I wrote about my word of the year for 2025 back in December. My word is novelty. I thought about my progress the other day when I saw the reminder note I keep posted in my office. To be honest, I’d give myself a grade of C+ on pursuing my goal of seeing new things, having new experiences and trying new routines. Life has a way of taking over the plans we try to make for ourselves. Instead of beating myself up, or giving up, for not excelling at my goal, I’ve decided to revisit it and make it more manageable.
As most writers do, I wrote down my ideas. I thought about the different ways we experience novelty. It quickly became clear that most involve at least one of our five senses. So I broke down my goal into different ways I could explore novelty with my five senses in mind. I also determined that even paying attention to things we usually ignore is a form of novelty so I included those as well, hoping they’d also make me more mindful and present.
I’m sharing my list with you. I hope it will give you ideas for novel experiences you could incorporate into your life. Or maybe you could revisit your word of the year, or goal for the year and not punish yourself if you haven’t been giving it the attention you hoped you would.
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