What's the Magic Word?: 2023 Words Of The Year
MADEIt's the beginning of a new year, which means it's time to choose a word! Each year, every member of the MADE team picks a word to represent what they want to focus on in the upcoming months.
After reading Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2022, which they release at the end of the year based on the past year's searches, we're happy to bring some positivity into 2023 with our words. Selecting a word is a creative exercise that everyone approaches differently — some words are influenced by books or movies, some come from deep meditations and others are a sudden inspiration that comes out of nowhere. We keep them a secret (which is hard with this close team!) until our annual kick-off meeting.
So *insert drumroll*, here are the MADE 2023 Words of the Year:
Opportunity
Allen Reed
“Most people miss opportunity because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” ~Thomas Edison
How many times in life have we said “If only I had the opportunity to…” or “I wish I had taken the opportunity to…”. For me, those missed opportunities happened because I wasn’t paying attention, because I didn’t think it was important at the time, because I felt I wasn’t quite ready or because I was scared to take a risk on something I wasn’t sure I could handle.
In 2023 I want to look for and seize more opportunities rather than look back on those I missed with regret. In my business and personal life, this means seeking more ways for MADE to grow, digging deeper to help our clients be more successful, collaborating more, staying focused on the big picture, taking calculated risks, and saying “yes” to important things even when it seems daunting.
Excuses will always be there, but opportunity won’t. Carpe diem!
Growth
Michelle Ledford
Never stop learning.
That has always been my motto. This is how I make sure I am not left behind in an ever-changing world–how I make sure I have perspective and objectivity. This is how I make sure I continue growing.
Over the years, I’ve learned the benefits of having a growth mindset are important for both me as an individual and for our business. Personally, a growth mindset motivates me to seek out new opportunities and accept new challenges. For MADE, a growth mindset helps me have the confidence to try new ideas and the ability to tackle tough decisions.
Starting a business is no easy task. Growing a business can be even more difficult. After building a strong foundation for MADE through the contributions of our team, I am focused this year on growing our agency. We are setting new goals, developing our skillsets, and expanding our geographic footprint. I want to challenge us to think differently.
You can choose to believe your capabilities are fixed or you can choose to believe your capabilities are endless. I choose the latter. I’ve been around long enough to know that success is not built on talent alone. It is built with experience, perseverance, and the desire to grow.
At the end of the day, if you are not challenged, you are not changing. I believe our team is ready for the challenge.
Choose
Cindy Joyce
Last year, my word was pace. I wanted to step back a little and purposefully reprioritize my time and take a real look at my work/life balance and be more selective about the things I said “yes” to and the value they would bring myself and my family. This year, now that I’ve settled into a good groove of balancing the things I want to do with the things I have to do, I no longer feel like I’m burning the candle of life at both ends and it's time to start looking ahead.
My word this year is choose.
Everything in our lives is associated with a choice. You can choose how you react to a situation. You can choose what to eat for dinner tonight. You can choose to start a fitness journey. Heck, you can even choose to not make a choice and live in the land of “I don’t know”, but that wouldn’t really get you anywhere. So this is the year to make some decisions like where to go on vacation and book it, and to finally start that DIY project and choose to not buy the silly thing TikTok just served up on a mindless platter of nothingness that I don’t need (Note to self — delete TikTok from phone). There are far deeper thoughts I could go into, but that's for another day. I’ll leave you with this:
“When you make a choice, you change the future.” ~ Deepak Chopra
Now, go make good choices.
Daring
Erin Hollenkamp
Daring: venturesomely bold in action or thought
This definition is delicious; the words create a strong, vibrant description that is inspiring me for the new year. It also seems fitting that it uses my word from 2021. By choosing daring, I'm not envisioning adventurous activities like going cliff diving or wrestling an alligator. My word is meant as encouragement to go after big ideas and to enjoy the journey as I'm working toward those goals.
Near the end of 2022, we reviewed one of our newer client's analytics and the results were incredible. One notable stat was that their website traffic increased 5x from when we started working together. This success was a result of using a combination of strategic marketing efforts and I am grateful that they trusted us to ramp up their marketing efforts. It's incredibly rewarding to positively impact our clients' revenue. This year, I hope we can all dare to achieve our business and personal goals.
Settle
Taylor Nobbe
I think the word settle has gotten a bad reputation. We usually think about it as something you should avoid, like settling for less or settling down. We think of those all-too-common inspirational phrases you see on your Instagram feed like reminding you that settling means you're giving up, compromising, or not trying hard enough.
However, settle has more than one definition. Settle can also mean "begin to feel comfortable or established in a new situation," "turn one's attention to; apply oneself to," or "to become or make calmer and quieter." Over the last few years, I think we have all felt unsettled. We've had to adjust to life in a pandemic, an uneasy political climate, economic unrest, and so much more.
I don't know about you, but I would love to feel settled. With so much transition and change over the past few years for myself, I'm looking forward to inviting in calm, quiet energy to help spark more creativity, passion, and excitement. The last few months in my new (can I still count myself as new?) position at MADE have been awesome, and I'm looking forward to settling into my role and embracing the growth, confidence, and knowledge to come.
Do you choose a word of the year? Share your word in our blog comments—we would love to hear from you!