ANCHOR

My word for the year

ANCHOR

I’ve chosen ANCHOR as my word for 2026.

I don’t do resolutions. Did them years ago and they never worked for me. They mostly just left me feeling like a failure. I tried “intentions” too, but they felt a bit too woo-woo. So I’m giving a word for the year a go.

I spent some time thinking about it. I asked myself “what do I actually want to achieve this year?” Then I stopped myself. Do I really want this to be about achievement? Wouldn’t that just be another version of a resolution or an intention?

You see, I know how my brain works and that road leads straight to stress, anxiety, and failure. So instead I asked a different question. “What do I want this word to do?” I want something that gives me direction. Something that reminds me of who I already am, not who I think I should become. At 45, I think I’m finally quite happy with who I am!

So I landed on…

ANCHOR

Because the truth is, I’ve been drifting.

If you read my last post, you’ll know I came to a realisation about some deep, untended grief I didn’t know I’d been carrying. I also arrived at December already bone tired. Not just busy tired, but the kind that comes from holding too much at once. Different roles bleeding into one another. Responsibility creeping beyond what I’d actually agreed to. Keeping meaningful work going by force of will rather than structure.

That untended grief chose that moment to poke its head up and say, “Hi, I’m here. I’m the reason you’ve been struggling with this time of year for so long.”

The background weight I’d been moving around rather than acknowledging made itself impossible to ignore. There’s a particular irony in being fluent in grief and still missing it in yourself. Knowledge doesn’t protect you. Sometimes it just makes you efficient at coping until you realise how much effort that’s taking.

So ANCHOR is my response to noticing all of that.

It’s also more personal than I expected.

My Granda Bobby was a merchant seaman, although by the time I was born he no longer went to sea. Like many sailors, particularly of his generation, he had tattoos. Faded blue, unmistakably nautical. He died when I was 12, but I can still clearly remember his anchor tattoo.

He used to be ginger, apparently. By the time I came along, his hair had become more golden. For years, I genuinely believed he was Bobby Shafto from the nursery rhyme. In my logic, the name, the hair, the anchor all lined up. It felt entirely reasonable.

Also being brought up in a coastal town with a strong history of shipbuilding and a world class Marine College, anchors have just always felt familiar.

So looking back, it all feels fitting. An anchor isn’t just about the sea. It’s about movement that has already happened, and about choosing where to stop drifting.

There’s another layer to ANCHOR that sits a bit deeper still.

Somewhere underneath all of this is my faith. Not loudly. Not in a way that needs explaining or defending. Just steady. Jesus is my hope, the anchor for my soul. A quiet reminder that there is a foundation there, even when things feel unsettled.

I don’t need this year to be dramatic or transformative. I need it to be held.

An anchor isn’t about stopping change. It’s about deciding what you’re willing to stay connected to. It has weight because that weight is doing a job. Nothing about this work is light. Death, grief, endings, legacy. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make it kinder. It just makes it harder to sustain.

For a long time, I kept things afloat through flexibility and generosity. Some of that came from values. Some of it from habit. Some of it from a reluctance to say no, or to be seen as difficult, or to name the value of work that sits in emotionally demanding territory.

Important work still needs resourcing. It still costs something. When work goes unpaid, the cost doesn’t disappear. It simply shifts.

Choosing ANCHOR means grounding the work rather than stretching it thinner. It means fewer offerings shaped with care. Clearer boundaries. Pricing that reflects experience and emotional labour without apology. Generosity remains part of the picture, but it becomes intentional rather than assumed.

It also means anchoring myself.

This is the year I do the grief work properly. I want to untangle what’s been left unattended and I know that kind of work needs steadiness. It needs something solid to hold to while you let yourself feel what you’ve been carrying.

ANCHOR isn’t about stepping away.
It’s about staying.

Anchors don’t stop storms.
They stop you being lost in them.