If you love setting New Year’s resolutions but never seem to follow through, it could be that your lists are too long to realistically tackle.
Between health, family, and financial goals, your hopes and dreams for the new year can add up quickly.
This year, instead of compiling a long list of resolutions that are overly ambitious, choose a theme for the year instead.
What’s a Yearly Theme?
A yearly theme is a single word or phrase you pick to define your hopes for the year ahead. It’s an idea that’ll help guide and inform your choices to get you where you want to go in your personal life and career.
Rather than juggling 10 goals at once, a yearly theme helps you with the hundreds of small decisions you’ll come across throughout the week. It makes your choices more manageable and guides you to an overarching goal.
How to Set a Yearly Theme
Grab a cup of tea and set aside some time to reflect.
1) Think about the previous year’s wins and loses. What goals did you achieve and which ones do you still want to work on? How would your year look different if you could live it again?
2) While reflecting, write down your hopes for the new year. This isn’t the time to limit yourself, write down any ideas or desires that come to mind.
3) Review your list and look for any common themes or a thread that could tie it all together. Ask yourself if there’s one thing you can do or change to move closer to your goals.
As an example, you might realize the one thing keeping you out of the gym, going for that promotion, and starting a new venture, is negative self-talk. So perhaps your theme would be “Mindfulness.”
Or maybe you miss out on opportunities because you’re always turning them down—in which case your theme might be “A Year of Yes.”
Whether or not you set goals for the new year, January is a great time to reflect on where you’ve been and where you want to go.