2026 word of the year: Intentional

As I was scrolling through YouTube recently, a video jumped out at me of a creator who was sharing their word of the year for 2026. I scrolled right on by and mentally said, "I'm not doing that this year."

Yet here I am writing about my word of the year.

Don't take this as an encouragement to do the same for yourself. You do you. The word/words of the year practice is only necessary if you're motivated by it. I've been keen in the past, but I didn't think I was this year.

After I realized that I was saying intention/intentional several times a day, I realized that IS my word of the year.

What does "intentional" mean for me?

There are a few reasons this is important to me in this moment:

Focus

As an ADHDer, I have a tendency to flit between a variety of interests. In my work, this is an asset because the variety of skills and experience I can use to support my clients is invaluable. I can give more comprehensive advice and even lend a hand in getting the work done at times.

In the hours that are designated to my personal life, I have used intentionality over the past year to embrace hobbies outside of reading again. For most of my adult life, my most consistent hobby has been reading and, sometimes, writing. But I learned how to crochet and knit as a kid. I also learned cross stitch and a few other crafty things, along with some very basic sewing skills.

2025 was the year I finished more crochet projects than I ever even tried in the 40 years since my mom taught me. I made two large blankets (started a third large afghan - still in progress), finished my first wearable (outside a scarf) - a capelet I wore to the 2025 BYA gala, began four sweaters (one for my husband, one for my kid, two for me - the kid's is finished, and the others are all close), and there are other projects either in progress or finished. I'm also doing a lot of experimentation, including a wall hanging for a particular purpose that I'll probably share here at some point.

Creating in a different way has been so much fun. There have been days when I've been so hyper focused on a project that I crocheted until my left hand was too sore to keep going (0/10 would not recommend but I have no regrets). The projects I'm working on this year are mostly finishing WIPs (work in progress) I've started and making some more wearables for me and the family. I'm so excited!

As you can see, focus isn't my forte when it comes to staying on task with a single project, but the intention is to create in a way that allows me to get completely away from fast fashion, make things for others (like curly scarves for some dear friends), make my own clothing, and occupy my hands when I'm doing things like watch movies, TV or listening to podcasts or books. Fidgeting helps me process better, so it's a win-win.

Priorities, boundaries, and reading again

Last year, I hit a wall called burnout. Between the global COVID pandemic (that's still killing people), supporting my family through two significant losses in just over a year, trying to keep a business going, and the regular day-to-day needs in life, and watching the horror of the news (genocides and fascism in my home country), I overextended myself mentally and emotionally.

Compassion fatique and feeling powerless, along with the worries about the economy tipped me over into a pretty serious state of burnout toward the end of June 2025. I'm much better, but this has given me a real wake up call about what I devote energy to each day. I started consuming less news, and spending more time with my family.

I turned some of my learning/reading focus to topics that help me learn more about ideas with less emphasis on traumatic events (such as exploring ways to structure the world or care for others). Where traumatic events have shaped ideas (such as feminism, anti-racism, inclusivity, the rights of trans people, etc.), I turn to authors like bell hooks, Grace Blakeley, Sara Ahmed, Desmond Cole, and others who advocate for a world that values all humans in theory and in practice.

Setting boundaries meant it took me over a year to read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein, but sometimes I just needed to take a break and burn through some light fiction from Abby Jimenez or laugh through Vera Wong's attempts to solve murders (courtesy of Jesse Q. Sutanto). Then I might lolsob my way through devastating history through the incredible storytelling of Michael Harriot, author of Black AF History. Somewhere in there, I'll fit in books covering my special interests of technology and AI; books like Karen Hao's Empire of AI, or Enshittification by Cory Doctorow.

In 2025, I finally got back to reading like my pre-pandemic self, and it felt amazing. Since 2020, I have struggled to read anything non-fiction and most fiction as well. But my reading mojo is back and I'm reading all the books I've been collecting that went unread.

Because I've gone so long with this block, I knew I needed to make a plan for 2026 because I'm like a kid in a candy store right now. Or a Karen in a bookstore. I once read over 300 books one year. I know this because I was able to confirm how many I checked out of the library and I knew I'd read over 300 of them. I was really, really bored and spent a lot of time on buses that year. In a normal year, I used to regularly read anywhere from 40-100 books, depending on what's going on. There are always books I've read that I don't bother recording.

My Storygraph record shows I read:

• 2020 = 20 books
• 2021 = 0 books
• 2022 = 0 books
• 2023 = 1 book
• 2024 = 6 books (this is when I got serious about getting back into reading)
• 2025 = 93 books (I set a goal of 12 books and kept increasing it)

Comparing 2024 and 2025 shows the stark difference between my pandemic block and when it finally lifted.

It may seem like I'm motivated by the number, but I'm a bit of a data nerd. When you add in how much effort it's taken me to get back to myself when it comes to reading, I guess I'm just excited to dig into all those books I mentioned. Planning out what I'm reading each month is both a joy and so hard! I wish reading was my job, to be honest.

There are so many things I want to learn and stories I want to read, which is relevant to this next part. 👇🏻

Community

I'm fortunate to live in Ottawa, Ontario where I've had the pleasure of connecting with so many beautiful humans. I pinch myself all the time that I chose to live in a place I love and feel I belong.

As I've watched what's going on in the world—and talked about it with many of those aforementioned people I'm so grateful for—the need for community couldn't be more prevalent. When I've had discussions about it, there's usually enthusiastic agreement.

In a world as fucked up as ours, knowing you're not alone is essential. Building communities that care for each other is a key part of resisting. It gives us a productive way to focus our time and energy.

I have a (paid) community as part of my business with my friend Sherry Crummy where we provide a space for business owners who want support and accountability for marketing their business. I started it in 2021 and it's my favourite thing I've done in my business because it's based on radical generosity.

In the next few weeks, I'm going to start reaching out to people I know to see if they want to come to a pub and have a chat about ideas. It's like a book club but without the pressure of reading any particular book, or any book at all. We're going to cover topics like burnout, feminism, technology, capitalism, and anything else folks are interested in talking about.

This group is something I've been mulling over for a couple months and it solidified when I read The Book Club for Troublesome Women by Marie Bostwick. I was further inspired as I read Feminism is for Everybody: passionate politics by bell hooks and learned about consciousness raising groups that helped spread the concepts of feminism before it became more academic and corporatized.

The key thing for me is meeting in-person. Our online discourse can be so dehumanizing more often than not. I've reached a point that I don't want to spend time on social media, and that's after deleting all my Meta-owned accounts.

Final thoughts

2025 was a year of feeling our way through a lot of changes. We didn't always know enough to set clear intentions. In some ways we still don't. I believe being in community with others can help.

Find your people and hold on - we need each other more than ever.

Karen 💜