but it’s not just about that – it can be about lots of things, really. Success in any new thing I put my mind to. Success in getting my health back on track (whether that be finding a cure for my mysterious illness, or just learning to live with it). Success in tackling the laundry pile. Success in blogging more. Success in being a happy and helpful parent… The word for the year can be brought into any field and area of your life, really – that’s what I did before, and I feel it worked well.
I also find the words from previous years stay with you, because they are so much of a focus and part of who you are that year. Not sure how long that could go on, of course, but I don’t feel I lost sight of happiness last year, even though serenity was my focus; I don’t think I’ll lose sight of serenity this coming year, either.
Do you have a word for 2015? If not, why not consider it?
