Every year I choose a word for the next year, rather than a resolution. I choose a word I want to adopt and explore in the coming year… I started this tradition following in the footsteps of someone I still consider a such an inspiration and role model, Lola Akinmade Åkerström. She has been trailblazing in so many ways this year and I really encourage you to check out her writing and image-making.

In 2023 my word for the year was ‘Gentle’. There were moments of real effort to be gentle with myself, but the world has not been a gentle world to live in over the past 12 months.

On a personal level I have had some wonderful opportunities to learn and develop as a person including: my time spent on the More Than Human Rights (MOTH) course in New York; by becoming a trustee with the amazing Empathy Action; through my work with The Elders as their Communications Advisor, a job I am leaving soon to free up different space for new things but that I’ve loved; by experiencing life in both the Arctic and Antarctic and becoming an Antarctic Ambassador; and through continuing my volunteering with Women Beyond Walls, in Guiding and with Girls Interrupting. I have accepted my own ‘neurospiciness’ a bit more – thinking my Autism diagnosis probably does belong alongside my more certain Dyspraxia and ADHD labels. However, the bigger world around me – around us all – has felt desperate. The shadows cast by the conflict in Palestine, the warmest year on record and more climate chaos, and the disappointing weak leadership from many countries (including my own) are all issues looming large.

With the above context in mind, I have been wrestling with working out what my own roles in the world should be in the coming year while balancing that with protecting my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. I have stuck on the word ‘cultivate’.

Word for 2024: Cultivate

“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that He may come and rain righteousness upon you.” Hosea 10:12

“Breaking up fallow ground”: Not all endeavours that should be ceased are necessarily ‘bad’ but sometimes you can keep working away at something that just isn’t allowing you to grow. I’ve felt like this with a few areas of my life lately. In 2024 I will be stopping, assessing the lay of the land, and breaking up the fallow soil that is preventing growth. Sometimes this will be painful, sometimes it will require me to sit still long enough to make that assessment. This is necessary though for change to occur.

“Reap steadfast love”: Put simply, if what I am growing in 2024 is not coming out of love then it has no place in my garden!

“Sow for yourselves”: Too often as Christians we can sit around waiting for God to come to us. God does not require this, God requires we get up off our own backsides and get to work. It is that labour that is then blessed and the fruits of it multiplied. I need to get to work with the right tools and in the right seasons and that will mean discipline.

“He may rain righteousness on you”: I am bad at accepting the rain when it comes. In contrast with the above statement there is also a time for accepting God’s gifts and God’s grace when it comes. I want to create spiritual space for listening and receiving this year. I have been pretty abysmal at that in 2023!

1st January is an arbitrary moment to mark a transition but taking time to pause, reflect and plan forward is healthy. I am grateful to have the chance to do this. I wish all of you reading a happy, healthy and joyful I would love to know what words come to mind for your own journey.