What three words?

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions—made up mind-nonsense designed to calcify the ego-identity—but at the same time, it’s good to have a direction to move in. Because as the old Lewis Carroll saying goes,

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.”

So when this article dropped in to my RSS feed yesterday, my knee-jerk reaction was to be a bit non-plussed, but then I started playing with the idea of having three simple words to keep me on-track throughout the year.

Three words you keep visible somewhere—a post-it note on your computer or something—that act as a sort of guiding light, when you’re at a decision-point. As Chris says in his post:

“The very, very, very key word is ‘Decision.’ You’re looking for words that answer questions for you. ‘Oh, what should I do? I just got a job offer from a crazy new opportunity, but I feel so safe here at work.’ If your word is ‘Adventure,’ then maybe this is your year.”

I’m going to share the three I’ve chosen with you, and I’d like you to do the exercise for yourself and pop your three in the comments below.

Word 1: ‘Publish’

It’s no secret that I have long been working towards getting a book out there. In fact I’ve been talking about it for literally years. And because I seem to have an allergic reaction to sitting-down-and-writing-a-book, life instead offered me a regular column in the Focus Magazine, where I get to write one chapter each month.

Sorted, yeah?

Well, no. Because although I’ve now got something like 70 of these all lined up, there’s the little matter of actually turning them into an actual book.

Which is why I’ve joined a 9 month book-publication course, that has a great track record of getting people’s works out of their heads and into the stores.

So 2026 looks like it will be the year my book is finally published. (Ironically, there’s a weight that comes off as I type that – it’s always felt inevitable, and now I’m actually doing something concrete about it! The hardest part was making the decision to join the course.)

Word 2: ‘Pollinate’

This was the most straightforward of my three words, conceptually, but then I made it really awkward by cottoning on to the idea that I could be clever and funny by having three ‘P’ words (d’you see what I did there? 😉).

So this one signifies growth. I launched the Daily Reminders website at the back end of last year and now it’s time to get it into the hands of more people. Nice and straightforward, as a direction to go in. (I’m hoping not too straightforward for this particular word – we shall see, by the end of the year, whether it was specific and action-focused enough.)

Word 3: ‘Pedal’

Last year I had probably my best year’s cycling since I gave up racing, 15 or so years ago. I got stronger, I got faster and I undertook some rides that genuinely fell into the category of the much misused adjective ‘epic.’

And yet, come October, I ‘fell off the wagon’, so to speak, and didn’t ride for practically three months! Getting the new website up and running became an 18-hour-a-day task and cycling just fell off the priorities list.

My fitness plummeted:

And while I have at least one cycling related goal in mind this year (my regular 4-day tour with the boys) rather than make this one all about outcome, I’ve clocked that the most important measure for a good-year’s-cycling is consistency.

Therefore, it doesn’t really matter what I’m doing, so long as I pedal.

How about you?

So there you are. My three words. I’ve only been using them for 24 hours or so and it’s been fruitful already. Little mini decisions or procrastination-points:

Which of my three words is this fulfilling?

It took literally 10 minutes to come up with them, commit them to memory and write them out on a post it note for my computer screen.

I recommend you do the same. Nothing onerous, just a little guiding light for you; something that taps into your authentic desires for the year, and keep you on the straight and narrow.

What's important to you?

Then when you’ve done it, come back here and let us know what they are, in the comments below.

💟

Giles

Related

My 3 Words for 2026 - chrisbrogan.com

Since 2006, I’ve promoted a kind of planning exercise for every year based around the idea that I call #my3words. It came to me when I realized that having one words as a way to set my intentions for the year was quite limited. Instead, I wanted at least three “points” by which I might

chrisbrogan.com -chrisbrogan