It has been seven years since, inspired by a YouTube video, I began setting a ‘word of the year’. I want to say I’ve been true to the words but much like with the monthly challenges, there lies great scope for improvement. However, that is no reason to break tradition. As 2023 drew to a close, I thought long and hard over everything that had taken place over the past 12 months, my prevalent emotion through the year and what was needed most for both myself and my profession.
2023 followed close on the heels of 2020, 2021 and 2022 in terms of anxiety, uncertainty and change. The year began with massive layoffs across multiple organizations, hiring pauses, rising interest rates, return to office mandates, increased top down guidance and a never seen before focus on efficiency. As you probably know, none of these features help maintain a sense of calm nor positivity. Towards the end of the year, Fast Company touted that we’d entered the great gloom where employee morale had dipped to new lows. Forget about promotions or career switches, most of my friends and colleagues were glad that they were ending the year with a job in hand. It wasn’t just the world of work either. Violence broke out in many parts of the world, controversies ran amok and natural disasters did their bit to add to the anxiety.
Personally too, while it was a year with a few personal wins and many fun experiments, I couldn’t escape the low morale or sense of gloom. Where I should have felt gratitude, I felt resentment and where there should have been beams of positivity, I felt disappointment creep in. Everyone I spoke to felt it too. It felt like an invisible hand was squeezing the hearts of humans all over the world, making the clouds in the sky appear just a tad bit darker than they usually do.
It wasn’t all gloom and doom though. Great things happened too. However, they got overshadowed and hence, the one thing I need more than ever in 2024 is to cultivate a greater sense of gratitude and consequently, positivity. It’s an added bonus that positivity helps you live longer. 2024 will be the year where I do a better job of identifying when my mind gravitates to the negative and nudge it towards the positive instead.
Per the internet and common sense, here are seven ways to turn positivity into a habit:
1. The gratitude journal: Literally, the first thing everyone recommends when you talk about positivity is keeping a gratitude journal. If everyone is saying it, there must be something to it. Given I have been journaling (yes, dear diary) for over 15 years now, this shouldn’t be a giant lift.
2. Mindfulness: A big part of positivity is staying in the present vs dwelling on the past or scrambling into the future. Mindfulness is something I’ve been practicing off and on and a pretty good solution to the issue I’m looking to tackle. I can confirm that the days I’ve done my ten minutes of Headspace are always far better than the days I haven’t.
3. Notice and change the self-talk: A lot of self-talk tends to be negative. You’re either admonishing yourself for tasks left undone or finding faults. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon a podcast (that I can’t recall FFS) that I started consciously noting my self-talk. Lately, I’ve been hyping myself up and by god- It works!!
4. Make someone else smile: There is evidence to say that kindness directly correlates to happiness. I am going to take this as an extension of positivity and in addition to the three things I am grateful for everyday, I’ll try to mention one thing I did to make someone smile.
5. Celebrate the wins: I got better at this in 2023. I’ve always glossed over wins, both big and small. No more. I popped open a bottle of champagne when we launched Prickly Peers and I am going to find a way to celebrate every win. It may not always be popping a bottle of champagne but get ready for lots of celebrations here and everywhere else.
6. Surround yourself with optimists: I took a little pause when I read this recommendation. Does this mean that my rants left me out of social events and circles? Being positive can definitely boost popularity, so while I attempt to take a stab at increasing my popularity, I am also going to seek more time in the presence of eternal optimists.
7. Review social media: Lastly, restricting social media usage has a direct correlation to satisfaction with one’s life. I do not spend an insane amount of time (two hours a day is optimal, right?) on social media but I am going to relook at the accounts I do follow to ensure that I derive value from them and maybe cut down my daily scrolling time to an hour.
I am aware there lies some controversy around ‘being positive’ and the ‘positivity mindset’, yet I am going to give it a shot. 2024 for me will be a year of cultivating a deeper sense of gratitude, acknowledging the negativity while chasing the positive and hopefully, the world of work will change for the better too.
What is your word of the year? Have you or will you set one? If you are looking for inspiration, I’m linking my words through the years below.
Also, Happy New Year! I hope you had a brilliant start and I can’t wait to see what 2024 brings. Let’s make this our best one yet!
Historic word of the years
2018: Intent
2019: Play
2020: Patents
2021: Intent
2022: Sift
2023: Recovery
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