Crafting Your Themes for 2024
With zealous resolutions looking increasingly outdated, is there a case for selecting a few broad ideas to shape your year ahead instead?
Figuring It Out is a weekly newsletter centred around an idea about figuring out life, conversation/journal prompts, profiling those who have “figured things out”, and curated recommendations to spark something in you. I’m still playing with the formula so let me know if you have any feedback! And if you like this newsletter, please forward it on to anyone that you think would as well. *hugs and squeezes*
📚 Book - Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
So this book was originally published in 2009 (so maybe it’s so old, it’s cool again?) but I dived into it over the break as I’m heading to Ireland later this year, and there is nothing I love more than reading books connected to where I’m visiting. If you’ve ever lived overseas you’ll immediately relate to this story, set in the 1950’s, where the young girl Eilis without opportunity in her town of Enniscorthy, sets off to New York and finds herself caught between two worlds. Anyone who has been caught between cultures will immediately relate.
🎧 Listening - How to Discover Your Own Taste by Ezra Klein
After a Christmas filled with crazed Stanley fans and Sephora children coveting high-end skincare , this podcast could not be more timely to listen to. Ezra Klein uses a recent New Yorker article titled Why The Internet Isn’t Fun Anymore, to discuss how algorithms have flattened culture to make things more the same and therefore how to define your own personal taste in all areas to live a more interesting, thoughtful (dare I say authentic) life.
💡Show - The Gilded Age, Season 2
It doesn’t take long to know me to know that I’m one of those period drama freaks. I can’t help it, I was raised that way and I’m powerless to change it (I mean, not that I want to?). The Gilded Age seems to be one of those criminally underrated shows not enough people are talking about, and was created by Julian Fellowes of Downton Abbey fame. I find the history of New York fascinating and the costumes and culture of the age are so engaging with the perfect amount of drama to keep you hooked without it being exhausting to watch. Season 2 delivers everything you’d expect!
Goals? Intentions? Themes!
As someone that has worked in marketing for a decade, I can’t help but acknowledge the part I’ve had to play in the “new year, new you” messaging that is de rigeur at this time of year. That being said, has anyone else noticed how it starts in December now? Wild.
I have a vivid recollection of a year after moving to San Francisco, sitting with my ex while planning out my goals for the year ahead. I’ll pick up french again! I’ll run a marathon! I’ll prepare for my GMAT to apply for my MBA! It was a sickening list of achievements that I hoped would give me some external validation, physical proof that I was doing life right (see? I’m a success! I can run 42 kilometres. Je parle français.)
Even though our culture would have you think obsessively setting goals is normal, in reality no other generation is as obsessed with them as milennials.
In these post-pandemic years, the cultural zeitgeist has latched on to new ideas like “main character energy” and “doing it for the plot”. They’re fun, catchy phrases that at best will help you get out of your comfort zone, trying new things, and at worst could leave you with a moral hangover (joking, joking).
In contrast to my 2016 self, as I approach 2024 my only plan is to live my authentic code. That means making choices and aligning my priorities with four words that were selected to convey my most authentic and aligned self.
However, somewhere between Christmas and now I started to make quick notes on a post-it by my desk. The best way to describe these dot points are themes. Themes that I want to thread throughout the year and while yes, they do involve taking specific actions, they are much more about internal identity and embodiment, than a to-do list to check off at will.
My themes are currently:
Being extra (aka having more fun)
Good enough
Embracing my writer identity
These themes are deeply personal in a way that no surface level goal could convey. They tie into shadow ideas I’m leaving behind, core wounds I’m ready to drop and the authentic future I’m confidently stepping into, hence why I find them so exciting to embrace for the year ahead.
They are at once a guiding light, without being guard rails.
Other examples of themes you could set:
Entertainer
Embracing vulnerability
Saying yes
Saying no
Creating community connection
Artist or Art
The idea of themes conveys consistency whilst still being fluid, they say what you want or the general direction you want to go, without having to say exactly how you’re going to get there.
So tell me, what are your thoughts, themes or plans for the year ahead? Let me know below.
Journal/Conversation Prompt:
Each week I’m sharing these prompts as something to either journal on or start a conversation with those close to you about. Who doesn’t love an a-ha moment or deep chat? 🙌
If you have a list of goals for the year, take them out and see if there is a throughline between any of them. How do they represent your authentic self? Thinking through what you want to do in 2024, is there a bigger feeling or identity that you imagine at the end of it?
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