Screw Resolutions – Give Your Year a Theme
Every year after Christmas, people sit down and review the past year. They look ahead and come up with an improbable list of to-do items for the coming year. You’re going to run four times a week, not eat fast food, do a monthly budget you live and die by, put 20 percent of your paycheck into savings, spend more time with family, learn to knit, take a Spanish class, get to work on time, get 8 hours of sleep… essentially, you’re going to become perfect.
And then you don’t do one of them. And they all go down the drain because if you’re not going to be perfect, well then why do a bunch of stuff that’s no fun?
At least, that’s been my experience. Every year, I got swept up in the spirit of self-improvement and made ridiculously long lists of things I was going to do differently, learn or stop doing. I made calendars and schedules and stuck to them for about… oh, maybe three weeks.
Which makes me average it turns out. According to time management firm FranklinCovey, only a third of people will even make it to the end of January.
The end of JANUARY.
The cure is supposedly to make a specific resolution. Perhaps pick just one of the resolutions I listed in the first paragraph and go with that.
But that hasn’t worked for me. I have that Gen Y disease of ambition. Just one of those resolutions feels so… flimsy.
Why you need a theme
Here’s my problem with these specific resolutions: they may not be the right answer. Maybe you find that putting 20 percent of your paycheck into savings isn’t going to work because you can’t stop over-drafting your bank account. Or, you find out your knees can’t handle running. Or, you find it impossible to get 8 hours of sleep. And then you just give up.
What you need is a theme, something that sets the tone for your year, and gives you a banner to work under. In the end, what is your overall goal? Is it to be fit and healthy, to have good finances, to feel rested? Make it the Year of Finances, or the Year of Fitness, or the Year of Relaxation.
For the past three years, I’ve picked a theme for my year. And it’s worked.
2007 was the Year of Survival. I got sober in April (a late start to the year, I know), and basically just learned how to live all over again. This theme was more or less picked for me. I can’t take credit for that one.
2008 was the Year of Relationships, as you can clearly see in my blog (here, here, here and here). Having learned to survive, I went about learning how to survive with others. My relationships with men were all over the board as I tried to figure out what I wanted and who I was. My relationships with family and friends got some work also. I think this was a subconscious theme.
2009 was the Year of Finances. Honestly, this was the first year I set a resolute theme at the beginning of the year with an earnest desire to tackle it. I didn’t know how I was going to do it. I fumbled around with Quicken Online and heard about Mint.com and read I Will Teach You To Be Rich, but what ended up working for me was Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover. I didn’t get on board with it until May. But I didn’t give up on my finances because that theme hung over my head all year. I knew that there was an answer and having a theme, and not a specific resolution, helped me gather the research, feedback and experimentation I needed to find my answer.
How to pick a theme
The more my life becomes calm and healthy, the more the areas that need work seem to stick out. I’m not blessed with the kind of clarity in my life where I can just go, “Oh, I really need to work on my finances! I can see how this contributes to my other problems.” Yeah, I don’t have that.
So I sort of feel my way through my life, asking myself what feels bad, where do I feel negative emotion in my day, then trying to trace it back to the source. I felt awful when my bank account over-drafted for the billionth time. And oh, hey! That seems to come up a lot. Maybe I should work on that.
Ask yourself these questions:
- What is causing the most problems in my life?
- What is giving me the most chaos?
- What are the most inconvenient things happening?
- What seems to be happening over and over again even though I try not to?
- Where do I see a spike in negative emotion in my daily life?
- What would give me the most peace if I could find a solution for it?
If you’re having trouble picking between two (or three or four…), pick the one that’s solves the most problems. Last year I was trying to choose between the Year of Finances and the Year of Health & Fitness. When I made a list of the problems each would solve, the Finances Year solved a lot more problems, including some of my health problems (medical care is expensive, yo!).
What happens next…
The amazing thing about having a theme for your year is that it’s about changing your mindset toward a certain area of your life. You’ve decided to change some area of your life that you previously carried an attitude of indifference toward. Lots of things will change.
Take my 2009 Year of Finances for example: not only did I stop over-drafting my bank account (which could’ve been my short-sighted New Year’s Resolution), but I’ve paid off all my credit cards, survived meeting my hefty insurance deductible for health care (thanks to surgery), and stored away almost three months of living expenses in my savings account. And since I decided I needed an alternate stream of income, I started my first business and have a steady stream of clients. Year of Finances indeed!
Of course your theme can fail. The number one reason resolutions fail is because people aren’t committed to them in the first place. If you aren’t committed to your theme, then you won’t move on it.
Move forward with a positive attitude. Remember this is the year you will change your [finances/health/career/love life/insert theme here]!
The great thing is that area of your life will be forever changed, not just temporarily shifted. As I move into my 2010 theme, I don’t stop working on my finances. My attitude toward finances has been changed forever.
Wanna know my theme for 2010? Read the follow-up post here. What’s your theme for 2010?
Photo courtesy of Tojosan via Flickr.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Holly Hoffman, Laura Babbili. Laura Babbili said: RT @hollyhoffman: I don't do resolutions. I do themes. What's your theme for 2010? http://bit.ly/4v4nXk [...]
Great Perspective….i think im choosing a theme too….hmmm….
and yes I’D love to know yours
We must have met in another life
I’ve been doing themes too
2009’s theme was clarify and reduce engagements that had lost personal meaning.
2010 is for experimenting with making some of my big business ideas come true
What’s your theme?
Cheers
Anita
I love the idea of themes. It can encapsulate how your year went and what the overriding theme was, regardless of the resolutions you made or didn’t make.
I still write out resolutions, but they’re not pinpointed like “lose 5 pounds,” etc. They focus on themes, so I write a few of them such as what I want the year to look like, what I will be focusing on internally, etc. It shows me where I have come from. Each year, I can then look back and see what I wanted and if it was accomplished. They’re usually deeper accomplishments and also pretty subtle that are very relevant, just to me. It helps guide me and I think I’m superstitious, I like to start off the new year, well, new. Thanks for writing this. Your story is inspiring.
Great idea Holly. I stole the concept from @kcarruthers on twitter a week or so ago and we’ve set a 2010 theme for the whole family. It has already changed the way we think and interact.
Great post. I’ve always been good at setting goals and achieving some of them, but I think the theme approach will work even better. Especially when I realize that one of my “goals” isn’t feasible, I can switch gears and find another approach that fits with the theme instead of just considering it a failure.
For 2010, my theme is Consistency.
Holly! I’m so glad to see that you’ve been blogging here again. While I enjoy catching up with your social media posts, I first really “met” you through WLL, so I’m glad it’s still an outlet for you and a way to connect, hear your thoughts and catch up with what’s going on.
It’s funny that you bring up the idea of themes, as I didn’t realize that this year had it’s own theme for me until I began reflecting over the past few days on just how much had changed. Without a doubt, 2009 was the year of healing. I had been told it would be once before, but I didn’t really believe it until recently. Whether it was the heart (opening back up to the possibility of love again), the mind (realizing who I am, learning to love myself for who I am, and learning that I shouldn’t ever want to be anyone else) and even the body from these past few months of illness, it has all been about moving forward, moving on, and getting better.
It’s a relief to be able to say these words out-loud, to realize that things are getting better everyday and that we’re learning and moving forward. When you put it into the perspective of these themes — even life themes, it makes the journey seem that much more worthwhile, and where you’ve come from becomes just as important as where you’re going.
Such a great post. You’ve been through quite a bit in the past year; I can only imagine what the next year has in store for you. Looking forward to seeing what’s next, and wishing you lots of happiness and warmth always.
Wow, great post! Just completed my own look back at the past year and I agree that resolutions really do me no good. I hadn’t thought of themes before-although I can really see how that would apply to my own life (the year of divorce, remarriage, cancer and pregnancy etc). I actually started a new thing for me last year with usin resolution time to reflect on past accomplishments of the previous year rather than perfectionist goals I could never hope to acieve. I found that by focusing on what I know I can accomplish really put me in a good frame of mind for the upcoming year. If interested you can read my latest at http://dancingtothemusicinmyhead.com . Been following you (online, not crazy stalker) for quite a while and really admire you for your openness, honesty and strength. Good luck to you during 2010! Keep writing and succeeding wherever life may take you!
K.
I love the idea of having a theme! And congrats to you for getting & staying sober and for all of your accomplishments. This is a very inspiring post! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks to everyone who shared their theme for 2010! I’m really excited, and a little scared, about my 2010 theme. It will definitely be a challenge. You should see the follow-up post coming up very soon!
I hope everyone will stop by and let me know how they are doing with their themes… or better yet – blog about them!
[...] I lay on the couch, piecing together my idea for a post on themes versus resolutions, I went through the various themes I’d had in previous years, out loud to my [...]
Holly – This post is inspirational. As a 20 something professional I can relate to your situation completely about the finances especially. As for themes each year, it’s probably best to choose a theme before one chooses you! In my experuence, themes for each of my year’s since turning 20 are easy to pinpoint in hindsight! I’ll have to take some time to reflect and decide what I *choose* as a theme for 2010! In the meantime – please keep inspiring me and others with your sharing your life experiences. Thanks!
[...] because I know I will fail. I was inspired by a post from Holly Hoffman at WorkLoveLife titled Screw Resolutions- Give Your Year a Theme. I also found Penelope Trunk’s post How to Keep a New Year’s Resolution insightful [...]
[...] WorkLoveLife: Screw Resolutions – Give Your Year a Theme [...]
[...] be here for anyone who needs it, and I hope that you will do the same. But it looks like my “theme” from last year is still slipping into the new year. I have a lot of healing to do. But I’m [...]
A theme…why didn’t I think of that. What a fun idea – especially since I don’t go for the standard “resolution” sort of thing. I think I shall sit with this a bit and ponder my theme.
[...] about those of you who picked a theme instead? How is your theme coming [...]
My theme is: be happy. Don’t fill your days with things you don’t enjoy. Purge those things and do what you actually enjoy.
Of personal finance blogs, my favorite is Get Rich Slowly.