This Filipino Slang Word Helped Me Figure Out My Theme of the Year
Find that word that hits you right in the gut
What if resolutions complicate our lives and pressure us more than we realized? We look to these laundry lists of tasks and milestones to lead better, happier lives — but what if all they do is make us feel like a failure when we don’t measure up to them, or leave us looking for more even after we achieve them?
This is the premise of self-improvement author Niklas Göke’s alternative to goal-setting. What if all it takes to have a truly great year, he argues, is a single, solid word?
This word is your theme of the year.
“A theme is a baseline ideal,” he wrote, “one that you use to guide your actions and decisions”. A theme succeeds where hard goals fall short: “It turns happiness into an attainable, daily standard that’s based on your behavior, not your accomplishments.”
The concept is pretty straightforward. Pick one word, remember it, and repeatedly ask yourself throughout the year, “Is this aligned with my theme?” And yet, for the past two years, I just couldn’t make it work — my chosen word barely stuck.
I know what you’re thinking — it’s one word. I literally had just one job.
