from the archive: choosing and using a word of the year

how I used "healing" in 2023 and why I've chosen "possible" for 2024

you know it’s getting serious when there’s a dedicated notebook

Every month I remove the paywall from an archive post and share it just like this. If you’re enjoying Haver & Sparrow I’d be delighted if you’d consider supporting my work through a paid subscription or try a 7-day free trial if you’d like to have a look around first. Access to the full archive is one of the benefits along with extra letters such as voice notes and writing prompts. 🖤 PS I also started a book club this year - Rebel Readers - which is free to join!

This post was first published on 7th January 2024.

Happy New Year, friends!

I hope January is treating you well so far. It’s still absurdly dark here, especially in the mornings, but towards the end of the month it’ll start to lighten up again. Until the days start extending I’m still taking it slowly and easing out of the holidays, working through my reflections on 2023, letting some things go, and making some gentle plans for the year ahead. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, one of the little rituals I do around this time is choosing a new word of the year. You may have seen other people sharing their choices recently and wondered what it’s all about so I thought I’d share a bit about why I like to have a word, the process of choosing one, and how I use it during the year.

I’ve picked a word of the year for about five years now, I think. Some years I’ve thought about my word regularly and others I’ve forgotten about for months at a time. It’s essentially a point of focus or a guide for the year ahead without the restrictions or potential for failure associated with resolutions and more rigid goal-setting. It’s a reminder of what you’re aiming for overall whether that’s a shift you want to make or a feeling you want to generate. Sometimes a word has come to me when I’m reading a poem, watching a film, or it might just float through my head one afternoon the way the parts of a story can appear at random. Often, though, I find a word by working through Find Your Word,

Susannah Conway

’s lovely free workbook like I did this week. There are journal prompts, word lists, and even a visualisation exercise to help you think of how you want the next twelve months to look and feel. Sometimes a word comes up quite quickly but I like to stay open to other options as I work through the prompts. This year I ended up changing my mind right at the last minute but as soon as I wrote down my new word I knew it was the one.

Last year, for all sorts of reasons, my word was healing. I wanted to focus on feeling better physically and mentally, to put myself back together after a bad spell with my asthma, and to move past some wounds (old and new). By the end of the year the overall goal was to feel more like myself again. To help me put that idea into action I also chose three supporting words: creativity, consistency and connection. I’d never had supporting words before but I think they really helped to remind me about actions I wanted to take - if healing was my ‘why’ they became my ‘how’. Creativity reminded me that I wanted to get past my self-doubt around sharing my writing and to find that spark again with reading, photography, art - all of it. Consistency reminded me that I had to keep going, keep chipping away no matter how tiny the steps, if I wanted to make progress. Connection reminded me that I didn’t want to do it alone; I wanted to find a safe, cosy space to meet like-minded people, whether online or not, and to build something meaningful of my own - a community.

For the most part, I really do feel it was a year of healing (despite more challenges along the way because, well, life, right?) and I definitely feel I’m a much more whole version of myself than I was at this time last year. It’s a good feeling. This community has had such a lot to do with that and I’m so grateful for all of you that inhabit this space with me - writing here has changed how I think about my creativity, my value, and given me confidence that’s spilled over into my offline life. There were things that I didn’t achieve like daily movement which fell by the wayside but, thanks to my asthma being under better control at the moment, it feels more achievable than ever before. Focusing on consistency, especially with my creativity and making connections (not just online but in the real world too) has really felt like a key to making the healing happen. In the past I’ve often thought I couldn’t stick to things, that I was too busy to post regularly to a blog or to share my photos anywhere. But that story is no longer the reality: I can be consistent, I can take breaks and keep showing up (learning to pause not stop has been a big lesson that I’m still learning), I can be disciplined without driving myself to burnout, and, in the end I can achieve more than I ever thought possible.

So, with this newly emerging confidence in mind and fear still sat firmly next to me, I’ve decided that my word for 2024 is going to be possible. Possible is a reminder that, even if it doesn’t seem at all likely that I’ll get to the things I’m aiming for or they seem so far away it’s foolish to imagine even starting, the reality is that it’s only completely impossible if I don’t start at all. That’s the attitude that I started this Substack with in February last year. As Brené Brown says, I want to be in the arena, taking part, even when I’m losing. This year, I want the word possible to remind me that if I just make a start, chip away, keep going, I might get even further than I imagined. And if I don’t, at least I’m not just staring at what I want from afar, wishing I was brave enough to have a go and move towards it. This is something I’ll be journaling on this year and even if you’ve got a completely different word, or not chosen one at all, maybe this prompt will bring up something interesting for you too:

What if 2024 was the year I believed it was possible?

Have you chosen a word of the year for 2024? If you have, I’d love to hear about it in the comments! If you haven’t chosen one yet - or ever before - I’d definitely recommend giving it a go!

Take good care