What’s your word or theme for the year?

For many, this time of year often feels like an opportunity to reset and to begin again. Whatever you feel disappointed about in your life, you can course correct by setting different intentions for the new year. Many people kick off a new year by setting their New Year’s resolutions. Interestingly, I read the other day that Bill Gates isn’t one of them. Instead, Gates prefers doing a personal year-end review by asking himself a series of questions, and then settles on an intention for the new year. His ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, also doesn’t set resolutions when the new year rolls around. Instead, she selects a single word to set the tone of her year.

I’ve shared my own reservations about traditional New Year’s resolutions. In many ways waiting until the new year is just another way of procrastinating on the things you say you want to change. According to clinical psychologist Joseph J. Luciani, roughly 80% of people who set New Year’s resolutions — like going to the gym, reading more books, or adopting a new diet — abandon them by the second week of February.

Many people would agree that sticking to your New Year’s resolutions requires discipline, and they also then assume that if they can’t stick to their resolutions, it’s because they lack the self-discipline to do so. It’s the way someone is with this assumption that bothers me. See, it’s as if they are saying that self-discipline is something you either have or don’t have. And yet that’s simply not true. Self-discipline is not something you are born with. It’s something you must cultivate over time. Anyone can increase their own personal level of self-discipline. How?

James Clear would tell you that you cultivate self-discipline by setting small goals and then – more importantly – putting systems and processes in place in your life that support the accomplishment of these goals. Clear states that we don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.

And he is right. Both successful and unsuccessful people set the same kind of goals. So, what distinguishes those that are successful at achieving their goals from those who don’t succeed? Systems and processes. That is the simple answer. But what does that mean?

Systems and processes are the ways you create your day-to-day routine and how you design your life to either support your biggest goals or distract you from your biggest goals. Or put differently, goals are about the results you want to achieve. Systems are about the processes that lead to those results. In sports, we know we want to win the game, but we don’t simply focus on the score. We need to focus on the whole game AND how we play it, to reach the score we want in order to win.

It’s the same in life, you can’t’ simply focus on the goal without playing the game of life in such a way that ensures that you actually create the score. And in the long run, HOW we play the game is far more important than what the final score turns out to be.

Does that mean that goals are completely useless? Of course not. Goals are good for setting a direction. Goals tell us where we want to go. It helps us maintain focus as we move forward. But systems are best for making progress.

Clear uses a simple example to illustrate what he means. By not buying any sweets and snacks and by placing a fruit bowl in a prominent place on the kitchen counter, you set your life up in a way that reminds you to eat healthy snacks. When you are eating healthily more often, you are more likely to succeed at your goal of losing weight or improving your health, than simply trying to starve yourself and letting it come down to sheer will power. We all have finite stores of will power on any one specific day.

Or by placing your sneakers at the front door and saying to yourself that your minimum goals is to put on your shoes, you make it more likely that you will go for that walk or run, and ultimately reach your fitness goals, than by simply saying you want to run more. By hiding the batteries for the remote control and putting his TV in a cupboard, Clear sets up a system that makes it too hard for him to watch TV, so that he ends up doing something more productive instead. In the long run, that system sets him up to stay more productive in his life on the things that matter more than watching TV.

Only setting goals is also at odds with long-term progress. The purpose of setting goals is to win a game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game; even when you lose from time to time. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment but rather about continuous refinement, improvement, and growth. From this perspective, it makes sense why the Gates choose not to set goals for the new year.

Ultimately, it’s your commitment in the process of being in your life that will determine your progress. Each time you come back to your intention and take even the smallest of steps toward that intention, you demonstrate your commitment to the person you want to become and to creating what you want with every step you take. Getting one percent better every day counts for a lot more in the long run than trying to make huge strides in a couple of days. Never underestimate the value of consistent small steps taken intentionally over time. That’s how habits are formed.

Now in the context of setting an intention for yourself and your life, choosing a word or a phrase for the year makes sense. It’s a way of declaring what you want your year to be like, or what you want to experience more of in the year, or what you want to be mindful of during the year. It’s a reminder of the larger goal at hand. And it’s far easier to keep one word or intention in mind, than trying to remember a list of goals or objectives.

What makes a word or phrase even more magical, is that it aligns with who you want to be, and thus deepens the change you are after. Clear distinguishes between three levels of change.

The first level of change focuses on outcomes. At this level you are concerned with changing your results – for example, losing weight, buying a house, publishing a book, getting a promotion etc. Most goals you set are associated with this level of change. It’s a change that happens from the outside in. In other words, you hope that by changing your environment or circumstances, you will change your life. You hope that a fitter, slimmer you will be happier than an overweight you. You hope that a new house or car or a new job will finally bring you the happiness you’ve longed for. You hope that once you publish that novel, or start that business, or get that promotion or job offer, things will suddenly fall into place, and all will be well.

And for those of us who have given up on our New Year’s resolutions time and again, we know that this is not how the game of life works and you can’t force your way to happiness or personal growth. There must be some self-love and self-compassion mixed into it if you are to sustain it in the long run. Punishing yourself and berating yourself into achieving a goal means you also rob yourself of the joy that is available in the process of achieving the goal. The fun is in playing the game, not in scoring the goal.

The second level focuses on changing your processes. This level is concerned with changing your habits and systems – for example, implementing a new routine at the gym, decluttering your desk for better workflow, developing meditation habits, etc. Most of the habits you might build over time are associated with this level. The second level of transformation is more sustainable than the first level, since it’s based on bringing about incremental changes that will result in fundamental shifts over time. This level focuses on cultivating those habits that you know will serve you in the long run, like having a morning routine, consuming nurturing food, including daily movement practices to keep yourself fit and healthy, investing in important relationships that will support you and give you a sense of meaning and belonging etc.

Don’t ever underestimate the value of small steps taken consistently towards becoming who you want to be in the world and what you want to create in the world. We don’t create our lives in leaps and bounds. Most of the time, we create our lives through the habits we cultivate day in and day out. We are what we do consistently. This is true for both “good” and “bad” habits. So, I challenge you to examine your daily habits and ask yourself what they say about the type of person you are.

The third level of change is really important here, because even if you cultivate good habits, you might still not derive the level of joy, fulfilment, and life satisfaction you crave. My encouragement is to pay attention to how you are BEING with yourself while you are creating new habits in your life. Are you being loving and compassionate with yourself, or are you berating yourself for slip-ups? Do you wallow in self-pity for days and weeks on end when you make a mistake? Or do you get over it and get back on the horse as quickly as possible? See, you are either someone who chooses to be a victim and feel sorry for yourself. Or you are someone who embraces learning and enjoys failing forward.

The third, and deepest, layer of transformation that Clear distinguishes, is an identity change. At this level, you focus on changing your beliefs, your worldview, your self-image, your judgement about yourself and others. Most of the beliefs, assumptions, and biases that you hold are part of this level and they are what is getting you stuck. Your beliefs about yourself and the world often determine whether you cultivate the self-discipline to follow through on a new habit or intention or not.

And to accomplish this level of transformation, requires doing a lot of inner work to reconsider how you see the world, how you are showing up in your life, and what parts of how you are participating with life are not serving you. For this level of transformation, I have found coaching to be the most supportive in creating lasting and sustainable change.

When someone outside of you can see what you are capable of and hold space for you to grow into that. When someone outside of you can challenge your thinking and beliefs and support you in seeing how you are holding yourself back, then you start to think differently, and when you start to think differently, you show up differently in the world. Over time as you continue to show up differently, you cultivate new habits that support the person you now realise you can become, and you continue to move towards that in small ways.

There doesn’t even have to be a significant “aha” moment. Sometimes the change is subtle and gradual, but one day you look back and you discover you are no longer the person you used to be. You have changed. Your identity has shifted. And you feel more alive, more aligned, more joyful.

So, I’d like to challenge you as you start this new year. How do you want your life to be different one year from now? How do YOU want to be different one year from now? What kind of person do you want to be able to say you are? In other words, who do you want to become over the next 12 months? Do you want to be more present? Calmer? More joyful? Less stressed and anxious? More intentional? More loving? Less judgmental? More committed? Less frustrated? More bold and courageous?

Now choose a word or phrase that captures who you want to be or that captures the type of experiences you want to create this year. I will give you some examples. In my first year working with my coach, I quickly realised that it would serve me to get messy and to be less attached to the outcome. So, my phrase or intention for that year was to not be attached to any outcome. My one word for the year was “unattached”. In the year after that, I had gained so much from staying unattached, that I wanted to deepen that experience, so my word for that year was “surrender”.  It called forth the intention to surrender to life and all the experiences it brought me and to really learn what deep surrender means.

Halfway through the year, my word changed to “service”, because that encapsulated how I wanted to show up in the world and it was such a powerful reminder of what I wanted to pay attention to. This year, I have two words – “play” and “love”. They remind me of my intentions. I want to have more adventures this year and to play more. I want to see the messy parts of my life as the fun parts of my life. And I want to answer the calling of my soul. The answer to the calling of our soul is always love. So, I’ve set the intention to be more loving, both of myself and of others.

What’s your word or phrase for 2022? Let me know.

References:

1. Breytenbach, C. (2021). You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems… Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/you-dont-rise-to-the-level-of-your-goals-you-fall-to-the-level-of-your-systems/
2. Breytenbach, C. (2021). Why it serves you to do a year-end review. Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/why_it_serves_you_to_do_a_year_end_review/
3. Breytenbach, C. (2022). When you are serious about real transformation, the time of year is of no consequence. Available online at: https://chantalbreytenbach.com/time_of_year_is_of_no_consequence/
4. Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. New York: Penguin Random House.
5. Sauer, M. (2022). Bill Gates has ‘never been a big New Year’s resolution person’ — why that’s smart, according to a clinical psychologist. Make It. Available online at: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/01/03/why-bill-gates-has-never-been-a-big-new-years-resolution-person.html