New Year’s resolution alternative: Choose a theme for the year

[Back to 5 more effective alternatives to New Year’s resolutions]

One of the big problems with New Year’s resolutions is their one-shot nature. That’s not an issue if you are able to flip the switch and stick with the resolution, but for most people that approach leads to a burst of good intentions followed by another year where it didn’t quite stick.

What if you could flip that script on that? What if, instead of giving yourself one shot to succeed, you built that shot into each and every day.  What if, rather than one big hurrah you hope will change everything (but probably won’t), you took an approach that keeps bringing you back to your aspired-to change?

That’s what  setting a New Year’s theme can do.

The idea is simple. Pick a topic that you want to be a focus for your year. For example:

• Self-compassion
• Making a difference
• Healthy habits
• New professional skills
• Relationship communication

Broadly speaking, setting a New Year’s theme does a couple things. First, it gives you a year-long frame for exploration and learning around a single topic. And second, it kicks your reticular activating system (RAS) into gear, increasing your brain’s attention to and awareness of things that are relevant to that theme.

Year-long frame

When you have a frame over time, it gives you the opportunity to incorporate both learning and action into a focused, coordinated growth path.

There are a variety of ways you can weave your New Year’s theme into the fabric of your year. Broadly speaking, they fall into five main categories:

• Initial learning
• Action
• Experimentation
• Unpacking the learning
• Regular check-ins

Here are some examples of what each of those could contain

Initial learning

Your approach to learning could be as simple as buying and reading a few books related to your theme or as complex as creating a multi-resource, year-long curriculum that lets you do a deep dive.

• Books
• Classes
• Talks
• Videos
• Podcasts

Action

Taking your theme out of the conceptual into the real world takes action. For example:

• Developing a practice that supports the theme (e.g., a meditation practice, a gratitude practice, or a regular writing practice).
• Making a list of possible ways you can practice it and referring to that list regularly (think of it as a grab bag you can pick from).
• Taking action in pursuit of a theme-related goal.

Experimentation

This aspect boils down to, “What would happen if I _______?” Experimentation is inherently about both action and learning. The goal is not to achieve results. It is to get insight you can apply as you move forward (which in turn can be used in service of getting results).

Unpacking the learning

Every action, practice, or experiment carries with it the potential for learning. The key is incorporating a regular “post-game review” to harvest the insights and know-how.

Regular check-ins

Engaging with a single them throughout the year allows you to check in on a regular basis to see how it’s showing up in your life, where you’re doing well with it, and where you’re falling off track.

Hey! Pay attention to this! (…or, your Reticular Activating System at work)

Without getting too deep in the weeds of the neuroscience of it, the reticular activating system is a system in your brain that, among other things, tells you what to notice and what to ignore. Have you ever gone car shopping, then seemingly seen that make and model, or that color, everywhere you turn? It’s not that those cars have suddenly popped up overnight. It’s your Reticular Activating System (RAS) at work.

When you prime your brain to notice something, guess what? You start to notice it! As you continue focusing on your year’s theme, you will start to notice things associated with it and it will occupy an increasingly large space in your mind’s real estate.

In my own life, I have experienced an example of this any time I engage in a regular gratitude practice. When I do gratitude journaling on a regular, daily basis, at some point my brain starts to go, “Crap! There’s going to be a quiz – I better pay attention!” As a result, I start to notice more and more things, large and small, to be grateful for.

Your New Year’s theme can easily be integrated with some of the other alternatives to New Year’s resolutions I am exploring in this series. For example:

Your New Year’s theme could be the umbrella for the granular resolutions (New Month’s or New Week’s resolutions). It could guide the 30-day experiments you do. Or it could influence what you ask for in the monthly ask-and-receive challenge.

What theme would you choose?

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