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Breakthrough is my word of the year.
This is the year where limits are overcome, habits rebuilt, narratives rewritten. A year where creativity takes new colours, and clarity emerges – not from force, but from seeing differently.
This is the year where I expect a before and an after. Not because it will be easy, or because it is a done deal already. But because I can see myself working through resistance.
The Breakthrough: Finding the Word
Until a few hours ago, I didn’t know what my word would be this year.
I had thought about it casually, but I could only come up with words from prior years – Resilience, Believe or even Strength. However, since I have only been doing Words of the Year for a few years, I don’t think I get to recycle just yet.
As I came back from the school run this morning, I thought I would sit down to brainstorm, maybe get ChatGPT to give me 50-word ideas or ask me a few questions so I could get there. Instead, as I sat down to do my morning pages, the word just came to me. The moment it appeared, I knew I had found it. Or more accurately, I had a breakthrough.
The Origin of the Word
The word breakthrough is composed of two Old English roots:
- break — from brecan, meaning to shatter, split, or burst apart
- through — from þurh, meaning from one side to the other.
Originally, a breakthrough described a forceful physical action: breaking through a barrier or a line of defence. Early uses in the 17th-18th Century were literal and concrete. What mattered was resistance and the ability to apply effort to move beyond it.
Breakthrough from walls to systems
As societies industrialised, the world expanded beyond stone and steel. Science and engineering adopted the world breakthrough as a process that crossed a limited threshold, a system suddenly behaved differently, or a long-standing constraint was suddenly overcome. There was a marked before and after, a shift.
As I read about the 19-20th century concept of breakthroughs, it resonated with me.
After 6 years of struggling to secure a license to build our house, this is the year when I expect systems to behave differently. A long-standing constraint finally releasing. Not through wishful thinking, but through persistence meeting timing, alongside some changes in behaviour from all parties involved.
The rise of intellectual breakthroughs
By the mid-1900s, breakthrough had become a common word in the fields of science, medicine, innovation and technology, psychology and learning. The obstacles moved beyond the physical and into the conceptual. Breakthroughs referred to times where people were able to change their wrong assumptions, see through blind spots or identify a model that no longer worked.
These are some of my favourite breakthroughs. Those that mean seeing differently, past a limit, where more than force, reframing plays a part.
Over the last three years, as I transitioned into a Portfolio Life, I questioned many of the models I had internalised during seventeen years in a corporate environment. Whilst I have already found new ways of working, I can still see how some old assumptions quietly linger.
After a difficult final stretch of the year – one that pushed me deeper into darkness than expected – I emerge ready to reframe my view of the world and of myself. I rethink my work. My business model. My pace. My belief in myself. I also let some models go and adopt others that better reflect who I am now. And I gain clarity around where – and how – I truly want to create impact.
Personal and Cultural Breakthrough
In recent decades, the word breakthrough has become increasingly personal. We now speak of emotional, leadership, creative, physical or identity breakthroughs. The former physical wall to be broken is now internal, shaped by fear, habits, and narrative.
We are at a point where breakthroughs are no longer rare or explosive but more gradual. Like a tipping point that results from accumulated effort, studies or work. The essence has not changed though; it is the result of accumulation.
This year, my breakthroughs have gained many layers:
- My physical condition moving past pain that has lingered too long,
- Business investments coming to fruition,
- Family dynamics evolving with more joy and softness,
- Releasing guilt — especially the kind that disguises itself as responsibility,
- Producing differently: not faster, but deeper,
- Creating with a renewed vision, a steadier pace, and more pride.
Small breakthroughs show up when you least expect them. As the year turns, I allow myself to deconstruct everything: my schedule, my financials, my work habits, my assumptions, my beliefs. It is scary, often overwhelming. But also liberating.
As someone who more often than not plays by the limits and the rules, this was a patchy, unfamiliar road for me. And yet, quietly, exploration grew in me. I allowed my creative expression to reopen. I allowed my passion for learning to turn into teaching.
Small seeds were planted. And, as I look ahead, I can see them pushing through the earth. And I am ready.
The Common Traits
Through time, the word breakthrough has evolved. It has gone from being violent to being smooth, from being loud to being quiet, from being brute to being gradual. However, not all has changed in how we view the word breakthrough. It comes from an existing resistance – be it physical or intellectual. It comes from effort or pressure – be it sudden or gradual, it shows that progress does not happen by accident. And it is also irreversible. Once you cross a line of change, there is no going back; you will never be the same.
A breakthrough is not a small tweak; it is not a simple optimisation. A breakthrough is a passing to the other side.