2024: Year of Depth

What is a Yearly Theme?

January of a new year is always a time of reflection, taking stock of how life has changed since the last Jan 1st, and gazing into the mist of the future to predict and prescribe how the next twelve months should go. Years are arbitrarily bounded and time is continuous, but this mental, emotional, and cultural significance does matter.

“Temporal landmarks slow our thinking, allowing us to deliberate at a higher level and make better decisions.” – Daniel H. Pink, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing¹

New Year’s Resolutions are a classic tool to motivate change, but so often they are overly ambitious and specific, which quickly leads to despair, demotivation, and abandon. While resolutions are well-intentioned, for many people the time horizon of a year is too long to consistently stick to “doing X thing every N days” without giving up or losing sight of the underlying reason for the intended life change.

In contrast to the harsh, unforgiving resolution, a more subtle method to craft the type of year you want for yourself is a “yearly theme” as presented so eloquently in Your Theme by CGP Grey². A theme is simply an idea written as “Year of X” - some examples may be “Year of Reading”, “Year of Wellness”, “Year of Travel”, or “Year of Study”. Since the ultimate goal is lasting and meaningful positive change over long periods of time, the specific data points are unimportant; what actually matter are trendlines moving in the right direction.

“Not all tools need sharp edges.” – CGP Grey, Your Theme

As Grey points out, “even decelerating a negative is a positive” – while falling short or missing a day of a resolution is demotivating, a yearly theme encourages the celebration of small successes and building the momentum of behavior change. The broad strokes of a theme offer a guide to your trendline, providing a principle to follow at decision branches to move towards positive growth.

If your theme is “Year of Fitness”, for example, you might choose to walk to school or work instead of taking transit, or even just to walk one stop further before riding the bus. These types of decisions in aggregate will add up to significant strides towards your goals.

When choosing a theme, CGP Grey recommends that it should be broad, directional, and resonant – resonance is especially important to the success of your theme. If the theme resonates with you, it’s more likely to stick in your mind throughout your days, which increases your likelihood of making decisions aligned with the theme. So when choosing a theme, look out for ideas that tickle your brain.

My Year of Depth

In 2023 I explored so many new experiences, most notably through studying abroad in Switzerland³. Now I feel ready to once again root myself in routine, carefully choose how I spend my time, and meaningfully engage with each endeavor I embark on.

“Transformation is not accomplished by tentative wading at the edge.” – Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass⁴

Contemplating these motivations, I decided that my 2024 theme is “Year of Depth”. With the understanding that the specifics may change as my perspective shifts over the course of the year, I define the theme to cover four main pillars:

• Depth in relationships
• Depth in work and study
• Depth in fitness and food
• Depth in media consumption

I’m not sure if I can fit all of this into one year or if the different aspects might clash with each other, but in an ideal world I’d like to work on all of these facets. In reality, making significant progress on even one or two by the end of the year would be a huge positive and thus a success of the theme.

… in Relationships

Applying the principle of depth to my relationships, I want to spend the year leaning into substantive experiences with the people who mean the most to me. My mom recently pointed out to me that somehow, our family doesn’t have any pictures from 2023 of all five of us together. Although at first I didn’t believe it, I soon understood why – because of a combination of jobs and circumstances, we didn’t go on any trips or hikes all together, and we don’t usually take family pictures in day-to-day life. Part of my year of depth will be about creating new memories with my family and taking advantage of the time that we’re together in place.

The first half of 2024 will be my final months as an undergrad, and although I’ll be at UW for another year for my masters, many of my close friends will soon be moving on. Similarly, being in Switzerland while most of my high school friends were at home for winter break made it clear that even though most of us will probably spend the winters at home for years to come, having everyone together is not guaranteed. I aim to make the most of our time as people start the next phases of life and move away from home.

… in Work and Study

In terms of work and school, I want to narrow my focus to a small set of true interests and dive deeply into each. When I start new research projects I hope to become an expert in the background, contemplate multiple aspects of each idea, thoroughly implement my methods, and stay open for opportunities to go further. Thinking with a framework of depth will lead me to do high quality work that I’m proud of. This will also undoubtedly mean saying no to some possible paths, since it’s not possible to do everything deeply.

… in Fitness and Food

Over the past 1.5 years I’ve been rock climbing and bouldering, I’ve already gone through periods of varying frequency and noticed that each time I restart after even a short break, my progress stagnates. Since this is a hobby that I enjoy and feel satisfaction in progressing, I’d like to renew my efforts to climb consistently and focus on building the technique, strength, and flexibility to climb harder. I remember when I first started I was obsessed with discovering new techniques to move more efficiently, but as I cleared the low-hanging fruit I stopped searching for more. It’s possible I’ll decide at some point that I want to climb just for fun, but for now and as long as I want to make progress, I’ll go deep into the small improvements that add up to finishing climbs that previously felt impossible.

Cooking has been another interest of mine since high school, but I haven’t spent much time prioritizing it – often opting for a quick pasta or frozen dumplings when school gets busy. I think making meals for myself and others builds a deeper connection with my food and the people I share it with, so it feels appropriate to spend time cooking and eating well in the year of depth.

… in Media Consumption

Like many who grew up along with social media, I often find myself getting sucked into the whirlwhind of content, realizing after too long that I don’t even enjoy what I’m watching. Sheer willpower is unlikely to break this cycle, as there’s a whole array of factors that by design make platforms like Youtube as addictive as possible. Instead of fighting the platforms, I can take control by altering the way I interact with media and using strategies to counteract their addictiveness⁵.

When I imagine my ideal media consumption, a much larger share would be made up of books, well-researched articles, scientific papers, and artful long-form TV and movies. In 2024, I’m looking forward to shifting my time towards slower and more engaging content which I purposefully seek out rather than surface-level, algorithmically recommended attention traps.

Starting Together

“These are the three principles of successful beginnings: Start right. Start again. Start together.” – Daniel H. Pink, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

This blog itself is also a part of this journey; writing here is an opportunity to form my jumbled thoughts into a coherent strand and reflect over my experiences. And by posting about my yearly theme, I’m starting this new beginning together with you. If you read this far, you might be inspired to come up with a theme of your own⁶. If you do, let me know!

I’ll be back with a theme retrospective in December, but feel free to ask me how it’s going at any point in the year. I hope you have a great 2024!

Footnotes