If you have been a reader for any length of time, you know that words are my friends and I am always on the lookout for a new ten dollar word with great meaning. I believe that I’ve stumbled upon another beautiful one in 2026!
I have loved how many friends have asked if I have chosen my words of the year yet and gave input into what they would like to suggest. Life is a group project and I’m here for it!
As always, it started with a giant list of words, thought bubbles, and images. I think through the word, the sound of the word, the imagery of it, what Bible verse it would resonate with, and how it is different from my previous years’ words. My 2025 words of the year were Blossoming Moxie and all about being planted, growth, and pacing myself. It felt to me like the preparation in 2025 could allow more movement and a bigger journey in 2026, so sojourn, travel, and wanderlust imagery started to fill the page.
Words from other languages are not excluded either so for a time selcouth was on the short list meaning “unfamiliar, rare, strange, and yet marvelous.” As was vagary “an unpredictable instance, a wandering, whimsical journey.” Bravery, moxie, gumption, and grit seem to be perennial ambitions for me so they made the list too. I almost always seek something in the realm of whimsy to substantiate joy so I jotted down fanciful, playful, quirky, lighthearted, childlike, mischievous, and glimmer because we can train our brains to look for what can go right or where the “wins” are rather than what can go wrong. This skill is my very own serotonin booster life hack!
In the end, the writer in me could not say no to a beautiful word and an alliterative phrase so I have chosen Courageous Coddiwompling for my words of the year in 2026 🙂 To Coddiwomple (for anyone who does not read the dictionary for fun like me) means to travel purposefully toward an as-yet-unknown destination. If you would like to grammar nerd out with me for a moment, I purposefully chose the present participle form of this verb as it connotes ongoing action, not just something done once, which is so true for life as perseverance and courage have to be repeatedly chosen. Coddiwompling implies action, intentionality, purposeful choice, and valuing the experience of the journey over arrival at the destination. This is only heightened when paired with the word courage. Sometimes the courage to coddiwomple comes in taking the first step. Sometimes it comes when you don’t know the outcome, but set out wholeheartedly anyway. Sometimes, it comes in retracing steps when you didn’t end up where you thought you would. To coddiwomple is to live.
As a researcher, I have a strong desire to data collect and know the outcome of every choice. I do a fair amount of work to prevent negative outcomes from happening in my life, but I cannot always prevent them. It crushed me when I bought my home and immediately had both health and financial trials from this choice because I had done so much work to prevent such a fate! I felt like I had done something wrong and it has taken quite some time to recover from this unintended destination. I wanted to know the outcome far more than I was willing to enjoy the journey there. I still find myself fighting this tendency – desiring profound assurance of where I will end up, which sometimes prevents me from even being willing to start the journey.
So in 2026, I’m choosing to courageously coddiwomple. To step out in faith even when I don’t know the exact destination because I trust that God is both with me in the journey and present at the destination. I am not alone; I can choose courage. I can take the journey of life, which for all of us has unknown turns and through courageous coddiwompling, I’m choosing to reframe them as “taking the scenic route” instead of “wow, what an inefficient detour!” So it’s true, I don’t know what 2026 holds for me, but I’m taking the first step to find out with all my might!
How could you choose to courageously coddiwomple this year?
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:8-9