I found exactly the right focus word for 2022: Nurture

It doesn’t always happen like this, but a week ago a ‘word for the year’ that felt so right just came to me.

Probably like you, I have a few end of the year/start of the year planning rituals.

I review what I accomplished, what went well, what didn’t go well and all that jazz. This year I deliberately avoided sitting down and doing any concentrated exercises like this.

Instead I tried to just let my mind empty out, not focus on anything in particular (except the various family and holiday events that were going on) and let whatever bubbled up to the surface, bubble up.

After Christmas I went to a resort with my family and I did jot down a few notes while I escaped to a the day spa for a few hours. But nothing structured or focused.

A day after getting back, I went on a run and a word came to me: Nurture.
Usually I don’t have mystical aha moments like this, where something just comes to me. Maybe this time it did because I wasn’t forcing anything.

My sense is that a lot of people are tired.

In her newsletter, Dorie Clark talked about giving herself more margin and trying not to be so busy in 2022.

Petchy, a branding expert I follow had written that her word for the year is EASE. Funnily enough, my friend and fellow Squarespace designer Christy Price also chose ‘Ease’ after writing her review blog post.

I’ve been revisiting Atomic Habits by James Clear. His point that reaching goals doesn’t make us happy is one of the reasons I picked up the book in the first place.

I don’t want to be on an endless treadmill of goal setting, followed by the vague dissatisfaction that comes after achieving it or the disappointment and self-criticism that comes when the goal isn’t achieved.

I knew this year I wanted to avoid outcome based goals (‘X’ number of sales, followers or income), but rather process goals: I’ll write 25 minutes a day, be in bed by 10:00 pm. etc.

Process goals appeal to me because they create an environment for good results but I can also control whether or not the ‘goal’ was achieved.

I decide if I do them or not. Process goals by nature also end up being things that I want to do, and feel more nourishing.

This is part of how I think the nurture theme emerged. Most of my goals in the past have focused on some kind of growth.

There are so many factors to growing a business that you really don’t have control over, whereas growth is a natural outcome of nurturing. Yet the amount of growth or the quality of growth can’t be controlled or managed.

I like garden analogies because they’re so apt.

You don’t approach gardening by saying: I’m going to plant this Hydrangea seedling. I’ll water it and fertilise it and it will give me 36 pink blooms by May 4th. Instead you tend to it lovingly, observe closely and accept whatever your efforts yield. You allow the plant to bloom in it’s own time and you appreciate whatever it offers you.

The behaviour and actions around nurturing may not look that much different than actions I’ve taken when I focused on growth, but the internal stance is different.

Instead of a muscular pushing and a petulant insistence on results, work is approached with loving attention and an acceptance of whatever happens with less attachment to outcomes.

Full transparency: I’m in a comfortable position.

My husband is the main breadwinner in our family. I do contribute a significant amount to our family budge. My husband was able to go down to a four day week because I can make up the shortfall in our family budget.

My back isn’t against the wall though. I don’t have to make X income or build a huge audience out of financial necessity. If I set those kind of goals it’s a choice.

So how and what will I nurture? I’ll nurture my business in the following ways:

1. I want to keep on nurturing my list. That means approaching it like a practice, sharing things I think will be valuable and not with the intention of extracting something out of it. I find approaching ALL marketing this way keeps the joy in it.

2. I’ll nurture my clients. I want to refine my Launch In A Day offering. I want to include more guidance and support, partly by creating more assets like my Super Basic Keyword List workshop that become part of the offer.

3. I want to nurture a small face to face community. Again, not with any explicit outcome - mostly because I find meeting with likeminded people to be invigorating.

4. I’ll nurture myself as a business owner. Mostly by being realistic about what I can do in one day, and creating some buffer time between when I shift gears from work time to family time (not always easy).

A lot of this is holding steady.

I think of what I did last year: Launch 21 websites, post on LinkedIn multiple times a week, send over 20 newsletters, publish over 35 blog posts, do several podcast interviews and write a handful of guest posts - it’s a lot!

I really can’t and won’t try do much more than that this year.

There are other ways big and small that I intend to nurture myself and my family in my non-business life: In bed by 10:30 - no more fake ‘me time’ scrolling nonsense on my phone until midnight, work on my family photo books, eat more vegetables and drink more water.

I’m sure some of these look familiar!

I do like the practice of having a touchstone word. It’s a great shortcut to check-in with yourself and ask whether was you’re doing is the right thing or not.

Do you have a word for 2022?