My Word of The Year And Intentions For 2023
On the last day of 2022, I took a walk. The sun was making a rare appearance and I stood looking out over the lake, watching the sun hanging low over the tree tops on the other side of the water. It was quiet and peaceful.
Standing there, I thought about how serious the last couple of years have been. In the outside world, pandemic, war and inflation has raged. In my personal life, I’ve worked hard on building a business, an undertaking that has consumed much of my mental space.
Looking at the last rays of sunshine of 2022, I felt strongly that I want 2023 to be different. I want it to be lighter, simpler, and frankly, more fun. I don’t want another year of spending all my energy on figuring things out. I long for ease. I’m ready to let my shoulders drop and have some fun.
My word is Frolic
Already in autumn, I had the first inkling that I wanted a word for 2023 that focused on enjoyment. The last couple of years, I’ve had very productive words. In 2020, it was Wholehearted, to devote myself wholeheartedly to my creative business. In 2021 it was Trust, because I wanted to trust myself and my business as I took the leap to run it full-time. And in 2022 it was Nurture, to keep nurturing my business and myself as its owner.
My business has taken up so much energy and mindspace these last couple of years. It has been my dream, my passion and my work. It has been wonderful, but honestly, I can’t have another year like that. I need to let it not be my everything. I need to make mental space for other loves and parts of myself. I need to create a well-rounded life.
So I’ve chosen a silly little word for 2023. A mischievous, unproductive reminder to ease up. I’ve chosen Frolic.
Frolic is both a verb, a noun and an adjective. Merriam-Webster defines it as being full of fun, to amuse oneself, a playful or mischievous action or an occasion of fun. The antonyms - the opposites of frolic - are struggle, strive, restrained, stoical and obligation.
The lighthearted energy of frolic is what I want in my 2023.
Enjoy and embrace a well-rounded life
If you were to look back on all the yearly intentions I’ve shared here on the blog, you’d notice that I’ve only included goals relating to my creative life. That’s partly because my focus here is on creativity - my business, my writing. But it’s also because, well, that’s what my intentions have been about.
This is how I approached yearly intentions for 2023 as well. I picked a business goal and a writing goal. But after choosing Frolic as my word, I realised that this year is really about moving beyond that laser focus.
So I went back and redid my intentions, and ended up with this goal as my first one: to enjoy and embrace a well-rounded life.
This is a goal about balance, but it’s not just about time. I’ve been pretty good at not working late evenings or weekends while running my own business. I’ve blocked apps on my phone and done my best to switch off. Despite that, I feel like my mind has been occupied by business thoughts.
So in 2023, I want to shift my focus. I want to divide it better between different areas of my life. I want to make sure I’m not just thinking all the business thoughts and forgetting to live.
Joyfully run my simple creative business
In the first version of my yearly intentions, I set a slightly different business goal. I finished 2022 strong with my best quarterly income yet. I made growth projections and I felt like I’ve finally figured out good strategies for my business. So my first version was a lot about staying on that track of growth.
But thinking more about my word Frolic and why I chose that word, one thing is very clear to me. I’m tired of striving, trying, pushing towards growth. I’m tired not of the work itself, but of the mental effort of growing a business. I’m tired of worrying about the future and thinking about money. I’m tired of living sort of on hold, waiting and working towards a future goal. I long to experience the here and now.
The goal I choose for this year, then, is not about growth. It’s to joyfully run my simple creative business. To enjoy what I have built, celebrate it and cherish it.
What does this mean? I’m not sure yet. It will be part of this year to explore the role of my business in a well-rounded life, with less mental weight and pressure of growth.
Frolic in literature and finish the fifth draft of my novel
Every time I take a break, I end up thinking a lot about books, literature and writing. While I’m busy with other things, it lays dormant, waiting for space in my mind, ready to jump in and flood my brain with thoughts about words and stories and characters.
My fiction writing has taken a backseat these past two years of focusing on my business. I did practically nothing in 2021, and in 2022 I got started with the fifth editing draft. Now it has stayed in the backseat long enough, and I want to give it more attention in 2023.
My big goal for the year is to finish this editing draft. I’m making some larger structural changes and writing new scenes, as well as tweaking the tone. Meanwhile, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what kind of author I want to be. I expect this draft to take me the whole year to finish.
Writing fiction is a big, big part of my creativity. It’s something I’ve loved since I was a kid, and it’s not just about writing. For me, understanding literature is intertwined with being a fiction author.
In 2023, I want to go deeper as a reader. 2022 was a surprisingly disappointing reading year for me. I only read two fiction books that I really, really liked. And I’ve realised that my taste in books has evolved a bit. As a teenager, I read Harry Potter and character driven YA, as well as Dostoyevsky and Kafka. The past decade, I’ve read a lot of international bestsellers, YA and fantasy, classics and literary fiction. I’ve found good recommendations on Goodreads and Instagram, and I’ve had a reading goal of 25 books a year.
Now, I notice I don’t enjoy genre fiction as much anymore and the books I really love are the high quality, complex character studies, by authors like Sally Rooney, Ottessa Moshfegh and Ruth Ozeki. I no longer feel interested in most of the books Goodreads and Booktok raves about, sadly. In 2023, I’m embracing this shift. I want to frolic in really good literature, and I’m choosing quality over quantity. I’ve lowered my reading goal to make room for more classics and other thick, slower reads that take longer to finish but ultimately give me more.
I’ve also found two open online courses from Yale University about literature. I got started with Introduction to Literary Theory over the holidays and look forward to going through it at my own pace this year.
Here’s hoping for a lighter 2023
As people announce their words of the year and write about their goals and intentions, I can see that I’m not alone in the longing for lightness and experiencing life more fully. We have been through heavy years, regardless of what our personal lives have been like. We know that with recession, the ongoing war and climate change, there’s still hardship ahead for the world. But I hope that despite these challenges, we can all find lightness in 2023. That we can bring back some fun, to soften and live good lives. We have been waiting long enough, and I’m going to do my best to make 2023 a year of frolicking.
If you want to set goals and intentions for 2023 and choose a word of the year, check out my planning guide Four Seasons of Creative Work. The first workbook is about planning your creative year and it’s what I’ve used in my own planning for 2023.
