Last weekend, a group of close friends and I spent a cold Saturday afternoon making candles. Before you pass judgment: it was one of the best afternoons of 2020. Socially distant, genuinely warm, filled with real conversation and real laughter. A few hours of the kind of fellowship we had all been missing. We owe a real debt of gratitude to Manitou Candle for hosting us.
But the most lasting thing I took home from that afternoon wasn't the candle. It was a question.
The Question That Started It All
While we worked at our stations, my friends Dave and Missy shared a tradition their family has been practicing for five years. Each December, they gather around a single question:
"What is your North Star for the next year?"
I let that roll around in my mind for a few minutes. A North Star. Not a resolution list. Not a goal spreadsheet. Not a vague promise to "do better." A single, orienting point of light that holds your direction no matter what the year throws at you.
In a year like 2020, that framing hit differently. We had all been through mountain tops and valleys, sometimes in the same week. The people who seemed to come through with the most clarity weren't necessarily the ones who had suffered least. They were the ones who had a direction to return to when the noise got loud.
The Text That Launched the Tradition
As Dave described it more, the exercise turned out to be beautifully simple. As December began, he sent his family a text. He shared it with me, and I want to share it with you, because it captures something worth adopting:
"Hey Fam, welcome to December, or as I'm calling it, 'Fun December.' I'm ready to close out the year. So, start thinking about: (1) One lesson you learned in 2020, (2) Your word for 2021, and (3) One BIG dream you would like to accomplish in 2021. This will be a fun discussion at Christmas."
Three prompts. A lesson, a word, and a dream. Simple enough to fit in a text message. Powerful enough to anchor the whole year to come.
One Lesson Learned: Look Back Before You Leap
The first prompt is the hardest one to sit with honestly. What did you actually learn in 2020? Not the lessons you intended to learn, or the ones that looked good in a year-end post. The ones that actually changed how you see things.
Some of what 2020 taught us was uncomfortable. We learned what relationships were built on substance and which ones evaporated under distance. We learned which of our habits were chosen and which were just byproducts of routine. We learned how much of our sense of identity was tied to places, roles, and rituals we assumed were permanent.
That kind of learning is worth naming before you move forward. Because you can't really close a chapter you haven't finished reading.
Sit with one lesson. Write it down. Not as a judgment on yourself or the year, but as an acknowledgment. You were in that year. It shaped you. Own what it taught you.
One Word: Your North Star
The second prompt is where the real work lives. Your word for the year isn't a slogan. It's a compass setting. It's the thing you come back to when you're confused about a decision, drained from a difficult season, or tempted to drift into someone else's direction for your life.
Choosing a word well takes more than ten minutes. It requires some honest reflection on who you want to be, not just what you want to do. The best words are ones that describe a quality of character or a way of engaging with the world, not a deliverable or an outcome.
My word for 2021 is Adventure. For me, it's permission to lean into the unknown instead of managing it. To treat uncertainty as terrain rather than threat. To bring a little more openness and a little less control to every area of my life.
Your word will be different. It should be. The right word is the one that quietly unsettles you in the best possible way, the one that feels a little bigger than you're currently living.
One Big Dream: Give Yourself Permission
The third prompt is the one most of us skip. A big dream. Not a stretch goal. Not a SMART objective. A dream, the kind that has some size and some risk and some genuine longing attached to it.
We tend to be careful about dreams. Careful about naming them out loud, because naming them out loud means they could fail. But here's what I've learned from working with leaders and teams for a long time: the people who make the most meaningful progress aren't the most cautious. They're the ones who gave a big dream a name and then let that name pull them forward.
Your dream for 2021 doesn't need to be perfectly formed. It needs to be honest. What would you pursue if you fully believed you could? Write that down. Let the question stay open. The point isn't to engineer a path to it on December 18th. The point is to give it a place in your year so it has a fighting chance to become real.
Why This Works Better Than a Resolution List
Traditional New Year's resolutions fail at a predictable rate because they're structured around outcomes rather than orientation. They tell you what to do but give you nothing to return to when motivation runs low or circumstances shift.
A lesson, a word, and a dream work differently. The lesson keeps you honest about where you've been. The word gives you a direction that travels with you everywhere, into hard meetings, difficult conversations, and uncertain seasons. The dream gives you something worth orienting toward that is bigger than any single day's circumstances.
The practical suggestion from my wife Amy and me: do this exercise with your family. Face to face if you can. Over a video call if you can't. The conversation itself is part of the value. When you hear someone else name their word, it often unlocks something in you that you didn't know you were looking for.
The Candles on My Shelf
I took that Saturday afternoon's candle-making session and turned it into something intentional. I put my word on the candle. Each time I light it, it's a reminder of three things: that there is light available to us even in the darkest moments, that my word is a living direction not a decoration, and that I have a dream worth pursuing in 2021.
You don't need a candle to do this. You need a quiet hour, something to write with, and the willingness to be honest with yourself. That's the whole exercise.
Three Conversations to Help You Find Your Word
If you want some inspiration before you settle on your word, these three Braintrust podcast conversations have each anchored around a theme that might become yours. Each one can be distilled into a single word, and each word has changed how I see things.
Hope: Are You Afraid of Hope? with Dr. Rick Rigsby. If hope has felt dangerous or naive to you lately, this conversation will recalibrate that. Hope isn't wishful thinking. It's a discipline.
Purpose: The Path to Purpose with Ben Malcolmson. Purpose isn't something you find. It's something you walk toward, one step at a time, often without knowing the full route in advance.
Change: If You're Gonna Lead, LEAD! with Linda Cliatt-Wayman. If your word this year has anything to do with courage, change, or conviction, this one is required listening.
Your Turn: Find Your Word and Live Your Dream
From everyone at Braintrust: we hope your holiday season is full of warmth, real connection, and the kind of rest that actually restores you. Thank you for reading these posts, listening to our podcasts, and being part of this community throughout a year none of us will forget.
We'll see you in 2021. Come in with a word. Come in with a dream. And come in willing to let what 2020 taught you actually matter.
Find your word. Live your dream.
If you'd like to talk about how NeuroCoaching can help your leadership team enter the new year with greater clarity, direction, and cohesion, start a conversation with us. We'd love to hear what word you're carrying into 2021.
