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Speaker 2: Hi Mamma Mia Outloud, it's Susannah from Melbourne. My word
Speaker 2: for 2022 is flow. If I've learned anything this year,
Speaker 2: things just do not always go to plan, so for
Speaker 2: this coming year, I am just going to go with it. Alright,
Speaker 2: so my word of the year is fun.
Speaker 2: I'm going to have so much fun in my life
Speaker 2: because if we don't have fun, then life is pretty
Speaker 2: damn boring and it's been a really tough year.
Speaker 1: Hi there Outlouders. My name's Alicia. I'm from Melbourne and
Speaker 1: I wanted to share my word for 2022, which is light.
Speaker 1: It's been,
Speaker 1: A crazy two years for everyone and I really feel
Speaker 1: that 2022 is going to be the year of expansion,
Speaker 1: of possibility, of joy, and of life. So let there
Speaker 1: be light. Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: Hello out louders and happy New Year to you. We
Speaker 1: got there, we got there.
Speaker 1: Well, actually, as we're recording this, we're not certain we
Speaker 1: got there, but we're recording this early, so we're hoping
Speaker 1: we got there, but if you're listening to this we're
Speaker 1: being too confident. I know. If you're listening to this,
Speaker 1: we got there, yay! Happy New Year everybody. I'm Holly Wainwright.
Speaker 1: I'm Mia Freedman, I'm Jessie Stevens. Today's the day regular
Speaker 1: Outlouders will know, and our new, our beloved.
Speaker 1: New Outlouders might need a little bit of guidance, but
Speaker 1: today is the day when every year, for the past,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like 5 years, I reckon at least 5,
Speaker 1: we jump on our, our microphones to share with you
Speaker 1: our words of the year and to hear some of yours,
Speaker 1: because we did away with resolutions, New Year's resolutions, ages
Speaker 1: ago at Mamma Mia Outloud because they're a bit mean,
Speaker 1: they're about stopping doing things you love, starting doing things
Speaker 1: you don't really want to do.
Speaker 1: Instead, we choose a word. I think my daughter, my
Speaker 1: 11 year old daughter would call it a vibe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a vibe. We were on the vibe. You
Speaker 1: pick a vibe for 2022. We choose a word that
Speaker 1: is gonna be our vibe for the year.
Speaker 1: It acts sometimes as a, a filter to uh sift
Speaker 1: decisions through. It's like a mantra, yep, sometimes you remind yourself,
Speaker 1: sometimes you get it tattooed on your wrist in Sanskrit,
Speaker 1: although that hasn't happened lately. Not yet. Mia might do
Speaker 1: it this year.
Speaker 1: So, before we reveal our words of the year for
Speaker 1: the year, which in my case is gonna be a
Speaker 1: little challenging, cos I don't know what it is yet,
Speaker 1: it's gonna come to me during the show, we're going
Speaker 1: to look back on the words that we did choose
Speaker 1: for 2021. Mia Freedman, what was your word of the
Speaker 1: year last year? My word of the year was friendship.
Speaker 1: And it's not been a great year. It was the
Speaker 1: longest period of your entire life where you weren't allowed
Speaker 1: to see your friends, so that's cool. Exactly, but at
Speaker 1: the same time it was a time when my group
Speaker 1: chats got me through a very long lockdown, but I
Speaker 1: haven't been able to see my closest friends for a
Speaker 1: really long time. One lives in Washington, one lives in Melbourne,
Speaker 1: one lives in Brisbane, actually a couple live in Melbourne.
Speaker 1: And so I felt very far from my friends this year.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if I could say that it's
Speaker 1: gone great. Did you change any of your, like, lockdown aside,
Speaker 1: which I know is a pretty big aside, did you
Speaker 1: change any of your friendship behaviors? That's a great question.
Speaker 1: I don't think I did, and I think I probably
Speaker 1: need to, because I remember feeling this time last year
Speaker 1: that
Speaker 1: Texting wasn't enough and that I needed to prioritize actually
Speaker 1: seeing my friends and so I was looking at on
Speaker 1: Instagram three sort of friends of mine, Bronwyn McCann, Zoe
Speaker 1: Foster Blake, and Justine Cullen, they're like best friends and
Speaker 1: they do this thing where they get together every so
Speaker 1: often and have a staycation and they hadn't done it
Speaker 1: for ages and they posted all these photos of them.
Speaker 1: You know, without their children, just, I don't know if
Speaker 1: they shared a room. It looked like they were sharing
Speaker 1: a bed, but I'm not sure. I know, but it
Speaker 1: just made it look like a slumber party and it
Speaker 1: just reminded me that so much of the fun of
Speaker 1: friendship is that hanging out time. It's not like sitting
Speaker 1: down at a restaurant where it's quite intense. It's just
Speaker 1: the sort of the incidental time when you're just hanging
Speaker 1: around on your phones and you just go, hey, look
Speaker 1: at this and
Speaker 1: And then Sally Hepworth told me that she went on
Speaker 1: a yoga retreat with a couple of her friends, and
Speaker 1: none of them even do yoga, but it was just
Speaker 1: a way of having that quantity time rather than these
Speaker 1: small bursts. So I thought, hm, I wanna try to
Speaker 1: do that more. Are you gonna carry a bit of
Speaker 1: friendship into your new one? Yeah, I think I should.
Speaker 1: Jessie Stevens, it's been a big year for you. 2021,
Speaker 1: big year for Jessie Stevens. Uh, you weren't the next
Speaker 1: big thing in January 2021. No. Yeah, we're sitting here
Speaker 1: in January 2022 as the next big thing, as the
Speaker 1: next big thing. Remind us of what your word was
Speaker 1: so that we can decide if it helped.
Speaker 1: It was kindness. Oh that's I don't remember it having
Speaker 1: anything to do with that, but I what I remember
Speaker 1: is all our words were very feely. They were very
Speaker 1: feely and I can't quite remember, I think I was
Speaker 1: just feeling like I wasn't doing enough to be kind.
Speaker 1: Go out of my way, exactly, it's like I feel
Speaker 1: as though often I think of something really kind to
Speaker 1: do and then I don't do it.
Speaker 1: So the thoughts are there, which is good for your brain. Exactly,
Speaker 1: which is I'm halfway there, but then I get embarrassed,
Speaker 1: I get shy or busy, and I don't do it.
Speaker 1: So I really wanted to focus more on that. In
Speaker 1: some ways, I suppose there were moments, not really.
Speaker 1: OK, um, during, see this isn't even kind of, this
Speaker 1: is gonna sound so petty, but, um, when I was
Speaker 1: when I was in lockdown, I would be sent the
Speaker 1: odd PR thing.
Speaker 1: And so one day I sent all these like snacks
Speaker 1: and stuff, and I knew that I wasn't gonna eat
Speaker 1: them all, so I chopped it all up and put
Speaker 1: them in different things and left them on the doorsteps
Speaker 1: of everyone on my level in my building cause I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, they'd like that. Anyway, I didn't think
Speaker 1: it was a big deal because it was also a
Speaker 1: bit selfish cause I was like, I don't want this
Speaker 1: going off in my house, so I'm just gonna give
Speaker 1: it to other people. The man across from me, who's
Speaker 1: maybe 70 and lives alone, came to my door.
Speaker 1: 24 hours later with this incredible bottle of sparkling wine
Speaker 1: and was like, that was just the kindest thing, thank
Speaker 1: you so much, that meant so much to me a
Speaker 1: lovely thing to do because it's not like you said
Speaker 1: it's not a big thing, but it's thoughtful and thoughtful
Speaker 1: is important. Yeah, so that's been quite like there's been
Speaker 1: sort of moments that I did that one thing, yeah,
Speaker 1: but I definitely need to do more of it. I
Speaker 1: think about being kind a lot, I just.
Speaker 1: I know, I wanna volunteer or something, I don't know. Whole,
Speaker 1: my word was family and I nailed it because I
Speaker 1: think you actually jinxed all of us. My word was family.
Speaker 1: I was like, go spend more time with the family.
Speaker 1: And then I moved to a place where my family
Speaker 1: were the only people I knew and we got locked
Speaker 1: in our houses for, yes, 3 months. So, you know,
Speaker 1: that really sorted that out for me, I think, and now.
Speaker 1: Job well done. Yeah, job well done. The universe had
Speaker 1: more to do with it than me. Did you know,
Speaker 1: when you chose that word, had you already decided you
Speaker 1: were gonna move, or was it still like getting a fringe,
Speaker 1: something that you would talk about a lot, but you
Speaker 1: didn't think would happen? We were, we wanted to, but
Speaker 1: we had not made a decision and we hadn't found
Speaker 1: anywhere to move to and all those things, so no.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because, I mean, as anyone who listens
Speaker 1: to the show knows, lockdown, well it's not any of
Speaker 1: our favorite state, let's remember. But last lockdown, the one
Speaker 1: previous lockdown in Sydney, I was quite unwell in my mind.
Speaker 1: And then this one we had more space and although
Speaker 1: it was very challenging because I thought, oh my God,
Speaker 1: we've cut as a family, we've cut ourselves off from
Speaker 1: family of other kinds, like friends and family.
Speaker 1: I think what I realized halfway through is one day
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look back at this time, that time we
Speaker 1: moved to the country and went into lockdown and only
Speaker 1: had each other.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look back at it and think it was special,
Speaker 1: and I think I realized that halfway through, so I
Speaker 1: probably appreciated it more. Now I'm worried I've made a
Speaker 1: rod for my back because, now that I have moved
Speaker 1: and I come up to Sydney for work quite a lot,
Speaker 1: my family, they want me around. Whereas previously I had
Speaker 1: trained them all that mummy isn't here. Oh, so now
Speaker 1: there's pushback about you leaving. They were used to mummy
Speaker 1: not being around very much, and well mummy's riding now,
Speaker 1: and now it's like,
Speaker 1: What do you mean you're going away again? I need
Speaker 1: you here so that I can tell you every boring
Speaker 1: thing that happened to me the dog. The dogs who
Speaker 1: suddenly like, what do you mean you're leaving the house?
Speaker 1: Where are you going? So I think I can say
Speaker 1: I nailed it, but I can't take all the credit
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 1: Hi, Mamma Mia Outloud. This is Haley from Arkansas in
Speaker 1: the United States, and my word of the year is me,
Speaker 1: and it's me for two reasons. One, because of the
Speaker 1: typical mom things. I've been a stay at home mom
Speaker 1: for 4 years now, and I've completely lost my sense
Speaker 1: of self and identity outside of being a mom, and
Speaker 1: this year I want to focus on finding me again.
Speaker 1: The other thing is that I am losing my sight.
Speaker 1: I have a condition called retinitis pigmentosa, and I'm going blind,
Speaker 1: and I'm at the point where I need to use
Speaker 1: a cane and all the other things, and I've always
Speaker 1: been hyper-conscious of how that makes other people around me uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: No more. Me, me first. If it makes other people,
Speaker 1: Uncomfortable, they are the problem, not me, and I've got
Speaker 1: to keep reminding myself that, and this year I want
Speaker 1: to focus on that.
Speaker 1: We've heard a lot of the out louder's words. We're
Speaker 1: coming to the point where we have to declare our words.
Speaker 1: Now we all, the way we do this out loud
Speaker 1: is so you know, is none of us know what
Speaker 1: the other word is, not least because we hadn't decided
Speaker 1: before we walked into the room, so if we did
Speaker 1: try to tell each other, it would have been an
Speaker 1: interesting conversation.
Speaker 1: Holly still doesn't know. She's gonna develop her word. I
Speaker 1: love how we pitched this whole thing as this very
Speaker 1: thought process with so much care. It's, I just can't decide. Alright,
Speaker 1: Jessie Stevens, go first. What is your word for 2022, go.
Speaker 1: It's an ugly one, but it's a necessary one for Jessie.
Speaker 1: It's discipline. Now I've chosen discipline. It's not unlike my
Speaker 1: 2020 word, which was productivity, which I knew that I
Speaker 1: needed to get better at. This is different. And in
Speaker 1: fact this is related to something that Mia was talking
Speaker 1: about recently, which was your theory about how in the
Speaker 1: wake of the pandemic, we all have a desire for
Speaker 1: tighter control over what we can control than ever before.
Speaker 1: My thing pointless, exactly.
Speaker 1: And my thing with discipline is that I've shifted at
Speaker 1: work to doing 3 days, so that on the other
Speaker 1: 2 days, I can do projects, I'm writing a new book,
Speaker 1: I've got, you know, certain things that I need to
Speaker 1: get done.
Speaker 1: Self-discipline has never been more important, and it can be
Speaker 1: very hard, yes, very, very hard, because the thing is
Speaker 1: as well, you're like, I might just jump on see
Speaker 1: what work's doing, I might check my email, and then
Speaker 1: the day's gone, and that can be very, very dangerous.
Speaker 1: And you also go, oh well, I'm not at work
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I'll
Speaker 1: Schedule my hair appointments and my doctor and I'm actually
Speaker 1: gonna change the way I say the word, uh, I,
Speaker 1: I talk about those days because I often say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's my day off, and it's not my day off.
Speaker 1: So I'm like that's not my day off, it might
Speaker 1: be the day that I am at home, but I
Speaker 1: need that day to be incredibly structured in order to form,
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot this year about uh habit.
Speaker 1: And so even in terms of, I wanna take the
Speaker 1: thinking out of every day. I don't wanna decide whether
Speaker 1: I'm exercising or decide what I'm having for lunch. Like,
Speaker 1: I just want self-discipline that it sort of becomes easy
Speaker 1: cause the foundations are all set, so I don't feel
Speaker 1: guilty every minute. So my, my theory on this is
Speaker 1: that routine eliminates the need for discipline, cause I don't
Speaker 1: have discipline, but I am.
Speaker 1: Routine obsessed. I lean into routine heavily, so I can't,
Speaker 1: like I've been having the same thing for breakfast for many,
Speaker 1: many years, and I've been having the same thing for lunch.
Speaker 1: It started during the pandemic and I can't stop, and
Speaker 1: even on weekends, it's two pieces of peanut butter toast
Speaker 1: and a cup of tea and an apple.
Speaker 1: And I can't stop and because the more I, so
Speaker 1: I'm noticing since coming out of lockdown, I've become more
Speaker 1: and more structured with my routine and I think that
Speaker 1: is about discipline. And it's about control. It's about feeling
Speaker 1: to make a decision what should I have for breakfast,
Speaker 1: should I work, should I not, it's like no, these
Speaker 1: are and that's where it comes back to that.
Speaker 1: You know, your I don't list. I was listening to
Speaker 1: a podcast with Sally Hepworth where she was talking about
Speaker 1: how she has certain rules around like she doesn't meet
Speaker 1: people for lunch or breakfast or coffee during the week.
Speaker 1: She just doesn't. Because people can be like, Oh, Tuesday,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, let's catch up. It's like treating it a
Speaker 1: bit like a, a sort of a weekend.
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, it's like a little bit of a
Speaker 1: pretend weekend. And I think it's also about spending time intentionally,
Speaker 1: and that's when I talked about productivity in 2020. It
Speaker 1: was like, there is no worse feeling than realizing hours
Speaker 1: just went and you didn't spend it intentionally, which is
Speaker 1: whether you were scrolling through your phone or just doing
Speaker 1: something to pass the time. I just,
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wanna know what I'm, I'm wanna do and
Speaker 1: then just get it done. Discipline. Jessie Stevens, let it
Speaker 1: enter the record. Mia. My word is a word that
Speaker 1: you two will laugh at because you've heard me say
Speaker 1: it so much, but we'll be new to Outlouders, and
Speaker 1: my word is juice.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're obsessed. This is our new, if, if anyone
Speaker 1: who works at Mamma Mia and is in Mia's orbit.
Speaker 1: Has been hearing. So there's a saying about, and it's
Speaker 1: around productivity I think, but it's around, is the juice
Speaker 1: worth the squeeze, right? So that's basically saying the effort
Speaker 1: you put into something is what you get out of
Speaker 1: it worth it.
Speaker 1: And that's how you decide, well, am I putting my
Speaker 1: effort in the right places, or am I, is my
Speaker 1: effort the right kind of effort? And I've sort of
Speaker 1: twisted that, cause everyone that I work with, and me
Speaker 1: and everyone I know puts in huge effort. That's not
Speaker 1: a question, but it's like, are we getting enough juice?
Speaker 1: How do we get more juice from the squeeze? So
Speaker 1: it's about work.
Speaker 1: Working smarter and not harder. Correct. Correct, cause my lord,
Speaker 1: everybody's working hard enough. But I think about what I do,
Speaker 1: and if I create a piece of content, for example,
Speaker 1: how can I get more juice out of it than
Speaker 1: just that one thing that goes on Instagram? Can it
Speaker 1: be a piece of written content that also I make
Speaker 1: into a video, that also we talk
Speaker 1: About on out loud, that maybe I do in my newsletter.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean repeating things, but I mean, we're
Speaker 1: all spread, certainly if you work in the media, you
Speaker 1: spread it across so many different platforms that you think
Speaker 1: there's not really, because of the demands, you, as you've
Speaker 1: said many times, Jessie, it's table stakes, and you've said
Speaker 1: hold to. It's, you gotta be everywhere.
Speaker 1: But how can you, instead of making individual things for everyone,
Speaker 1: how can you make like a batch of cupcakes rather
Speaker 1: than like one cake for one person? Um, scaling up.
Speaker 1: So I've just mixed juice and cake, which is making
Speaker 1: me very hungry. Are there any other applications to this,
Speaker 1: do you think, like in your personal life? Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't like are there other areas where you know you
Speaker 1: could like, in the family world or in friendship world
Speaker 1: you could include,
Speaker 1: Squeeze. Every time your child tells you a story, just
Speaker 1: be like, is this juice worth the squeeze? Like, is
Speaker 1: the time that you're taking to tell me this story
Speaker 1: about your day, interesting enough. Actually, did you see, I
Speaker 1: think it was Michelle Laurie on Instagram this week said
Speaker 1: I've told my kids they've gotta lift their chat game.
Speaker 1: It's so true. You pick them up sometimes and they're
Speaker 1: like blah blah blah. You're like, is this worth my time?
Speaker 1: That's so true, I love that. You should have implement
Speaker 1: it at home and see what happens. Is this squeeze
Speaker 1: worth the juice that is not juice trickling out of it.
Speaker 1: Now I would like to put some money on the
Speaker 1: fact that in 3 months when we tell Mia her
Speaker 1: word is juice, she will have forgotten what it means.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, you'll think you endeavored to drink more juice
Speaker 1: really confused. Yeah, it's true. I've worked it out. I've
Speaker 1: worked it out. What is it? It's big. I want
Speaker 1: to have a big fucking year.
Speaker 1: That's interesting cos it wasn't 2020, can you remember what
Speaker 1: your word was? Less.
Speaker 1: So you've gone from we went too little. It was
Speaker 1: less family big, right? I want it to be big
Speaker 1: in lots of ways, because, so we've made this big
Speaker 1: decision in our family to relocate and I'm recalibrating things
Speaker 1: and that's great, but that doesn't mean life has to
Speaker 1: be small. Like life can be big because what I
Speaker 1: was thinking is, so this year I've struggled a lot
Speaker 1: with confidence, right? That sounds quite defensive.
Speaker 1: I've struggled a lot with confidence this year. I'm writing
Speaker 1: a book, hopefully by the time you listen to this,
Speaker 1: I've nearly finished it, and I'm like, oh, I don't go,
Speaker 1: and I've talked to some people about it and they've
Speaker 1: all said the same thing.
Speaker 1: You've gotta believe that it can be big. What's the point?
Speaker 1: It's a bit like juice and squeeze. What's the point?
Speaker 1: And not necessarily that that means that the book has
Speaker 1: to be big, but even then, see, I'm talking myself
Speaker 1: out of it already. But like, not that the book
Speaker 1: necessarily has to be big, but that if anything is
Speaker 1: worth doing, it's worth doing big. Like we're gonna go
Speaker 1: on tour, right? In 2022 we're going. If we're gonna
Speaker 1: go on tour and I'm gonna be away from my
Speaker 1: family and we're gonna go then it's gonna be big dance.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be the biggest. I want back-up dancers. Also, uh, fireworks, machines, pyrotechnics,
Speaker 1: costumes what you wish for. Like, and it can be
Speaker 1: big in personal ways too, like I wanna see my family,
Speaker 1: for fuck's sake, I wanna see my family. I wanna
Speaker 1: leave the country. I wanna leave the country. I want
Speaker 1: big dreams, big plans plans. Like people, I've met some
Speaker 1: people lately who you go, you know, they're the people
Speaker 1: who run at life, it doesn't necessarily mean they've got
Speaker 1: a big career or whatever, it means that maybe,
Speaker 1: In their personal life, their family life, whatever, they go hard,
Speaker 1: they do it right, big this year, big. I love that.
Speaker 1: Enter the record. Look at her 2022. I feel as
Speaker 1: Holly's been speaking, she's kind of like sat up and she's,
Speaker 1: she's become bigger in her presence. I feel like Holly's
Speaker 1: in a mood. She's now having a hot flush and she's,
Speaker 1: she's excited herself too much. She overexcited herself. She needs
Speaker 1: a fan. Big birthday, birthday, so big hormone.
Speaker 1: 2022, I think we all need a big year after
Speaker 1: a couple of very weird years. One of the best
Speaker 1: words I've heard recently was my twin sister Claire had
Speaker 1: her word for 2021 was risk. And every decision she made,
Speaker 1: she is a very safe, calculated person. Every decision she
Speaker 1: made was through that prism. It's been so exciting to
Speaker 1: watch her grow by taking a series of risks. So
Speaker 1: I think that that's also a good one to put
Speaker 1: in the mix if you're trying to find a word.
Speaker 1: That's it, we've got our words for 2022. Thank you
Speaker 1: for helping us along out loud as we hope, we
Speaker 1: can't predict anything. We said last year, let's hope it's
Speaker 1: different to the one before. Who knows what's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: but it was different, it was worse.
Speaker 1: Let's not hope it's different. That's not what we. One
Speaker 1: thing is for sure, we're gonna be here. This is
Speaker 1: who we are, we're gonna do it together, we love you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for starting the new year with us. Thank
Speaker 1: you to Emma Gillespie, our incredible producer. Thank you to
Speaker 1: Eliza Ratliff, our amazing EP. Please share your, please share
Speaker 1: your words in the group. We want some info, we
Speaker 1: want everyone to decide what their word is, tell us
Speaker 1: why it's your word, we wanna know. Let us know. Bye, bye.