This One Shift in My Word of the Year Changed Everything

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Table of Contents

Podcast Description

Do you have a word of the year yet? Or did last year’s word completely fall off your radar?

In this episode, I’m sharing a raw reflection on why my 2024 word of the year didn’t go the way I expected, and how I’m shifting into something more meaningful for 2025.

You’ll hear why I’m no longer separating personal and business goals, how this change is reshaping my goal setting as an entrepreneur, and what intentionality looks like in everything from content strategy to family time.

What you’ll learn:

The problem with choosing a “business-only” word of the year
Why I’m done with scattered energy and chasing vanity metrics
How being more intentional is changing how I engage, show up, and build
The new systems I’ve rolled out inside my membership (and why)
A behind-the-scenes look at how I’m syncing my home and business life

Whether you’re still choosing your 2025 word or need a reminder to come back to your current one, this episode will inspire you to choose with purpose.

Links Referenced in Episode:

▶ Systems Savvy Society

▶ Episode 53: 2024 Word of the Year

▶ Free Private Podcast: The Blueprint to a Highly Efficient Online Business

Connect with me:

Website | Instagram

Episode Transcript

(Note: This is a formatted AI-generated transcript to make it easier for you to read through, but is not an optimized blog post. Please excuse any spelling or grammar errors and filler words – it’s just how I speak LOL)

Episode Intro

Hey, I’m Lucy Reyes, your host of the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast, where I’m on a mission to help online entrepreneurs like you focus on all the right things and kiss overwhelm goodbye. Here, you’re going to learn strategies that will boost your productivity so that you can scale your online biz and impact lives sooner. It’s your time to shine, so let’s get started.

Welcome back to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast. Whoa, I actually didn’t even know if I was going to have a word of the year because I was feeling like I was taking too long to decide what my word of the year was even going to be. And that’s what we’re going to dive into in this episode because I figured out that what was really holding me back was that in the past few years, I have been setting a word of the year and only making it about my business. And as we’re going to get into, I don’t really know how that worked out for me last year.

This year, I decided that I am actually going to do something different, and I’m going to pick a word that’s going to align my business and my personal life because I’m one person. Why am I just choosing a word of the year but only for my business? No, I’ve decided I’m going to pick a word that’s going to be for both, and that’s going to set the tone for the rest of the year.

Reflecting on 2024’s Word: “Reach”

So first, let’s talk about what was my word for 2024 and how the heck that even went. In 2024, my word of the year was “reach.” My goal with this one—and I actually have a whole episode on that. It’s episode 53; I will link to it in the show notes. Definitely go and check that out.

My goal for this was to get more audience. Like, my big goal every year has been to grow my email list, to reach more people, to reach a bigger audience. And as a lot of us know, last year was a—I don’t even know how to say this—but it just felt like a whole year of throwing spaghetti at the wall. Like, there was nothing really consistent about 2024. And it seems to have been that way for a lot of people. It seems like everyone—like, there were so many new things happening in 2024 that required a lot of pivoting and a lot of changing and a lot of experimenting.

So all of these things that I ended up doing—not a lot of it would lead me to reach more people, to reach my audience, to do any of that. And then as well, my personal life—there were some things that happened in my personal life mid-year that prevented me from being able to do some other tasks that would have allowed me to reach my audience. If you’ve been following along, you know that my sister moved in with me for a few months with my now three-month-old niece and her partner. And that definitely made things more challenging at home, so I wasn’t able to do a lot of the other things that I wanted to do.

So yeah, I wouldn’t really say that I achieved what I set out to achieve in 2024. I’m not completely mad at it. I’m acknowledging how the year went and how, you know, we set these intentions, and sometimes it may just not happen, and it may not work. And I do feel like at some point in the year, I kind of just lost the word. I was like, I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. And so this year, I was like, I’m going to do something different.

I really want to pick a word that is going to be more of—not necessarily a goal. So “reach” was very much tied to like, I want to grow my email list, I want to grow my followers, I want to grow the number of people. Like, it was almost tied to this vanity number, which I feel like might not be good, at least for myself. We’ll see what I decide next year, but at least for this year, I didn’t want it to be tied to that.

Introducing 2025’s Word: “Intentional”

So my word for 2025 is “intentional.” It’s a word that I had been using a lot as I was doing some goal planning with my husband. I’d been hearing it here and there, and then finally I was like, wait, this is my word. Like, this is my word of the year because, to me, being intentional means making intentional choices or actively choosing certain things that are going to align with my values, my short-term and long-term goals, the way I want to live my life, the way I want to run my business, the way I want to show up in my family.

I am being intentional with all of my decisions. And no matter whether it’s choosing where I’m showing up online or how I’m spending time with my family, intentionality is going to make sure that every action that I’m taking is meaningful and purposeful, and I’m not doing things on the fly.

Balancing Flexibility and Intentionality

I’m taking a little bit more time to think through some of my choices, which—I can be super flexible at times. Like, yes, I am a planner; I love to plan, but I am a very flexible planner at times because, you know, life and curveballs and all of these things. And I feel like because I am expecting something to not go as planned, I have let myself—or at least last year I have let myself—get to a place where I’m a little bit too flexible. Like, I’m like, ah, it’s okay. Like, I’m going to change this plan, or I’m just going to try this.

Like, I go with my energy a lot, and that’s not a bad thing, but I do think that I need to slow down a little bit more and be a little bit more intentional with things that I am doing and not just jumping straight into things. Now, not to say that I’m not going to ever be spontaneous, not to say that I’m never going to be flexible, not to say that I’m turning into this rigid person—like, that is not at all what I’m saying. But I am going to aim to be more intentional with the decisions and the choices that I make.

Being Intentional in Business

So for business, being intentional means:

Selective Presence:
I am going to carefully pick and choose which platforms I feel are going to best reach my ideal clients so I can focus my efforts on these areas rather than spreading myself too thin. I think there’s definitely been a lot of times, especially with last year my word being “reach,” where I’m like, okay, well maybe if I do a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit there, and then I try to do it all. And then by the end of the year, I was posting almost nowhere. I wasn’t as consistent on any of the platforms. And I really think that it has to do with this.

Like, I was trying to spread myself too thin, you know? I felt like I could do it; I have my systems to do it, but my energy wasn’t even in it. And it honestly does take a lot of work to figure out all of these different algorithms and to prioritize my time—my work time. And because I was doing a lot of things on the fly last year, it made it harder for me to show up on platforms because I didn’t even know what I was going to do, you know, a few days out.
So I’m definitely going to choose where and how I engage so that way my presence is meaningful and aligned with my target audience. This means I’m going to be deciding where I’m going to post on social media, if that’s even something that I want to try and aim to do. This means really, really, really choosing and being even more selective with the summits and bundles I participate in. I definitely know that I want to do some podcast guesting this year. So hey, if you have a podcast, then reach out to me; let me know. I’m definitely going to be more open to being interviewed for other podcasts this year. So that is what selective presence and being intentional means in that regard.

Purposeful Engagement:
I want every interaction and every piece of content to have a clear objective—whether it’s to educate someone, to inspire them, to connect with them and get to know them, or to convert them into a client, a member, a buyer, a customer, an email subscriber, a follower. So I am going to choose where I should increase certain levels of engagement and connection with my audience.

This is something that I am still working on. I’m still trying to see how this is going to look for me. And in one way where I have already made some changes inside of my membership, the System Savvy Society, at the end of last year, I had my members complete a survey. It was a really in-depth survey where—if you’re listening to this, like, thank you so much, by the way; it was super helpful. So I had my members complete this survey where it was going through every single perk inside of the society and asking them to rate it: How would you rate this perk? What do you like about it? What don’t you like about it? What do you wish would change? What would make it easier for you to get certain things done? And they let me know what they wanted.

So there’s definitely been some changes that I rolled out this year, starting now, for my System Savvy Society members. And so far, the feedback has been positive. So we have changed our Trello improvement calls to be quarterly instead of monthly. And instead of the monthly calls, I am now doing what is going to be a monthly video feedback thread. So it’s essentially the same type of support that they would get if they were to show up live to the calls, except they get to drop it in at any time whenever they want. They’re able to record a Loom video for me and let me know where in their system, where in their Trello board they’re stuck on, what their goal is for the Trello board, and I will then record a Loom video back within a few days. So it’s the same type of support; it’s just in a more flexible way, because I know everyone’s schedules are packed to the max right now. So sometimes adding another call is just another thing that you cannot show up for.
And I understand that. So I made that one change so that way I am still able to engage and connect with my audience in the way that’s going to be more helpful for them and still, you know, being able to connect with them in a live interaction, giving them the schedule ahead of time so they can plan to show up to the call live if they want to.

Another update that I made in the society that kind of fits this purposeful engagement is—I upgraded the coworking sessions. So instead of having one session a month, we’re going to have two sessions a month. This is going to give us even more connection time together, even more accountability time together.

And the third thing that we updated in the society was I’m going to now host an “Ask Lucy” weekend thread inside of our community platform. So once a month, this is going to be like a weekend office hours where they have a whole weekend instead of just one day. They can pop in their questions in there, and I will get back to them on that following Monday or Tuesday with my very detailed, thorough responses, just as if it were office hours. Like, they know when they can expect that response back.

So these are going to be some ways that I am increasing engagement and connection inside of my membership. And I’m going to be doing some brainstorming to see how we do it in other aspects of my business as well.

Focused List-Building:
Another area where I’m trying to be more intentional is really focused list-building. So kind of the complete opposite from 2024. Last year, my word was “reach,” so I wanted to cast my net wide and bring in as many email subscribers as possible. But at the same time, I wanted them to be more targeted. So I didn’t even put myself out there as much as I should have in order to reach my “reach” goal, right?

But this year, that’s not even my goal. My goal is focused list-building. I want to focus on attracting the right audience who are genuinely interested in what I have to say, what I can share with them, my offers. I’m not going to really try to just get anybody and everybody on my email list. That’s not what I’m going to do. I’m going to be prideful in my smaller and engaged email list. Yes, I still need to grow this email list, but I’m not going to focus on growing it with just anybody. I’m really going to get strategic with my list-building efforts to ensure that I am attracting the right audience into my community, into my circle.

Thoughtful Optimization:
Lastly, the final aspect of what “intentional” means for my business is thoughtful optimization. I have been working a lot behind the scenes on ensuring that I am prioritizing system enhancements and refining the backend systems and task flows and workflows and Trello boards and zaps and all of these things that connect together—automations—so that way I am spending less time doing things that can be done by automations or not wasting too much time with task switching or just thinking, “What was I supposed to do?”

Even though I already have a lot of systems—I already have simplified systems—but the more I use them, I know what can be improved because sometimes I learn something new, right? And I figure out an easier way to do something, and maybe I haven’t made that adjustment in my Trello boards yet. And so that is something that I have been working on, and I’m going to make it an even bigger priority this year to really ensure that I am enhancing my systems as often as I need to and refining the backend systems so that way I’m doing less. Ultimately, the goal is for me to do less but still have everything running in the background.

So if this is something that you need help with too, then join us inside the System Savvy Society because that is what this is all about. So if you’re also wanting to refine your systems and—or even create systems from scratch—then this membership is for you. Again, the link is going to be in the show notes, or you can go to cheerstoproductivity.com/SSS.

Being Intentional in Personal Life

All right, so that was business. But like I mentioned earlier in this episode, being intentional is not just going to be a word for my business. I am tying it together with my personal life as well.

Quality Family Interactions:
Me and my husband have started to do some of our own goal planning as a couple, as a family, and for other relationships—like our parents. So we’re really focusing on allocating more dedicated time for family activities and making sure that we are fully present and engaged during these moments. And not just with each other or with our kids, but we’re also brainstorming how we can have more meaningful interactions with other family members that we typically don’t actually schedule something with intention for—another reason besides just because, you know, not because it’s their birthday, not because it’s a holiday, like a “just because.”

So we had brainstormed, really, we should probably go on a double date with our parents. We should figure out other things we can do. We scheduled in our monthly dates on the calendar. Usually, we would kind of do those on the fly, which of course meant that sometimes we didn’t go on dates. And we didn’t go on as many dates without the kids as we had hoped last year. And so this year, really, you know what? It’s on the calendar. It is on the calendar. That means it’s going to happen. That means we’re going to find a babysitter. That means we’re going.

And for whatever reason, if we just can’t make it that day, then we’re going to postpone it to the next week. Like, it’s still on the calendar. So more quality family interactions with ourselves, with our kids, and with other family members as well.

Mental and Emotional Well-Being:
It also includes my mental and emotional well-being. I want to be more intentional with the things that I do to boost my well-being in all aspects—mental, emotional, physical. So I am leveling up my journaling habits. This has been a habit that I was able to keep up with every day, and I absolutely love it, and that’s journaling in the mornings before I get started on my workday. But now we have patio furniture up in the front, so I am going to be doing my journaling outside so that way I can start my day with fresh air. Because as we know, this kind of helps you just breathe in the fresh air and get some mental clarity, and there’s so many benefits of fresh air—we’re not even going to go into that. But that is what I’m going to be doing now because I’ve already built this habit.

I worked all last year building up this habit, even in 2023. I think 2022 was the year where I actually started the habit; then it kind of died off in 2023, and last year it was like golden. And now I’m going to level it up.

I really do want to make a greater emphasis on prioritizing my self-care. In these recent months, I have felt like I have needed even more self-care than ever before, just because of all of the chaos that is in my home, in my personal life. And honestly, just 2024 in itself felt very chaotic. I don’t think it was just a me thing. And so this year, I don’t want to get to these low levels that I kind of reached at some points last year, and I don’t like it. So I am going to make an even bigger priority to prioritize my self-care and even schedule more alone time for myself. This is something that I was also discussing with my husband. We had talked about, you know, like, do we need to schedule time—time where I just leave? I leave him with the kids, and I’m gone by myself. And that’s probably what’s going to happen. And I personally don’t feel like I need it as often, but just because I don’t need it doesn’t mean I can’t have it.
So yeah, that’s going to be one thing. And then also, I really want to work more on my physical health. So I am committing to doing some micro-exercises during the week because this is at least going to help me build up the habit of moving my body intentionally at the start of my day. And, you know, over time it should graduate or expand into even more consistent exercises that are not just micro-exercises in the morning.

Goal Setting and Reflection:
Lastly, for being intentional in my personal life is my goal setting and reflection. This is something that I am great at for my business. We don’t always set goals as a couple, as a family, for the home. And of course, I started a Trello board once I decided that this was what we were going to do. So I started a Trello board, and we have all our goals. We have some for home projects that we want to do, goals for me and my husband as a couple, his individual goals, my individual goals, and even did one for my son.

So my goal with this is to regularly review all of these goals and reflect on the progress over time so that we can adjust our strategies as we need to and to really see—we’ve already said what we wanted to get done this year, and keeping up with it monthly is going to let us know if we are achieving our goals or not. So definitely going to be more intentional with ensuring that we get our non-business goals achieved as well.

Combining Business and Personal Intentionality

That is what “intentional” means for me. Being intentional in both areas ensures that I am combining both aspects instead of treating them as separate entities—which, I mean, technically they are, but I am still one individual. I am still just one person, and I really think that doing it this way is going to help me actually commit to embodying what it’s like to be more intentional. And my hope is that next year I’m able to just grow and expand on that and level that up versus, you know, saying that, “Oh, I’m completely changing my word of the year.” It’s going to be, “No, I’ve already embodied what it’s like to be intentional, and now what else can I add on to this?”

Recap / Ending

So that is my word of the year. Do you have a word of the year? I’m curious. I love, love, love knowing what everyone else’s word of the year is, especially if you explain why. I would love to know if you have a word of the year. If you do, then send me a message on Instagram at @cheerstoproductivity. I would absolutely love to know what it is. And if “intentional” stood out to you, feel free to use it as well.

And lastly, if any of this resonated with you and you’re like, “Yeah, I actually do need help with staying on top of my goals, Lucy, for both personal and business. I like how you’re doing this,” then it’s going to be even more important than ever before to have simple, manageable systems in place. And that’s what I can help you with.

So to learn more on how you can do this and how you can run an efficient online business and all the ways that I can help make that possible for you, then I encourage you to sign up for my free private podcast at cheerstoproductivity.com/pp. There are just a few episodes on there; it’s free, but it is private, so you have to sign up for it, and I will share all my secrets in that private podcast. So go ahead and sign up. The link is also in the show notes, and I will talk to you next week. Thank you so much for listening to the Cheerful Productive Chats Podcast with me, Lucy Reyes. To view the full transcript and all the links mentioned in today’s episode, visit cheerstoproductivity.com/podcast. And before you go, make sure you follow or subscribe wherever you’re listening so that you know once the next productive chat is released. Talk soon, and cheers to your productivity and success!