Learn 2 or 3 New Facts About Your One Word of the Year
{One Word 2024 September Linkup}
Dive deeper into your One Word’s meaning and see if there are any new discoveries or perspectives that will enhance your journey.
Link all of your ONE WORD blog posts below. Share an update about your One Word in the comments.
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9 Months of Growth: Where Are You Now?
Can you believe you’ve already spent nine months with your One Word? Whether it’s been a smooth journey or one full of unexpected challenges, I hope this time has brought growth and insight for you.
But the year isn’t over yet. There’s still plenty of time to deepen your connection to your word in this last quarter of 2024.
A New Exploration of Your One Word
Here’s a fun exercise to take your One Word a little further: look up your word on Wikipedia or another resource and see what new information you can find. It doesn’t have to be a long search—just find 2-3 new facts about your word.
Once you’ve gathered new information, reflect on the following:
- What surprised you?
- Did this new information change your perspective?
- Did it give you new ideas to practice or live out your word?
Using my One Word CURIOSITY, here are my answers:
- Surprised me:
I’ve always associated curiosity with the symbol of a magnifying glass. But according to Wikipedia, space and telescopes are also “quintessential symbols for curiosity.” - Changed my perspective:
Research shows that higher amounts of dopamine are released when a reward is unexpected rather than known. I don’t typically like surprises, but perhaps I should reconsider and more actively embrace curiosity and the excitement that comes with uncertainty (UNCERTAINTY was actually my One Word of the Year in 2021; it’s still not letting go of me). - New practice:
Because I read that curiosity helps improve memory, I plan to pay more attention to new or unusual details in my experiences, especially when it’s something I want to remember better.
Share Your Insights
Whether what you discover confirms what you already knew or opens up something completely new, it’s valuable to reflect on how this impacts your journey. We would love to hear what you uncover!
Feel free to share your insights below in a comment, in our Facebook group here, or in a blog post.
We’re all on this journey together, and your discoveries might inspire someone else.
Join Our September Linkup
Our September linkup will stay open from Tuesday, September 24, until midnight on Tuesday, October 8. It’s the perfect time to connect with others, share your progress, and celebrate how far you’ve come with your word. Next month’s linkup will open on Thursday, October 24 (and on the 24th of each month for 2024).
Use this last quarter as an opportunity to fully embrace the power of your One Word.
If you’d like to receive our monthly One Word emails and ideas, join here any time of the year.
What new fact have you learned about your One Word this year? Share in the comments.
Link Up About Your One Word!
- Don’t Jump to Conclusions – Jump to Grace
- Good People: Restoring Faith in Humanity, One Story at a Time
This…..
“New practice:
Because I read that curiosity helps improve memory, I plan to pay more attention to new or unusual details in my experiences, especially when it’s something I want to remember better.”
….is something I could use.
Me, too, Barb. I know we’re not meant to remember EVERYTHING, but there are lots of things I wish I’d never forget. 🙂
Hard for me to believe that we’re already nine months into this project!
For me, my word is teaching me to look for the gift in everything. And I always return to the quote by Wendell Berry: “We live the given life, not the planned” when what I’ve “planned” just doesn’t work out.
Love this quote, Michele. Do you know where he said this?
Lynn
It’s in one of his Sabbath Poems.
That Wendell Berry quote is so on target for me, too, Michele. I love the continued overlap of our words. Or maybe it’s just us! 🙂 Either way, I’m grateful for your companionship along the way.
Hi, Lisa – These are excellent explorations for our WOTYs. Thank you for sharing them.
You’re welcome. I get more out of my WOTY when I stay consciously aware of it, which means I need to hunt for new ways to practice it. 🙂
<3
I have to say my word for the year hasn’t been much of a focus over the last few months, however your post prompted me to look it up and I did discover something new. My word is “open” and a meaning I hadn’t considered is that it describes a competition in sport etc. where “entry is open to qualifiers regardless of amateur or professional status.”
Oh, I love that you uncovered that definition for Open, Lesley. I wouldn’t have thought about it either, even though we hear Open used that way all the time. Interesting!
I love your exploration here Lisa.
blessings, Jennifer
Thanks, Jennifer. I keep discovering CURIOSITY everywhere I turn this year, so it’s been easy to stay focused on it. I don’t know if it’s always been this prevalent in print and media, or just that I’m more in tune to it now.
It is hard to believe it is the ninth month of 2024, Lisa! Time is swiftly flying by us! Curiosity and uncertainty seem to want to pair off as buddies, don’t they? This month, I’m cultivating hope.
Definitely hard to believe we’re already in the 9th month! I wonder if you’re already wondering about your 2025 word? I have been jotting down words already that are particularly meaningful to me right now. 🙂
Cultivating hope is a beautiful practice! I started reading a Kindle sample yesterday of a book called, “Hope for Cynics.” I might need to look further into it because I don’t want to become cynical. ha