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Three Words to Guide Me in 2024

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For nine years now, I have chosen three words to guide me throughout the year rather than creating New Year’s resolutions. Writing and thinking about the words daily inspires me and gives me the power to start each day. For example, in 2023 when I wrote the word Joy, I would stop and think about what I could do that day to bring joy. Throughout my day I would look for where the word Joy could be found. It was amazing how often it came to fruition in some form. 

To choose my words this year, like the past eight, I scheduled a day-long tech-free retreat during which I could read, write, reflect, meditate, and take walks away from my distraction-filled home. I turned off my social media and phone and found that in and of itself to be cleansing. I spent the morning in one cafe and early afternoon in another. 

It is amazing how by simply changing location I can be inspired to see things differently and be motivated to write. Being in a different environment helps me to think differently. I encourage you to try it if you can. Even a half-day can be powerful, but I recommend trying a full eight-hour day.

Peace. This word feels right to me as I look ahead in my life and with hope towards our country’s future. I was choosing my words shortly after the Hamas and Israeli fighting started, and as the war in Ukraine was coming up on two years since it broke out. So sad. 

I try to start my day with stretching, walking, and reading before I begin working. This helps me start each day slowly and this year, I hope, peacefully. I am looking for ways to be more content with myself by incorporating meditation into my day and finding ways to be calm and kind to myself.

Catalyst. This word jumped out to me as I was reading J.P. Michel’s new book, The World Needs You. He is calling for career coaches to be career catalysts and help propel our students/clients to their future careers. My passion in life now is to give back to our profession by being a Trustee on the NCDA Board of Directors. I want to use my three-year commitment to NCDA to be a catalyst for our association.

Another passion of mine is offering a mentor relationship to people new to the field. Over the past few years, I have worked with several people who had various questions about how to get into the career development field, how to create a company that is currently centered in Brazil and move it to the US, what types of jobs are available for someone with the Certified Career Service Provider (CCSP) credential, or how to start their own consulting business. I want to help every one of them in whatever way I can, and I believe I can be a catalyst for them. 

Discover. This word has several different layers to it. I like that the word feeds my love of learning. I am always looking to discover new information through reading, podcasts, listening to news shows, talking with people, or watching TV. I simply love learning. The layers include looking at ways to improve Peak-Careers and thinking about what I’d like to do with the business over the next few years.

The word Discover also has great meaning for who “Jim Peacock” is and will become over the next few years. I am in my mid-to-late 60s and find life is constantly evolving as my family grows (more grandchildren), my siblings are all facing retirement and we talk about how we can get together despite living 1000s of miles apart, my lifelong friends and I are closer now than ever, and my wife and I are traveling more. 

I look forward to seeing how these words develop throughout the year.

Do you choose three words to guide you?

If so, please share your words and a little about what they mean to you.

Here are all my words from 2016-2023

2016 – Health ★ Mindfulness ★ Focus

2017 – Intentional ★ Authentic ★ Wellness

2018 – Reach ★ Capacity ★ Consistency

2019 – Reflection ★ Purposeful ★ Gratitude

2020 – Philanthropy ★ Rebalance ★ Strategic

2021 – Be ★ Kindness ★ Understanding

2022 – Community ★ Balance ★ Positivity

2023 – Joy ★ Humility ★ Exploration

2024 – Peace ★ Catalyst ★ Discover

If you’d like to read about how I choose past years words and/or watch some interviews with other people who choose three words, check out my website here.

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

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Inhale the Future. Exhale the Past

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Recently, my two backpacking buddies of 40+ years and I hiked a 70-mile section of the Colorado Trail, most of which was around 10,000 feet above sea level. It was, as always, a great trip being with people I have known for

3 men backpacking
Colorado Trail near Tennessee Pass

nearly all of my adult life. We have hiked over 2000 miles of trails together, mostly on the Pacific Crest Trail through California, Oregon, and Washington. We use our hiking time, uninterrupted by our typical daily living, to be together, to reflect, to talk about our lives now, and to set goals. It is a special time that makes me feel more like the authentic me than any other time.

On this trip, we met a woman who was backpacking by herself and had an interesting tattoo on her arm with a saying on it. We asked what it said. “Inhale the future. Exhale the past.” She had gone through a difficult divorce, and this was her mantra as she was dealing with it. It was so powerful for her, she had it tattooed on her arm. She is now happily remarried and backpacks with her husband or alone depending up on his schedule.

I can’t stop thinking about this statement. It resonates for me and for so many clients I have worked with. It is so important to move on from the past and to look to the future. It involves way more positive thinking than being stuck in the past.

Inhale the Future. Exhale the Past

inhale exhale
Photo bykathleenport @Pixabay

The trail provides us the uncluttered space to ask each about our lives over the past two years since we hiked a section of the Long Trail in Vermont in 2021. We each had more than two hours to talk about our past 24 months and ask each other questions or make comments on our stories. When do you get the kind of time to do that?

More importantly, we have always found ways to look to the future. We often create 3-5 year goals on our hikes and then hold each other accountable afterwards. This year was no different except that I brought a values exercise Brene Brown shared in her book, Dare to Lead. (The exercise can be found on her website if you’d like to do it.)

Brene has identified a list of over a 100 values. The first step is to circle 10 values important to you now. It is harder than you think. I didn’t tell Rees and Howard that after they were done struggling to get their list to 10, they would have to reduce it to five. Ouch. Brene says that to be a leader and to make your best decisions, you must make sure you are focused on what is important to you at all times. (She actually wants people to reduce it to two!)

The next step is to list three things that you are doing that support each of your top five values and to identify three “slippery slopes” or things that get in the way of you living that value. Then describe one activity you have done recently that exemplifies this value in your life at its best.

We then took the next four days (yes, four days) to share our values, what has been working, what gets in the way, and an example of living this value. The exercise gets you thinking about what has worked or is working for you with this important value, but most importantly what gets in the way.

Inhale the Future. Exhale the Past

The things getting in the way are the most thought-provoking as they led each of us to think about what we could change in the future to embrace this value more. For example: one of my five values is “family” and I recognized that my wife loves to veg out at night watching TV, and I don’t. So this means we don’t get as much time together as I’d like. I thought about one of my “successes” last year with this value when we binged watched Ted Lasso together. So this year, when I came home, I signed up for a month of Hulu so we could watch Murders in the Building together. 

It is a small way for me to exhale the past (me not watching much TV) and to inhale the future (identifying a TV show we could watch together).

Tech-Free-Retreat at Messalonskee Lake

Many of you know that I like to take regular “tech-free retreats” inspired by Richard Leider. I am drafting this blog right now on my September retreat. On these retreats, I take time to think, write, read, walk, and meditate. I listened to one of my favorite guided meditations from davidji, “Taking Your Life to the Next Level.” One line is about moving from the past, like lifting your back leg when walking, lifting it up and moving it forward to get anywhere (that is my interpretation). This resonated with me today as I Inhale the Future. Exhale the Past.

We cannot change the past. 

The question is, how do I want to move forward in the most authentic way? 

How are you moving forward in your life? 

Are you embracing and living the values most important to you?

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

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The Sabbath by Abraham Joshua Heschel

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This book was recommended to me because I love to take tech-free retreats and write, read, think, meditate, and just “be” in the moment. (Read bout my tech-free retreats).

This is a fairly religious book written by a Jewish man in the 1950’s but what really resonated with me is his concept of time vs space. And how so many of us have filled our lives with things that take space, like material goods, work, and doing things.

He talks about the importance of respecting time as a thing to enjoy…just the time we are in, like mindfulness. Here are a couple of my favorite quotes to think about.

“We must not forget – that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things.”

“We usually think that the earth is our mother, that time is money and profit our mate. The seventh day is a reminder that God is our father, that time is life and spirit our mate.”

“Time is the process of creation, and things of space are results of creation. When looking at space we see products of creation; when intuiting time we hear the process of creation.”

Amazingly I watched a Simon Sinek podcast today when I finished this book, with Brene Brown and Adam Grant talking about creativity and the importance of giving our brains space to think. To take the time to NOT think about being creative and to take the time to do nothing (Abraham’s “time”) to let our minds go free.

Taking my retreat and turning off the technology is the day I slow down. It is by far the most productive day of the month whenever I take it.

This book is a real thinker book and has references to lots of rabbi’s and readings from the Bible and the Torah. But the most important thing about it is that it reinforced my need to retreats and take the time weekly to NOT do things and “just be” in the moment.

My Three Words in 2023 to Guide Me

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My 2023 words did not come as easily to me as they had in the past. As always, I did a tech-free retreat to get out of my house, slow down, write, and think. This was a good starting point, and I felt like two words stood out for me. But the third word had been elusive, so I waited.

Journaling helps. Reading helps. Thinking helps. Slowing down helps.

Probably one of the best things I did this fall was to read Brene Brown’s book,  Atlas of the Heart. I love how she broke down so many emotions and explained some of the subtle differences. It’s possible that all three words this year are because of this book. Yes, I had been thinking about some of them, but the book clarified what they mean to me and encouraged me to think deeper about them.

I struggled with the third word until one day when I sat down, pulled out my pen and journal, and just free-wrote for a few minutes:

I want to keep writing ◊ I want to stay humble ◊ I want to keep helping career coaches ◊ I want to slow down ◊ I want to keep working ◊ I want to keep playing ◊ I want to keep learning ◊ I want humor in my life ◊ I want to be outdoors as much as possible.

What I discovered was that the free writing confirmed the three words I had been considering…and it felt great. So much of this process is trusting my instincts and being authentic. So here are my three words for 2023 and why I chose them.

Joy

As I read Brene’s book, her definition of the word joy really stood out for me. It is “the good mood of the soul” and an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation. While experiencing joy, we don’t lose ourselves, we become more truly ourselves. 

She talks about how joy and gratitude are closely connected and can create an “intriguing upward spiral.” The opposite of what I call the “vortex of negativity” when people focus on the negative and all that happens is they get more and more negativity.

Gratitude was one of my 2019 words, and I’ve discovered that my yearly words never really leave me. I try to spend time thinking daily about what I am grateful for. So when I read about the connection between joy and gratitude it really resonated with me. Probably the phrase that really hits home for me is “good mood of the soul.” Yeah, I want some of that every day!

Orange flower with green background and the words, exploration, humility, and joy

Humility

Although I list it here as second, this was the final word I chose. It didn’t really make the list until I did my journal purge and it came out almost immediately. Maybe it’s because I was just visiting my 96-year-old dad in Michigan and have watched him deteriorate from a healthy, vibrant, intelligent, successful man to his small world today. But he still remains thankful and gracious for all Jean (his wife) does for him and for all the times his children visit or call.

I’ve also seen some people in various fields who think they know everything. I am not one of those people and never want to be. I always feel like I have more to learn and that I am never the smartest person in the room. I might have more knowledge about a topic than others, but there is so much to know about any subject and there are so many people I know in the career field doing great work. I never want to lose my humility.

In Atlas of the Heart Brene describes humility  as “openness to new learning combined with a balanced and accurate assessment of our contributions, including our strengths, imperfections, and opportunities for growth.” And most impactful is this quote: 

“I’m here to get it right, not to be right.”

Exploration

This is an interesting word for me that has many meanings already. The word brings with it more questions than answers. Where do I want to spend my time this year? How can I explore new ways of working less while still providing quality? What are some ways to grow Peak-Careers in areas in which I want to do more in? (i.e. workshops) How are all my roles in life going to grow (husband, father, grandfather, mentor, friend)?

Exploration could be my continued effort to explore my 2022 word, balance. This past year I worked to balance my life more by looking at work and life. Exploration seems to be less about balance and more about exploring options to keep my brain growing, me learning, and experiencing new experiences.

We have some travel plans this year too and my curiosity about cultures and meeting new people is always strong. Exploring new environments, a new backpacking trip someplace, and the always present book on my shelf, seems to fit me well for now.

———————– 

If you have tried the New Year’s Resolutions and they have not worked well for you,  you may want to try this activity of choosing three words to guide you each year. You can watch some interviews and read some blogs I’ve written on this topic here https://peak-careers.com/?s=three+words 

My strongest piece of advice is to write them down regularly. Not just print them off and post them, but to physically write them down with a writing utensil. There is something kinesthetically magical about that process where it seems to embed the word in my head better when I write it.

Below are my past words. FYI, I feel like they don’t ever leave me, they just are not forefront in my thinking.

2016 – Health ★ Mindfulness ★ Focus

2017 – Intentional ★ Authentic ★ Wellness

2018 – Reach ★ Capacity ★ Consistency

2019 – Reflection ★ Purposeful ★ Gratitude

2020 – Philanthropy ★ Rebalance ★ Strategic

2021 – Be ★ Kindness ★ Understanding

2022 – Community ★ Balance ★ Positivity

If you have chosen three words to guide you for the year, I’d love to hear what they are and what they mean to you.

Watch this interview with three of us talking about our Three Words to Guide Us in 2023

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

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How I Choose My Three Words for 2022.

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A “Hat Tip” to Dick Knowdell and His Values Card Sorts.

Each month I look ahead to find a day I can take a tech-free retreat. I don’t always find one, but most of the time I do. This practice was inspired by Richard Leider in his book Repacking Your Bags.

I have written about my retreats before, but today I want to explain how I used one of my retreats to choose my three words for 2022. If you want to read about my retreats, check out these blogs. (Read)

This past December I had scheduled a tech-free retreat for December 22 when I would read, write, reflect, meditate, and hopefully choose my three words to guide me in 2022. I had one word that I knew I wanted. Balance. I have been looking at how to reduce the number of hours I work, maintain my business, and spend more time with my recently retired wife, my friends, and family.

My retreat is a time when I typically review my journal from the past year, looking for themes that might inspire me to discover my words for the upcoming year. It’s a bit of the “intentional serendipity” that I believe in—taking action and being open to discovering something by accident.

Then I received an email from Rich Feller letting me know that Dick Knowdell had passed away. Before I became familiar with Dick Knowdell’s work, I had used the Missouri occupational card sorts a bit. But when I was introduced to his Motivated Card sorts I was hooked. It was then that I added his values card sorts to my repertoire and created my favorite workshop called “The Magic of Card Sorts.” Dick was a large force in the career development field, always giving his time, expertise, and sharing his knowledge wherever he went…with a smile.

Dick Knowdell
I decided to bring my values card sort with me on my retreat to see what might emerge for my words and also as a “hat tip” to Dick. 

The first step in the card sort is laying out the header cards: Always Valued, Often Valued, Sometimes Valued, Seldom Valued, and Never Valued. Then placing the cards, one by one, into the column that made the most sense to me at that moment. Values can change over time and I was interested in seeing what may have changed since I did this values card sort years ago. Clearly my head was in a different space now as a 65-year-old and all that life has brought to me.

As I picked up each card and read the value on it, I processed what that word means to me and how it fits into the context of my life today, at work and at home. Placing it under a heading gives value to that word and its meaning to me. There is something subliminal happening as well as cognitively. I don’t completely understand it, but I do know it happens. As I looked at my values spread out on the table in front of me, I felt like it truly represented a bit of who I am and what is important to me.

But I still could not “see” a theme. So I decided to do another sort; one that I do with the Motivated Skills Cards but had never done with the values. I took the top cards from Always and Often Valued and sorted them into groups or themes that make sense to me.

That was when the magic happened.

It was here that I could see the importance of creativity and knowledge in my work, and I knew that I still wanted to keep working. I simply love what I am doing. (see the two groups at far left). The far right group starting with “practicality” also fits into my work life well as I love the independence of owning my own business.

Much of my motivation comes out in the middle column headed by the words “affiliation” and “community.” 

Yes, I love my work and what I do.

But why? And as I thought about it, the knowledge, the creativity, the helping others, all felt like actual people to me. People I wanted to share knowledge with. People I wanted to help. And that is where the word “COMMUNITY” came from for one of my three guiding words.

Clearly that second column from the left, headed by family and friends, supported my first word of BALANCE.

But what would my third word be?

The words, “Fun” and “Humor” stuck out to me. What is it that I want to do with my family and friends…and with my work colleagues and network? Yes, to share what I know, but also to do it in a way that is fun, uplifting, creative, and practical. But it has to be in a fun way, a positive way. Something good to do each day and that adds value to my community. I thought about using the words humor or fun, and then realized that it had more to do with being optimistic or positive. And there it was, POSITIVITY. 

What I like about my three words each year is that there often is an intersection between them. When I journal, I always begin with writing down my three words: Balance, Community, Positivity. I change the order and sometimes will create designs using them, but I always write them. When I do, it forces me to think about that word and how it might fit into my day.

Sometimes “community” means my professional network, e.g. doing a LinkedIn Live session or participating in my National Career Development Association volunteer work. Sometimes “community” is my family or my hockey buddies.

Balance is always challenging me to make sure that every day  I play, workout, read, meditate, and do the work I love.

Positivity makes me smile and I think about what I could do today that will make a positive influence on me. I found a TedTalk playlist called “10 days of positive thinking.” It is a great list and I encourage you, to check them out.

If you have not stopped to look at your values recently, I encourage you to do so. What is important to you today and how will you manifest it?

And if you have any good ideas on how I can continue to build my positivity…I’m all ears. I know that my community supports me.

Read about My Three Words in 2022
 ◊ Balance  ◊Community  ◊Positivity ◊

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

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My Three Guiding Words in 2022

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A couple of weeks ago, I took my “tech-free retreat” which I try to fit in monthly. My focus was on choosing my three guiding words for the upcoming year. December’s retreat was scheduled on a day that turned out to be our first real snowstorm of the year. Hence, it became a half-day retreat, not my typical full day one. I’ve lost access to an office I was using for my retreats, so I spent the morning at Selah Tea Cafe downtown Waterville where I worked on my three words for 2022.

I had planned to move to my other favorite coffee shop, Jorgenson’s Cafe, at noon, but they closed early. My next back up plan was to hang out in the Waterville Public Library on the 3rd floor which has a wonderful room with lots of windows looking over downtown Waterville…but alas, they closed due to the storm as well.

All was not lost as I still did lots of thinking and writing, and came up with my three guiding words for the year.

First off, let me share my words from past years. Each word still resonates with me at some level. They were important to me then and still are now as a clue to who I am and who I want to be.

2016 – Health ★ Mindfulness ★ Focus

2017 – Intentional ★ Authentic ★ Wellness

2018 – Reach ★ Capacity ★ Consistency

2019 – Reflection ★ Purposeful ★ Gratitude

2020 – Philanthropy ★ Rebalance ★ Strategic

2021 – Be ★ Kindness ★ Understanding

Here are my three guiding words for 2022 and a little of the reasoning behind each one.

Three Guiding Words: Balance Positivity Community

Balance

In 2020 I used “rebalance” which is similar, but as I looked ahead to 2022 and reflected back on 2021, I kept coming back to the guiding word of “balance.” A few years ago I was trying to rebalance, to make a bigger change. Now looking at this word the meaning feels more like balancing with smaller more permanent changes.

Like a few years ago, I am still interested in reducing the actual number of hours I spend working each week. My wife retired this past year and I am trying hard to spend more time with her. We have already gone to a number of matinees during the week, and occasionally taken some time off “just to hang out.” I want to explore this balance more in the upcoming year while continuing to add value in the career field.

Positivity

Ted Lasso inspired me on this one. Special thanks to my backpacking buddy, Howard who turned me on to the Ted Lasso show in September. I came home from our backpacking trip in Vermont and my wife and I watched both seasons this fall.

Ted Lasso is positive, unassuming, funny, and has a HUGE heart. Each episode had me laughing, crying, and often surprised at what happened.

Humor has always been a big part of my life. I want to BE a positive influence on others and I want to be as upbeat as I can every day. Life is too short to be any other way and the past couple of years have been difficult daily to navigate…sometimes I just have to stop reading articles and move on.

Community

As I think back to what I loved working on this past year, I found myself reflecting on the many zoom calls with people in the career field, many of who were thinking about going into private practice or exploring their own career development related to our field. I really want to continue to help other career practitioners and love the idea of figuring out where I want to spend my time in the career community.

I am also looking at my local community here in Central Maine to figure out where I might spend some time and energy. Of course, I also have a community of family, cousins, and friends that I want to continue to nurture.

In February I will share the process I used in choosing these three guiding words. Yes, it happened mostly on my retreat, but this year I did something a little different. I will also write more about what each word means to me in the coming months.

Have you chosen three guiding words for 2022?

If so, what are they and what do they mean to you?

Read how I choose my words this year.

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

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