Balance. Growth. Connection. Joy.

Anchoring intentions

Evening light on Hull Marina, one of my favourite places (C) Emma Pooley, 2025

I don’t make “resolutions” at the start of a new year. They don’t motivate or energise me; instead, they feel like a stick of unrealistic expectations to beat myself with, and conflict with my aim for ease and gentleness.

Since 2022, my workaround has been to set my intention with a ‘word of the year’, and use this word as a kind of anchor for navigating everyday life. Each word represents a shift and change within myself and my life over the last 4 years. They reflected what I needed, and marked the path I would go on to follow, and in this post, I’ll share the words I chose and some of the reasons why.

Balance (2022)

My very first ‘word of the year’ in 2022 was “balance”. I was feeling burnt out and stressed, and I felt like my whole being was consumed by my job. My identity was wrapped up in my role as a therapist, and I didn’t have any time or space to simply be me as “Emma”. Balance was what I desperately needed, and I realised that I had to make a conscious effort to find and create it for myself.

One of the biggest steps I took was to get support with the behind-the-scenes admin for my business. My Business Support Manager has been - and continues to be - one of the best investments I’ve made in creating more balance in my life. Knowing that she’s there in the background quietly keeping things ticking along, has given me the peace-of-mind to actually take time off (and out) when I want and need to, rather than when I feel forced to.

The other big step I took was to not only book time off into my diary in January for the full year, but to also take extended breaks in the summer and in December / January. This is a practice that I have continued to do in the years since, although I now take two weeks off in the summer and in December / January instead of three.

Finding a consistent balance with work is still an ongoing project, but one I’m determined to pursue, as my life feels so much richer and more fulfilling when there’s more to it than work.

Growth (2023)

Growth was an odd one. I bought my first house, which felt like - and was! - a massive step, and work kept coming, which was key to my being able to pay for a lot of the jobs that needed to be done to get it sorted out. It was incredibly freeing to know that the house was mine, and I could do whatever I wanted without needing to run it past a landlord, but also terrifying to know that every aspect of paying for it and maintaining it was my responsibility.

Getting the work done on the house was very draining and frustrating, particularly when problems emerged that could have been avoided. At times, the process around it really tapped into my old stuff about not being able to trust other people, and that I “didn’t deserve” for things to go well, which was incredibly challenging.

And yet, I found a new strength in managing the stress, and responded to the challenges in a very different way to how I would have done, even a couple of years before. There were a few things I learned along the way with this:

1) Trust my gut: if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t, and I can choose to use that information to protect myself. It’s in the moments when I haven’t trusted my gut that things have backfired spectacularly!

2) People want to help: this might seem obvious to most people, but I had been holding on to a belief of assuming that I would be burdening others if I asked them for help. In actual fact, the opposite was true, and I have been so grateful for all of the care, kindness and support that people have shown me.

3) Nothing is under control: I hide it well (sometimes!), but I really struggle when I feel out-of-control, and it’s taken me a long time to begin to trust that things will work out, even if I have to take the scenic route along the way! Life goes on regardless of what I might hope and wish for, and all I can really control is how I respond to it.

Another area of growth for me was in finding myself setting different boundaries, and shifting in terms of leaving work “at work” as much as possible. There were some difficult choices to be made, and things to let go of, but doing so freed up a vast amount of energy.

I enrolled on a Creative Arts course towards the end of 2023, and although I didn’t get what I hoped I’d get from it, I expected significant growth in an unexpected way. I found that I was able to call people out when something felt inauthentic or disingenuous in the moment, and was open and ready to explore it without assuming what it was about, or how they would respond to it.

Connection (2024)

As I moved into 2024, I found that there was a bit of an overlap between my previous intention of growth, and my fresh intention for connection. I officially completed the Creative Arts course, and submitted and passed my UKCP accreditation, which was an indication of my professional growth, and of my being able to enter the “magic circle” of UKCP’s ranks.

After four years of working together, I came to an end with my personal therapist in February 2024. It was a beautiful ending (we built a fire, and reflected on our relationship, and what had transpired over the years), and was absolutely the right time for it, but I felt like I was stepping into the void of the unknown. I’d been in therapy for eight years, and I didn’t know what my life would be like without it.

For some reason, I felt a pull to having a tarot reading, and reached out to a local person who offered them. Although we followed each other online, we’d never actually met, and so didn’t know each other at all. I had my reading with her shortly after finding out that I’d passed my accreditation, and it was a different form of connection, this time to myself and my intuitive “knowing”. The tarot reading gave me some valuable insights, and also some unexpected reassurance that I’m on the right path, whatever it is, and wherever it may lead.

Connection seemed to take the form of greater connection with myself, rather than forging new social connections, which had been my assumption for what would come from it. As much as I valued and appreciated this, it informed how I felt as I moved into 2025.

Joy (2025)

I settled on ‘Joy’ as my word of the year for 2025 because I found my world had been getting smaller, and much of my energy had been on work. During another round of mindless scrolling, I came across a question that proved to be pivotal this year: If we take away your work, what’s left?

It’s safe to say, I didn’t like the answer!

Instead of ignoring it, or denying it, or criticising myself for it, I decided to take responsibility for making sure I could give a genuinely different answer by the end of the year. I asked myself what I felt was fundamentally missing in my life, and I realised that I wasn’t making space for joy.

My version of what joy looks and feels like may be very different to yours, but here are some of the ways I’ve been making a conscious effort to find and make it for myself over the last 12 months:

• Embracing opportunities to travel: I’ve been fortunate to do a lot more travelling this year, sometimes for specific events (weddings, a stag do, birthdays), but also for the pure wonder of going somewhere new. The key places I’ve visited this year were: Amsterdam; Donegal; Dublin; Staffordshire; Filey; Whitby, and London. They say a change is as good as a rest, and I found that I came home feeling creatively energised and recharged after most of these trips.

• Pen pals: Possibly the biggest source of joy for me has been connecting with lots of people in London Writers' Salon through the joy of snail mail as pen pals. I’ve had pen pals throughout my life, but 2025 has been the year that I’ve truly harnessed the magic! Not only do I now have 35 of them, but I also host a sub-community within LWS that’s specifically for letter writers, which has been an unexpected bonus joy of the year.

• Choir: I hadn’t been in a choir since I was at primary school over 20 years ago, so joining one as an adult pushed me outside my comfort zone, that’s for sure! It’s great fun to be part of a group that sings together, and although I’m no Adele, I love the creative expression that comes with singing.

• Making time and space to read, write, create, and be with people I enjoy spending time with: It turns out that all of these things bring me vast amounts of joy, and being intentional about making time and space for them does wonders for my health and wellbeing! Slowing down, being more present, and simply being has enabled me to feel more grounded within myself than ever before.

• Getting out into nature: parks, woodland, beaches, lakes, anything that helped me to reconnect with the natural world has been joyful this year. I feel so much better when I’ve been out in the fresh air without the pressure and rush of “needing” to be anywhere, or do anything.

All of these things will continue to shape my life and the choices I make in the year ahead, and I’m so grateful to be able to connect with, and appreciate, them.

And for 2026?

My word of the year will be consistency, something I have an enduring love / hate relationship with! There are some areas of my life where being consistent has felt easy and natural, and many more where it’s felt unsustainable at best, impossible at worst.

Although I’ve been committing to regular PT sessions every week, I want to get back into going to the gym as well, but even committing to a daily walk would be a win. I think I’ll have to treat it like I’m taking a dog for a walk to keep it up! Any kind of movement makes a huge difference to my sleep and overall energy and headspace, so moving regularly is worth it.

I’ve been much more consistent with reading regularly, and want to keep this going in 2026. Making time for creative / fun hobbies and activities is something I’m determined to do this year, so I want to block regular time out to do so as I would for any other appointment. Even 30 minutes of something creative twice-a-week will be a huge improvement!

Substack is something I’m still figuring out, but I’m proud of myself for sticking to my commitment to post at least once-a-month. I would like to show up here more regularly if I can, but maintaining the habit of posting monthly is also good enough.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much for reading. I appreciate all of the support and encouragement I’ve received here, and I hope that you take something from any of the posts you read from me that speaks to you.

Sending you good wishes as we move into 2026,

Emma x