At the end of 2024, I picked one word to guide every decision in 2025: forward.
Forward in thought, forward in action.
You see, forward was my word of the year.
It would be my North Star for the year, shining a light on the person I wanted to be.
I've long found favour with a one word lodestar. It simplifies complicated goals and defines purpose with ease — whatever the word. In the past, I've used words like deliberate to guide me.
But for 2025, I'd chosen forward.
I have a habit of pondering the past. Every reflection became a glance in the mirror of something I couldn't change.
I'd also become increasingly distracted.
All too often, my attention shifted from the long-term to the short-term. Desires that gave me dopamine hits often took me away from what was important.
Chasing follower growth on X, or LinkedIn, or seeking sales over building a community; that was me in 2024.
I know the value of playing long-term games, but rarely had I seen the results.
I was impatient with the wrong things.
In a moment of stupid enlightenment, I realised it was because I wasn't being patient enough.
So, for 2025, I decided to become forward. That is forward in thought, word, and deed.
Always forward thinking. Always forward acting.
That was my North Star.
As a decision-maker, a word of the year can keep you focused on what matters in your biggest calls, not just your habits. It's worked for me, and here’s the simple process I use:
One other point hit me early in 2025.
I should only play long-term games with things that really interest me. There is no point in chasing something that didn't excite me.
I had dropped my old decision-making blog in 2024. And despite playing with a new project, it didn't speak to my curiosity the way decision-making did.
So I started www.decision-mastery.com in February.
I was able to republish articles from my previous project, but with a more purposeful name.
It will be a long-term project. I have and will continue questioning the way we make decisions so I can help others make better ones in the future.
But, the biggest shift has been with my health.
There isn't a better long-term game than the one of being healthy. After all, you can't expect to win long-term bets if you're dead.
For the last decade or so, I've been trying to be fitter without achieving it.
This year, that changed.
I've lost 28lbs (2 stone), increased my VO2 Max to above 40 and dropped several clothing sizes.
But despite these wins, the year has still left me with some challenges.
I'm a sucker for attention.
I've had more re-starts on LinkedIn than James Dyson did building his first vacuum cleaner.
LinkedIn feels like a shiny object to me.
There is a potential audience I should and could reach with my chosen niche.
But every time I play, I forget the rules of consistency. Instead, I focus on those uncontrollable metrics of likes, comments and followers. I become hooked on seeing the red dots of notifications light up my phone screen.
Even when I deleted the app, I still visited the webpage to see what was going on.
One day, I realised it was a game I couldn't play.
I lacked the resistance to ignore the dopamine hits on offer. It was a shiny object, and worse, I couldn't get it to be the forward looking activity I wanted it to be.
My other weakness is screen time.
I've been in a battle all year to keep it below 3 hours.
I know, compared to the kids of today, I'm a light user.
But I'm a distracted person, averaging 100 pickups a day. For the 16 hours I'm awake, I pick my phone up once every ten minutes.
I cringe at my distracted state. I'm no more present than my dead relatives.
The stupid thing is that when I pick up the phone, it's rarely to do anything with real purpose.
My intent is to know what I'm missing out on. What notifications might feed my need for dopamine?
So there you go. It appears I'm an attention junkie.
The word 'forward' has served me well, and at times, not so well.
So, where does that leave my word for 2026?
I'm an overthinker — especially when it comes to writing.
I chase quality without quantity. Seeking hacks from AI to create and craft new content for the website. I dwell on the topic, or the keyword, without focusing on the creation.
I realise this isn't how I win. It isn't how I grow traffic and build an audience.
The only way I can do that is to produce content myself.
Produce has a simple meaning: to cause a result or situation to exist or happen.
What I realise is how this word extends beyond content. It anchors the responsibility of everything I do to me.
It's on me to produce my life, my health, my wealth, my happiness and my content.
I am the product of my decisions (now that's a framing I can get behind).
I'm planning on using “produce” to help me control my environment. That includes cancelling work that doesn’t produce meaningful results.
It doesn't matter whether that’s a standing meeting, a report, or a half-hearted side project. I'll cancel it.
My lodestar lives in one simple question: Does this help me produce something I value, or just make me feel busy?
Mike Hawkins says it best:
You don't get results by focusing on results. You get results by focusing on the actions that produce results.
So if you do choose a word this year, don’t just name it.
Use it to change one action in your next important decision at work—and see what happens.
