You’ve heard about a Year Theme but don’t know what it is? This page will help you: It will explain what it is, how it can help you and how to make one yourself.
I have used this system of a Year Theme since 2017. It has helped me with my personal growth and becoming a better human. I’m sharing this knowledge so you can make positive changes as well to your life.
As a background: I learned the basic theory during my participation of a personal development course (more here) and expanded on it with other theories and tools over the years. If usable I will source these tools and theory.
What is a Year Theme
A Year Theme is one word or a short sentence which denotes your goals of the year. For me, it is a tradition that I’ve implemented to make the best of said new year. It provides structure and empowers to make decisions which improve your life. It is important that a theme is positively formulated, so it helps to create a better situation in a specific area of your life. In other words, it should imply personal growth.
As a sidenote: the concept of a Year Theme can be a bit “new-agey”, but you can make it as spiritual as you want. I just want to explain it in the best possible way with a minimal amount of fuzzy-wuzzyness to it. Let’s start with a video which explains a Theme in 7 minutes.
New Year’s Resolutions versus a Year Theme
You might be wondering: “why use a Year Theme. My New Year’s Resolution works fine!”
If your yearly Resolution works then I am happy for you. Though it might be that your Resolution is not a Resolution but more of a Theme. To put it in one sentence: A Resolution is (often) too specific and narrows your options while a Theme does not.
That’s why I think that a New Year’s Resolution doesn’t work. It usually is only relevant for a couple of weeks. After which your “normal life” takes over and you step back into old habits because (1:) your Resolution is too specific and (2:) changing behaviour takes a lot of time. According to studies done it takes on average 66 days.
In my experience this is like singing an “I want song”. Fun while it lasts, but mostly forgettable. This is because your (current) life is a sum of many moving parts. A network which constantly interacts with different elements to work towards an outcome. which makes it a Complex System. Complex Systems theory is an optional read to gain insight into how your life might be influenced by elements you aren’t even aware of. But even when you look at your life as a system: Input=output. If the needed input on your Resolution is too high of a bar to do whilst living your life the output will be 0. But if you set an intention, give yourself permission to work on an element of your life for an extended period of time; it will show results.
To paraphrase Jay Shetty from this podcast: “The energy you put in the year is what you’re going to receive back.”
Formulation of a Year Theme
Like mentioned above a Year Theme is positively formulated and usually a little vague. This vagueness comes in the form of its formulation. So instead of Resolution “I want to lose 20kg” or “I want to be more healthy” you have the Theme “Year of Health” or “Joyful Movement”. The difference is that the Theme is not an I want song, it’s a book you write yourself. It helps you cultivate yourself, allowing you to learn more about yourself over the years and becoming a better human being.
A Year Theme is deliberately vague. This is to help empower you. Make your decisions easier in the moment you need to make them. As an example, the user of “Joyful Movement” Theme can go to a dance club, do Tai Chi or go out for frequent walks. Anything that makes you more joyful is allowed. And if a friend asks you to join at the Fast Food place and you find you cannot say no, take note of that but bend it into a reward. Make you feel like the Fast Food is something you earned by walking or taking your bike to the restaurant. Incorporate movement in your lifestyle, whatever it may be. Mosty important here is your mindset: Do not consider the above example as cheating, but as a form of compensation to make incremental improvements.
To better understand working with a Theme, it’s best to create one and try it. For a month, season or a year. And the best part: if it doesn’t work, change it. Life can bring new challenges every day. The important part is trying and know you cannot fail!
Creating a Year Theme
Since a Year Theme can be a daunting thing to create we need to make it easier. It is very important to start by checking in with yourself. You need to know where you are currently standing. This can be done by evaluating your life as it is now, and answer some questions about your previous year. If you do not know where you are now you cannot make a solid choice to move forward. You are here because you want to invest in some way in yourself. To make your life better. An honest review of your current situation is therefore very important!
This may be difficult, but if you are truly honest with yourself you will open the metaphorical door to change. I love Chaplin’s The Great Dictator speech. Especially this part always strikes to me: “You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful. To make this life a wonderful adventure.”
While the context of the speech is different, the above quote is very on point for taking responsibility for your life. Which is what you are doing by starting on a Year Theme journey. I cannot guarentee any outcome, but if you follow below steps and stick with it, I’m sure you will notice positive change.
Step 1. Evaluate your current (life) situation.
Look at your life and split it into 4 sections: Mental and Physical Health, Relationships (love, family etc), Work and Money (your financial situation). This is a simple way to look at your life and to divide it into sections. I learned it whilst participating in the personal development course of Dutch company 365 Dagen Succesvol. You can read a bit about them on my homepage.
Reflect about these parts of your life and grade each one from 1 to 10. Be honest about how each section is currently doing. When done, pick the lowest number.
Alternatively, you can also write each section on 4 pieces of paper and (literally) sit on them one at a time. Meditate on the subject, feel how your body and mind react to each section. Write everything that comes into your mind on a different piece of paper before you move on to the next section. Take about 10 minutes per section. Evaluate afterwards and take the one with the strongest reaction or that you feel has the greatest need for improvement.
Step 2. Evaluate your previous year.
Evaluating previous year will allow you to specify your Theme. You can do this by answering some questions. Below are a few examples. It’s important to note that you take your time to answer these properly. Even if it takes a few days.
Question 1: What wasn’t the previous year about? Were there any goals that I set or activities I wanted to do on a frequent basis but didn’t accomplish? Use the 4 sections mentioned in step 1 to make your answers more focussed.
Question 2: What did I discover or rediscover about myself?
Question 3: What’s the challenge that I overcame? What was the biggest challenge last year?
Question 4: What made me the happiest? What gave the feeling of being most alive?
Question 5: What is the thing I’m most grateful for?
Question 6: Did I spend enough time and gave enough attention to the people that are the most important in my life?
If you feel your answers are too vague or you’re not getting closer to the problem you want to put on paper try the 5 whys method.
Step 3. Use your personal mission and your Ikigai (if you have it defined) for guidance.
If you have a personal mission defined you can use it as a guiding principle for you Theme to get closer to the place on the horizon you want to reach.
The same goes for the Venn Diagram based on the Ikigai principle. If you have it filled in it can be guiding as well. Just take note that this Venn Diagram is not really Ikigai. If you want to know more on Ikigai; please read this page. In short:
‘Ikigai translated into English as ‘life purpose’ sounds quite formidable, but ikigai need not be the one overriding purpose of a person’s life. In fact, the word life aligns more with daily life. In other words, ikigai can be about the joy a person finds living day-to-day, without which their life as a whole would not be a happy one.’
Akihiro Hasegawa (Ph.D. Clinical Psychologist)
Step 4. Optional step: define your core values.
Core values are standards of behaviour which are most important to you when you live your life. Standards of behaviour defined in one word. They help you make decisions and thus shape your life to your liking. Mine are Freedom, Open, Playfulness, Boldness.
There are plenty of lists on the internet. I found this one with 220 options. Choose the 4 or 5 that define you. Remember that a word can have multiple interpretations, and your interpretation is what’s important to you.
Note that you can change your values them if they do not represent or don’t fit as well as you thought you in a couple of years. Pick a couple and test them by living your life.
Step 5. Formulation.
When you’ve taken the steps above you can start with formulating the Year Theme. Note that I’m calling it a Year Theme because I work with it for an entire year. If you choose to make it a season or a month, that’s also fine.
Remember that a Theme isn’t formulated in one night. Take your time, and be thorough and honest with yourself. If you followed the above steps you should already have an idea what you want the new year to be about. The challenge is to:
- formulate it into a short sentence or a word that encapsulates your desire
and - it’s positively formulated so the focus of the Theme is on a better situation
You can use broad and slightly vague terminology which does not immediately puts your back against the wall. You will face moments that require a decision and you don’t want to have a devil’s choice where the only options you see (or paths to take), are not to your liking.
As said in the Year Theme video above, the Theme needs to resonate with you. Be it a little scary since you don’t know what will happen or you get really excited about the things that can happen.
Congratulations! You’ve just formulated a Year Theme.
Now that we’ve crossed the biggest hurdle, there is one thing left to know and one thing to do.
To Know: You can always create or change your Year Theme when it isn’t working, even if you’re a couple months in. Because I have experience; take my time and have most of the steps covered I am confident I can create a solid Theme gives guidance to overcome the challenges ahead.
**Examples of my year themes: Heart’s fire (Hartenvuur); Connecting the Dots; Future Smart; Gardening.
To Do: Solidify your Theme
To give your Theme a bit more body or gravitas a song or visual aid can be used. This can be as small or big as you want. Its goal is to help you remember the Year Theme during the year. Be it a desktop /phone background or a framed picture in your living / bedroom. You want to keep your Theme alive in your perception, so make sure it’s in a place that you frequently visit or look at.
A couple yours back I used the song Sogno di Volare (The Dream of Flight) to backup my theme of similar wording.
Coupled with the correct song a Theme can be a powerful motivator to make changes to your life. A thing that I will do as well is to fill a new page on my flip-over which stands in my living room. It is a personal statement of who I am and what my intentions are for the current year.
This works for me because it’s a visible reminder of my intention. While I trust that my decisions will be supportive to the Theme it’s good to have it available. Should I have a dilemma I can easily access my intention for the year.
How to keep track of what you do
I encourage you to keep track of what you’re doing (and why). You can use journaling or vlogging to actively work on your Year Theme. If you need help I recommend you check out https://www.themesystem.com/. I haven’t personally used the system on display, but I recognise that it makes a Year Theme easier and helps to track progress in a simple way.
To close:
Thank you for reading!
I made this page separate and easily available on my website because it’s easier to refer to and expand upon. This page was updated in January 2025 to add new info and improve upon the existing text. Because I want to keep learning and make everything here understandable.
I firmly believe that everyone can make changes to their life. This is the way I’ve been able to make incremental progress and I hope it helps you too.
Should you have more questions don’t hesitate to contact me via my contact page or via the socials.