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Rusty Gaillard

What’s Your Word of the Year?

Published about 1 year ago • 2 min read

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better person. —Ben Franklin


My favorite way to start the year is very simple.

It doesn’t require resolutions, goal setting, even getting SMART about your goals.

It’s a simple two-step process of letting go and renewal.

Step 1 is to let go of what hasn’t served you in the prior year.

Reflect on what didn’t serve you — whether it’s specific decisions, actions, or mental attitudes — and choose to let it go.

My list includes:

  • worry
  • attempts to control people and situations
  • speaking negatively about others
  • holding grudges

If you’re a regular reader, you may be thinking these behaviors came out towards my neighbor who called the police on us. You’d be right.

The purpose here isn’t to feel bad about what you did, but simply to decide to let go of those things.

If they didn’t serve you last year, it certainly won’t serve you to keep rehashing the memory.

Letting go doesn’t have to be complicated.

It can simply be a decision to deliberately change your train of thought when those memories or patterns come back.

Do you have your list ready? Then choose to let it go.

Once you’ve done that, you’re ready for the next part.


Step 2 is to give yourself a specific direction for the new year in the form of a word of the year.

In 2022, my word for the year was “sing”. I meant it both literally and figuratively.

I literally sang more last year — in the band I formed, and on occasion around the house.

I figuratively sang, with some success, in exercising more freedom in my daily choices. The kind of freedom that someone would have who sings easily in public.

In experimenting with this kind of freedom last year, I came back to a long-held belief.

True freedom and success requires, first and foremost, true courage.

Courage to change your habits, articulate your real desires and pursue them, drop the corporate facade and be your unabashed self.

We spend so much time protecting ourselves from expected failure and rejection that it becomes a habit.

That’s why being yourself requires courage.

Not to face others, but to face yourself.

To face your fears, uncertainties, insecurities, and still to move forward.

So for 2023, my word of the year is courage.

The courage not to be stopped by fear or discomfort, but to move forward in the face of it, in pursuit of true success as I define it.


If you haven’t already intentionally started the new year, take five minutes right now and do it.

Let go of what didn’t serve you in 2022, and pick a word to guide and inspire you in 2023.

Write it down, or even better, reply to this email and share it with me so I can support you in living it in the new year.

Whatever word you choose, my thoughts are with you to live 2023 with courage and heart.


Happy new year,

P.S. I keep learning from my annual planning process, including from the SMART goals I set last year. I didn’t reach all of them, but I hit many of them. I’ll be sharing about them on LinkedIn this week, so follow me there to see how I did.

Rusty Gaillard

Executive Coach, Lifelong learner, Dad, Bass player, Outdoor Enthusiast, Former Apple Worldwide Director of Finance.

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