Sitting in a dimly lit living room with my brother and his wife, we talk about the trajectory of the upcoming year.

“All I know is there’s a lot that‘s gonna change.”

“I really want to be more intentional with…”

“Yeah, that really made me think about my own reasons why I…”

My friend joins in a few hours later.

Only the lamps from a nearby room light our conversation.

My friends and I have a tradition that you may want to take and do with your own friends.

We’ve taken to declaring themes for the next year, rather than creating a list of goals.

By doing this, we elevate an itemized list of resolutions to a more holistic list of themes for the next year.

What makes it fun, is that they can be anything you want. They can be totally ridiculous, totally unknown and totally unpredictable. They can be hilarious or sobering. Anything is fair game.

The important part is talking about why you chose those themes.

By doing that, you start to make your ideas more tangible and more concrete.

It’s not — “I want to go to the gym everyday”
It’s — “The Year of Taking Care of Myself”

You might even have trouble saying them out loud and declaring them. My brother did. Talking it out helped him realize this it’s time to face his challenges–even if it created an opportunity for him to fail.

As you take some time and legitimize your themes with each other, you grow closer as a community and learn to understand each other more deeply.

The amazing aspect of this is that it’s not a matter of failure, it’s a matter of pushing to make the theme prevalent in your life.

The final part is to seal your declarations by getting out some permanent markers, pulling out some shrinky dink plastic and preheating your oven.