Kate Henry [00:00:00]:

Welcome to Honing in a Podcast for Creative Thinkers, where we’ll hone our skills, explore our passions, and nurture our dream projects into being. Hey, everybody, it’s Dr. Kate Henry, and today’s guest is me. I’m recording a special episode about how I chose my theme word. And the theme word is for my 39th year, because today is actually my 39th birthday. I am a Libra, which is no surprise to anyone who knows me. I really resonate with being a Libra, and I am excited to take you on the journey that I went on to choose my theme word. But first, I want to talk to you about why I like using a theme word in the first place.

 

Kate Henry [00:00:56]:

There are two key things I like about choosing a theme word and using it as your guide for a set amount of time or for a particular project. First, I feel that using a particular word or phrase can help to provide structure and limitations when it feels like there’s too many options to choose from. So, for example, when I’m facing a new process, I really appreciate guidelines or instructions, and sometimes those are there. So we might have the instruction to write a 250-word abstract or to save a set amount of money to purchase something or to bring an umbrella if it’s going to rain outside. Those are, you know, pretty straightforward. We do this and then we get that thing. But we’re all working on goals that are more abstract or longer, or maybe we’re experiencing something new. And.

 

Kate Henry [00:01:56]:

And these kinds of things can lack explicit guidelines, and we have to figure it out as we go. And if we have a theme word that could help with decision making, and when faced with an opportunity, we could run that through our theme word before we say yes or no. I’m going to share some examples of theme words in a little bit so you can see how this works. The second reason I really like theme words is because they allow me to re see things through a new lens. I’ve always loved using metaphors and visual diagrams as tools for re seeing concepts or seeing ideas in a new way. This is why I love Venn diagrams so much. I am a big lover of Venn diagrams, and I’ve said this before, I think on the podcast, but I literally used Venn diagrams in my wedding vows. So definitely a big fan of how we can see something through a new lens.

 

Kate Henry [00:02:58]:

And when we use a word or a theme or a phrase, that metaphor can help us to see new functions and even give us new practical actions to take. So, for example, in 2019, I chose the theme word garden. And I am not a literal gardener in the backyard or, you know, even in pots inside. I do have two plants that I’ve kept alive for many years, and I feel very proud of that. But. But I chose the theme word garden more to help me deal with all the busy things in my life at the time. If I was trying to be a better gardener, using the metaphor, I needed to be aware of all the plants that were happening or occurring or growing in my garden and not just obsess on one side of the garden or the other. So, for example, not just be totally consumed by work so that I was sacrificing my body and not just be totally consumed with something like making money where I wasn’t making time for my friends or my family.

 

Kate Henry [00:04:04]:

So that’s a way that I used garden as a metaphor to think about how all of the things in my life functioned like plants. Some other previous words that I’ve used for themes are tending, which, if you know me and you know my brand, I have been thinking about tending for almost a decade now. I like tending because there are two ways into it. One is thinking about how we tend to do certain things, so what our habits are. And the other way in is thinking about tending to ourselves or tending to something, taking care of it. And I really love a word that has multiple meanings at once. I find that very intellectually satisfying. Other words I’ve used have been things like intention or commitment or slow.

 

Kate Henry [00:04:59]:

And the first year that I was blogging back in 2018, I chose a different theme every month for the work that I was doing and the research and the personal development and productivity practices I was exploring. So today I’m talking about how I am choosing a theme word for an entire year, but that’s an example of how you could choose it for a shorter time period. I want to pause and say that I really like theme words, and obviously I think they help with decision making, which is something that could be a challenge for me. But choosing a word doesn’t just magically mean that it’s going to improve our lives. It’s one of those things that kind of works if you work it. And I think having a more simple word or something that feels interesting and inspiring to you could be the best approach to this. I’m going to tell you now about an example of a theme word that I found to be very interesting and very effective. And this is from my friend Brooke McAllery, who is a slow living writer and researcher.

 

Kate Henry [00:06:11]:

So in 2023, Brooke decided to use the theme of 1% and for 1% was a way to make slow and steady change in her life. She thought of 1% in two ways. First, 1% of a day is 15 minutes, and 1% of a week is an hour and 40 minutes. So if we are trying to experience slow and steady change in doing a practice, she explored what it would be like to do just 1% of her time on something. And as you can imagine, 15 minutes a day on something might feel much more accessible or have an easier entry point than saying I’m going to do something for a whole hour, for example. She also thought of 1% as dealing with effort. So here 1% is less about the time we’re spending and more about the consistency, like doing a bit and bit over time. I’ll link to a really great newsletter Brooke has about this in the show notes, but I wanted to offer 1% as an example of a theme word you could use.

 

Kate Henry [00:07:26]:

I’m sure she would be fine with you using it as a way to explore what it’s like to approach your practices and your scheduling and your activities through a specific lens. Now I want to talk about my theme word. For my 39th year, when I chose a word, I knew that I didn’t want something that was all about optimization. I’m not interested in urgency or doing the best or being the best. I actually am fine with doing okay at most things in my life. And I certainly don’t want to overwork myself. So I wanted a word that would, you know, be a little spacious and not cause me undue stress. But I also did want my word to be something that provided some boundaries and some guidance and some consistency in my life.

 

Kate Henry [00:08:32]:

So to get here, I first thought of something like core because I am interested in doing work with my core. What is the core of my life? And then, ever the poet, I just started jumping from word to word. So I thought, nah, core is not quite it a synonym, something that’s close, maybe it’s a nucleus. But like, that felt a little too medical for me or scientific. So I just jumped from synonym to synonym and had lots of conversations with my spouse, Chris, and just doing a lot of reflection until I landed on a word that felt fitting. And for me, a word that feels fitting is something that I can remember. It’s something that is fun and interesting, and it’s something that’s applicable. So the word I chose for 39 is the word again, a G A I n again.

 

Kate Henry [00:09:27]:

And the caveat here is that I’m going to give it a try for quarter four of 2025 and then I’ll check in in January to see if I want to reset it. I know that it’s going to be important to me that I set up reminders for this, so I’m going to try to talk about it in my newsletter and I’m definitely going to have some post it notes and maybe make a new background for my phone that has to do with this. So I will see constant reminders while I’m developing the habit. I chose the word again because I’m curious right now in my life about shaking up my routines a little bit and expanding my window of tolerance when it comes to making decisions that really serve me. The word again feels to me like a two-sided coin and that’s what I wanted from a theme word. I wanted it to be something that would make me think of what is going in, what I am putting in and what I am taking out. So how can I set myself up so that I’m feeling nourished, but I’m also showing up and putting in work that I feel good about. Here are some ways that I can imagine using it to help me with decision making When I’m faced with a choice whether this choice is do I want to do my morning meditation? Should I meet with this client during this particular time? Do I want to make this purchase? You know, things like this I want to use again to think.

 

Kate Henry [00:11:03]:

Things like do I want to do this again? How will doing this again affect me? Is there a tradeoff I’m going to experience? Will I have the opportunity to do this again or should I seize the moment and do it now? How many more times will I have the opportunity to do this? Or if I’m feeling like nope, not again, don’t want to do that. I want to be curious about what happens if I say no instead of immediately saying yes. I feel like this could help me to shift my perspective to feel like I have more agency and decision making and I think could just increase my confidence and my stress levels. So the word that I developed for myself again took, you know, probably like a week of reflection and conversation to get there and once I got to it, I knew that it was the right word for me. Another way that I theme my year is using tarot. I’ve been doing this for over a decade and I use the math that Mary Kay Greer talks about in her book Tarot for yourself. So with this math where I’m adding my birthday and my birth month and the year that I am in, I came up with a number that corresponded with the card, the Devil. And if you aren’t familiar with Tarot, the Devil card might sound scary.

 

Kate Henry [00:12:41]:

It might sound, oh, what’s wrong? What’s going to happen? But really, it’s about feeling weighed down or feeling trapped by something, whether that’s an addiction or mindset or patterns of behavior or thoughts that no longer serve us. So while the card might seem really scary and can look quite scary or oppressive, there’s also the opportunity for liberation and reclaiming our power. And I interpret this as an opportunity to make choices, to release oneself from feeling chained down. I feel like this actually really aligns with the word again, like, do I want to keep doing things that haven’t served me, or do I want to break those chains and choose something new? So I’m excited to see how these things work together. And since I’ve been working with my card of the year, I don’t remember having the Devil card as the card before. Perhaps I have. I definitely feel like I’ve gone through years where I have experienced energy from the Devil. Cardiff.

 

Kate Henry [00:13:50]:

Not directly had it be my card of the year, but I’m feeling ready for it. I’m feeling ready to show up and explore it. So here are some of the things that I hope my theme word again can help me to do during my final quarter of 2025. And again, I will reevaluate this at the end of the year just to see how it’s going to so personally for me through this lens of again, one thing I have to finally do is figure out my budget. I’m very privileged that my household earns an income that can support our needs comfortably. And this also means that I can trust that I will be able to pay my bills. And as a result, I don’t know my numbers quite as well as I used to or that I would like to. So I want to be more proactive around getting really clear about my budget, what’s coming in and what’s going out.

 

Kate Henry [00:14:48]:

And ideally, this would result in building up my savings account, contributing to my retirement fund, figuring out how to approach repaying my student loans, which are once again accruing interest. That actually kind of feels like Devil Card energy to me, too, like thinking about material experiences and spending. So, yeah, I want to get clear on my budget and do the numbers. A second thing I want to do, and I mentioned this briefly earlier, is I’m really interested in exercises to develop my core and my strength right now. If you’ve been following my work on the podcast or in my newsletters, it’s been almost a year that I’ve been treating pain and injury in my left arm and hand, and I feel like I’ve finally reached a point where things are feeling pretty stable and I’m ready to get back into my movement and exercise practices. So I’ve been practicing yoga asana for a very long time, and I want to continue doing that. But I also am curious, and I’ve been adding in Pilates and want to get back to some strength training as well. So that’s something that I think again, can help me to think about.

 

Kate Henry [00:16:05]:

Do I want to do my practices or my exercise again? And if I do, how will that benefit me? That could be a nice motivator. A third thing I want to do is set and hold boundaries around my energy expenditure. And I don’t necessarily here mean setting boundaries with others. I actually feel like everyone in my life is very good about respecting my boundaries, but I’m thinking instead of having a boundary with myself where I don’t undermine myself by over committing or over promising or people pleasing unnecessarily. So there’s definitely some growth to be done here and I feel like this is an opportunity for me to check in and see do I want to do this again, Do I want to repeat a pattern that might not serve me? And again, I think I’m gonna notice now how I use the word again, which I use all the time. I’m thinking of both my theme word again and this does feel influenced by the Devil tarot card, which is curious. When I was thinking of the word again, I had not yet looked up my tarot card of the year. So it’s really interesting and satisfying how they influence one another.

 

Kate Henry [00:17:25]:

And the fourth thing that I want to do, which feels like the biggest change really out of these is being curious about expanding my routines or my comfort zone to try new things that I haven’t done. Because it always felt like the right call to just do things. I like to do the same thing every day. I like to do the same, you know, practice. I like to have the same roles. But there might be some interesting discovery for me if I explore what happens if I do a thing at a different time of the day or in a different location. So this might look like discovering what I want to share publicly, what I want to keep close to my chest, knowing when it’s brave to reach out and connect to folks, knowing when it’s better to reflect and problem solve. Knowing when I want to be in my space, knowing when I want to put on my mask and go to the library and work in the reading room.

 

Kate Henry [00:18:20]:

So there’s different things that I can explore personally, and I’m curious to see how my comfort zone so might shift in a good way. I feel like that’s pretty brave for someone who loves to just work from home and do the same thing every day. I want to close us out today by sharing some instructions for you to choose a theme word if you’d like to use one. The first step is to think about how you want to use your theme word. So, like me right now, are you thinking of oh, I want a word of the year or of the month, or of this season, or of a particular aspect or time in your life so it does not have to be something so complex as an entire year. Some folks, including myself, like to pull a tarot card every day or once a week and use that as a theme. Or it could be for a certain quarter. You might also want to use your theme word, and this is something to reflect on for a particular project or a goal that you’re working on.

 

Kate Henry [00:19:33]:

Is there a specific lens that you want to use for decision making or for approaches or for planning or for working with others? Here we can think of how do you want to use your theme word? Is that for a particular amount of time, or is it for a particular aspect of your life? Once you’ve got some sort of ground laid for when and how your theme word will support you, I invite you to get curious about possible themes by thinking about what would generate more positive experiences in your life, or what change you feel like you are needing then. So some ways into this might be thinking about how you would like to feel. So for example, how do you feel when you are thriving, or when you feel connected, or when you feel like you are living in line with your values? If you’re feeling stumped, here another way to think about this, and I really love this, just as a general reflection and planning prompt, is to think about what you want to start, what you want to stop, and what you want to continue. So this is a good way to think about, huh? What do I want my theme word to do for me? How will it support me? How will it improve my life? How will it make me feel? A third thing that you could do is to think about what goals or projects, personal or professional, are coming up down the line for you. So something like this could be helpful because you might want to reverse engineer and plan out a theme word or a phrase that could help you to navigate those particular things that are coming down the line. Once you’re generating a list, you know, I encourage you to come up with a list of like five to 10 potential words and then hone it in. And very fitting for the title of the podcast. Hone down and choose a word or two and then try using this fill in the blank phrase.

 

Kate Henry [00:21:39]:

The theme word blank can guide me by blank, or the theme word blank can improve my life by blank. Try that on and see how it feels to you remembering that you can always update this anytime. This is just a helpful tool and framework that can help you limit decision making and can help you to choose options that feel like they’re very supportive to you. The bonus step here that I would encourage you to explore is scheduling in time to reflect on your theme word to check in on how it’s working. Is it working? Do you like it? Have you totally forgotten that you chose a theme word in the first place? Do you want to hit the reset button and choose a new one? This could be a helpful thing for you to schedule into your calendar just so you can remember to do it. I used to choose theme words for every month and every quarter, and that was very fitting for me when I was writing blog posts about those theme words. But now it feels more appropriate for me to just choose a word of the year, or in our cases right now, a word for a particular quarter or season and just to try it out. So if you’re really into it, you could have a theme word every day.

 

Kate Henry [00:23:04]:

You could choose a theme word for a decade of your life, right? You could choose a word for your whole life. There’s no right or wrong way to do this, but I do invite you to give it a try if it’s something you feel curious about. I’ll include some links in the show notes that will share some more instructions about choosing a theme word. If you want to check those out. And thank you for joining me for my special birthday episode of Honing In. I will see you again very soon. Thanks so much for joining me. You can learn more about Honing in and my work as a productivity coach on my website, KateHenry.com Take Good Care.