Word Of The Year

Well, actually, as we're recording this, we're not certain we got there, but we're recording this early, so we're hoping we got there, but if you're listening to this we're being too confident. I know. If you're listening to this, we got there, yay! Happy New Year everybody. I'm Holly Wainwright. I'm Mia Freedman, I'm Jessie Stevens. Today's the day regular Outlouders will know, and our new, our beloved.

New Outlouders might need a little bit of guidance, but today is the day when every year, for the past, I don't know, like 5 years, I reckon at least 5, we jump on our, our microphones to share with you our words of the year and to hear some of yours, because we did away with resolutions, New Year's resolutions, ages ago at Mamma Mia Outloud because they're a bit mean, they're about stopping doing things you love, starting doing things you don't really want to do.

Instead, we choose a word. I think my daughter, my 11 year old daughter would call it a vibe. Yeah, it is a vibe. We were on the vibe. You pick a vibe for 2022. We choose a word that is gonna be our vibe for the year. It acts sometimes as a, a filter to uh sift decisions through. It's like a mantra, yep, sometimes you remind yourself, sometimes you get it tattooed on your wrist in Sanskrit, although that hasn't happened lately. Not yet. Mia might do it this year.

So, before we reveal our words of the year for the year, which in my case is gonna be a little challenging, cos I don't know what it is yet, it's gonna come to me during the show, we're going to look back on the words that we did choose for 2021. Mia Freedman, what was your word of the year last year? My word of the year was friendship. And it's not been a great year. It was the longest period of your entire life where you weren't allowed

to see your friends, so that's cool. Exactly, but at the same time it was a time when my group chats got me through a very long lockdown, but I haven't been able to see my closest friends for a really long time. One lives in Washington, one lives in Melbourne, one lives in Brisbane, actually a couple live in Melbourne. And so I felt very far from my friends this year. So I don't know if I could say that it's

gone great. Did you change any of your, like, lockdown aside, which I know is a pretty big aside, did you change any of your friendship behaviors? That's a great question.

I don't think I did, and I think I probably need to, because I remember feeling this time last year that Texting wasn't enough and that I needed to prioritize actually seeing my friends and so I was looking at on Instagram three sort of friends of mine, Bronwyn McCann, Zoe Foster Blake, and Justine Cullen, they're like best friends and they do this thing where they get together every so often and have a staycation and they hadn't done it for ages and they posted all these photos of them.

You know, without their children, just, I don't know if they shared a room. It looked like they were sharing a bed, but I'm not sure. I know, but it just made it look like a slumber party and it just reminded me that so much of the fun of friendship is that hanging out time. It's not like sitting

down at a restaurant where it's quite intense. It's just the sort of the incidental time when you're just hanging around on your phones and you just go, hey, look at this and And then Sally Hepworth told me that she went on a yoga retreat with a couple of her friends, and none of them even do yoga, but it was just a way of having that quantity time rather than these small bursts. So I thought, hm, I wanna try to do that more. Are you gonna carry a bit of

friendship into your new one? Yeah, I think I should. Jessie Stevens, it's been a big year for you. 2021, big year for Jessie Stevens. Uh, you weren't the next big thing in January 2021. No. Yeah, we're sitting here in January 2022 as the next big thing, as the next big thing. Remind us of what your word was so that we can decide if it helped. It was kindness. Oh that's I don't remember it having anything to do with that, but I what I remember

is all our words were very feely. They were very feely and I can't quite remember, I think I was just feeling like I wasn't doing enough to be kind. Go out of my way, exactly, it's like I feel as though often I think of something really kind to do and then I don't do it. So the thoughts are there, which is good for your brain. Exactly, which is I'm halfway there, but then I get embarrassed, I get shy or busy, and I don't do it.

So I really wanted to focus more on that. In some ways, I suppose there were moments, not really. OK, um, during, see this isn't even kind of, this is gonna sound so petty, but, um, when I was when I was in lockdown, I would be sent the odd PR thing. And so one day I sent all these like snacks and stuff, and I knew that I wasn't gonna eat them all, so I chopped it all up and put them in different things and left them on the doorsteps of everyone on my level in my building cause I

was like, oh, they'd like that. Anyway, I didn't think it was a big deal because it was also a bit selfish cause I was like, I don't want this going off in my house, so I'm just gonna give it to other people. The man across from me, who's maybe 70 and lives alone, came to my door.

24 hours later with this incredible bottle of sparkling wine and was like, that was just the kindest thing, thank you so much, that meant so much to me a lovely thing to do because it's not like you said it's not a big thing, but it's thoughtful and thoughtful is important. Yeah, so that's been quite like there's been sort of moments that I did that one thing, yeah, but I definitely need to do more of it. I think about being kind a lot, I just.

I know, I wanna volunteer or something, I don't know. Whole, my word was family and I nailed it because I think you actually jinxed all of us. My word was family. I was like, go spend more time with the family. And then I moved to a place where my family were the only people I knew and we got locked in our houses for, yes, 3 months. So, you know, that really sorted that out for me, I think, and now. Job well done. Yeah, job well done. The universe had

more to do with it than me. Did you know, when you chose that word, had you already decided you were gonna move, or was it still like getting a fringe, something that you would talk about a lot, but you didn't think would happen? We were, we wanted to, but we had not made a decision and we hadn't found anywhere to move to and all those things, so no. And it's interesting because, I mean, as anyone who listens to the show knows, lockdown, well it's not any of

our favorite state, let's remember. But last lockdown, the one previous lockdown in Sydney, I was quite unwell in my mind. And then this one we had more space and although it was very challenging because I thought, oh my God, we've cut as a family, we've cut ourselves off from family of other kinds, like friends and family. I think what I realized halfway through is one day I'm gonna look back at this time, that time we moved to the country and went into lockdown and only had each other.

I'm gonna look back at it and think it was special, and I think I realized that halfway through, so I probably appreciated it more. Now I'm worried I've made a rod for my back because, now that I have moved and I come up to Sydney for work quite a lot, my family, they want me around. Whereas previously I had trained them all that mummy isn't here. Oh, so now there's pushback about you leaving. They were used to mummy not being around very much, and well mummy's riding now, and now it's like,

What do you mean you're going away again? I need you here so that I can tell you every boring thing that happened to me the dog. The dogs who suddenly like, what do you mean you're leaving the house? Where are you going? So I think I can say I nailed it, but I can't take all the credit for it. Hi, Mamma Mia Outloud. This is Haley from Arkansas in the United States, and my word of the year is me, and it's me for two reasons. One, because of the

typical mom things. I've been a stay at home mom for 4 years now, and I've completely lost my sense of self and identity outside of being a mom, and this year I want to focus on finding me again. The other thing is that I am losing my sight. I have a condition called retinitis pigmentosa, and I'm going blind, and I'm at the point where I need to use a cane and all the other things, and I've always been hyper-conscious of how that makes other people around me uncomfortable.

No more. Me, me first. If it makes other people, Uncomfortable, they are the problem, not me, and I've got to keep reminding myself that, and this year I want to focus on that. We've heard a lot of the out louder's words. We're coming to the point where we have to declare our words.

Now we all, the way we do this out loud is so you know, is none of us know what the other word is, not least because we hadn't decided before we walked into the room, so if we did try to tell each other, it would have been an interesting conversation. Holly still doesn't know. She's gonna develop her word. I love how we pitched this whole thing as this very thought process with so much care. It's, I just can't decide. Alright, Jessie Stevens, go first. What is your word for 2022, go.

It's an ugly one, but it's a necessary one for Jessie. It's discipline. Now I've chosen discipline. It's not unlike my 2020 word, which was productivity, which I knew that I needed to get better at. This is different. And in fact this is related to something that Mia was talking about recently, which was your theory about how in the wake of the pandemic, we all have a desire for tighter control over what we can control than ever before. My thing pointless, exactly.

And my thing with discipline is that I've shifted at work to doing 3 days, so that on the other 2 days, I can do projects, I'm writing a new book, I've got, you know, certain things that I need to get done. Self-discipline has never been more important, and it can be very hard, yes, very, very hard, because the thing is as well, you're like, I might just jump on see what work's doing, I might check my email, and then the day's gone, and that can be very, very dangerous.

And you also go, oh well, I'm not at work on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I'll Schedule my hair appointments and my doctor and I'm actually gonna change the way I say the word, uh, I, I talk about those days because I often say, oh, that's my day off, and it's not my day off. So I'm like that's not my day off, it might be the day that I am at home, but I need that day to be incredibly structured in order to form, we've talked a lot this year about uh habit.

And so even in terms of, I wanna take the thinking out of every day. I don't wanna decide whether I'm exercising or decide what I'm having for lunch. Like, I just want self-discipline that it sort of becomes easy cause the foundations are all set, so I don't feel guilty every minute. So my, my theory on this is that routine eliminates the need for discipline, cause I don't have discipline, but I am.

Routine obsessed. I lean into routine heavily, so I can't, like I've been having the same thing for breakfast for many, many years, and I've been having the same thing for lunch. It started during the pandemic and I can't stop, and even on weekends, it's two pieces of peanut butter toast and a cup of tea and an apple. And I can't stop and because the more I, so I'm noticing since coming out of lockdown, I've become more and more structured with my routine and I think that

is about discipline. And it's about control. It's about feeling to make a decision what should I have for breakfast, should I work, should I not, it's like no, these are and that's where it comes back to that. You know, your I don't list. I was listening to a podcast with Sally Hepworth where she was talking about how she has certain rules around like she doesn't meet people for lunch or breakfast or coffee during the week. She just doesn't. Because people can be like, Oh, Tuesday,

oh yeah, let's catch up. It's like treating it a bit like a, a sort of a weekend. Tuesdays and Thursdays, it's like a little bit of a pretend weekend. And I think it's also about spending time intentionally, and that's when I talked about productivity in 2020. It was like, there is no worse feeling than realizing hours just went and you didn't spend it intentionally, which is whether you were scrolling through your phone or just doing

something to pass the time. I just, Yeah, I wanna know what I'm, I'm wanna do and then just get it done. Discipline. Jessie Stevens, let it enter the record. Mia. My word is a word that you two will laugh at because you've heard me say it so much, but we'll be new to Outlouders, and my word is juice. Oh, you're obsessed. This is our new, if, if anyone who works at Mamma Mia and is in Mia's orbit.

Has been hearing. So there's a saying about, and it's around productivity I think, but it's around, is the juice worth the squeeze, right? So that's basically saying the effort you put into something is what you get out of it worth it. And that's how you decide, well, am I putting my effort in the right places, or am I, is my effort the right kind of effort? And I've sort of twisted that, cause everyone that I work with, and me

and everyone I know puts in huge effort. That's not a question, but it's like, are we getting enough juice? How do we get more juice from the squeeze? So it's about work. Working smarter and not harder. Correct. Correct, cause my lord, everybody's working hard enough. But I think about what I do, and if I create a piece of content, for example, how can I get more juice out of it than

just that one thing that goes on Instagram? Can it be a piece of written content that also I make into a video, that also we talk About on out loud, that maybe I do in my newsletter. And I don't mean repeating things, but I mean, we're all spread, certainly if you work in the media, you spread it across so many different platforms that you think there's not really, because of the demands, you, as you've said many times, Jessie, it's table stakes, and you've said

hold to. It's, you gotta be everywhere. But how can you, instead of making individual things for everyone, how can you make like a batch of cupcakes rather than like one cake for one person? Um, scaling up. So I've just mixed juice and cake, which is making me very hungry. Are there any other applications to this, do you think, like in your personal life? Oh, I don't like are there other areas where you know you could like, in the family world or in friendship world you could include,

Squeeze. Every time your child tells you a story, just be like, is this juice worth the squeeze? Like, is the time that you're taking to tell me this story about your day, interesting enough. Actually, did you see, I think it was Michelle Laurie on Instagram this week said I've told my kids they've gotta lift their chat game. It's so true. You pick them up sometimes and they're like blah blah blah. You're like, is this worth my time? That's so true, I love that. You should have implement

it at home and see what happens. Is this squeeze worth the juice that is not juice trickling out of it. Now I would like to put some money on the fact that in 3 months when we tell Mia her word is juice, she will have forgotten what it means. Yes, yeah, you'll think you endeavored to drink more juice really confused. Yeah, it's true. I've worked it out. I've worked it out. What is it? It's big. I want to have a big fucking year. That's interesting cos it wasn't 2020, can you remember what

your word was? Less. So you've gone from we went too little. It was less family big, right? I want it to be big in lots of ways, because, so we've made this big decision in our family to relocate and I'm recalibrating things and that's great, but that doesn't mean life has to be small. Like life can be big because what I was thinking is, so this year I've struggled a lot with confidence, right? That sounds quite defensive.

I've struggled a lot with confidence this year. I'm writing a book, hopefully by the time you listen to this, I've nearly finished it, and I'm like, oh, I don't go, and I've talked to some people about it and they've all said the same thing. You've gotta believe that it can be big. What's the point? It's a bit like juice and squeeze. What's the point? And not necessarily that that means that the book has to be big, but even then, see, I'm talking myself

out of it already. But like, not that the book necessarily has to be big, but that if anything is worth doing, it's worth doing big. Like we're gonna go on tour, right? In 2022 we're going. If we're gonna go on tour and I'm gonna be away from my family and we're gonna go then it's gonna be big dance. It's gonna be the biggest. I want back-up dancers. Also, uh, fireworks, machines, pyrotechnics, costumes what you wish for. Like, and it can be big in personal ways too, like I wanna see my family,

for fuck's sake, I wanna see my family. I wanna leave the country. I wanna leave the country. I want big dreams, big plans plans. Like people, I've met some people lately who you go, you know, they're the people who run at life, it doesn't necessarily mean they've got a big career or whatever, it means that maybe, In their personal life, their family life, whatever, they go hard, they do it right, big this year, big. I love that.

Enter the record. Look at her 2022. I feel as Holly's been speaking, she's kind of like sat up and she's, she's become bigger in her presence. I feel like Holly's in a mood. She's now having a hot flush and she's, she's excited herself too much. She overexcited herself. She needs a fan. Big birthday, birthday, so big hormone. 2022, I think we all need a big year after a couple of very weird years. One of the best words I've heard recently was my twin sister Claire had

her word for 2021 was risk. And every decision she made, she is a very safe, calculated person. Every decision she made was through that prism. It's been so exciting to watch her grow by taking a series of risks. So I think that that's also a good one to put in the mix if you're trying to find a word. That's it, we've got our words for 2022. Thank you for helping us along out loud as we hope, we can't predict anything. We said last year, let's hope it's

different to the one before. Who knows what's gonna happen, but it was different, it was worse. Let's not hope it's different. That's not what we. One thing is for sure, we're gonna be here. This is who we are, we're gonna do it together, we love you. Thank you for starting the new year with us. Thank you to Emma Gillespie, our incredible producer. Thank you to Eliza Ratliff, our amazing EP. Please share your, please share

your words in the group. We want some info, we want everyone to decide what their word is, tell us why it's your word, we wanna know. Let us know. Bye, bye.