My friend Stephen and I like to come up with themes for the New Year. Stephen Shapiro is the author of “Goal-Free Living”, a book that teaches people how to get the most out of life by not setting goals. The concept is that if you attach yourself to a goal, you are so focused on achieving that goal that you miss all of the opportunities that might spring up around you. The way Stephen puts it, you want to pick a direction in life and “meander with purpose” in that direction. When you “meander with purpose” you have time to be present in the moment and notice things that could advance your agenda that you never would have suspected before.

Setting a New Year’s Resolution is essentially setting a goal. “I will lose 10 pounds”, “I will quit smoking January 1st”, “I will go to the gym 3 times a week”, “I will call my parents every Sunday”. When you make such a resolution, with such specific goal-oriented outcomes attached, it’s quite easy to fail.

So what if, instead, you set a “direction”, not a goal? Stephen and I think of this as setting a “theme” for the year. I works like this: Instead of resolving to “lose 10 pounds”, set a theme of “healthy living”. Instead of saying “I will call my parents every Sunday”, set the theme, “get to know my parents”. When you set themes instead of goals or resolutions, they begin to permeate your consciousness and you will see actual change.

I started setting themes on New Year’s Eve 1991-92 when I was living in Los Angeles. LA is a crazy city, and working in “Hollywood” is even crazier. The constant pace, judgment, acceptance, rejection, long-days, boring shoots, celebrity power and pecking order is enough to drive any sane person crazy. On top of all of this, I was a person in my mid-twenties trying to find myself. New Year’s was coming around, and I didn’t want another year where my resolutions went by the wayside somewhere around mid-January.

So I decided 1991 into 1992 would be different. My “resolution” that year was “to be dramatic only when drama was necessary”. Now mind you, I was not a particularly egregious drama queen. However, I was a chick in Hollywood, influenced and surrounded by people who lived in drama and I was catching the disease. To address this, I set what I now call a “theme”. My theme allowed me to take a millisecond in any situation before I would “react”. This millisecond allowed me to actually choose what kind of reaction I was going to have, instead of simply reacting. Assigning myself this permission — “to be dramatic only when drama was necessary” — changed my life. It calmed me. It made me more thoughtful. And it made me realize that I was actually in control of my emotions — they weren’t in control of me.

Since that time, I’ve had a theme (or themes) every year. This year, 2007, my theme was “authenticity” and I will admit that it is the most powerful, life-changing theme I have ever had. I feel that for perhaps the first time ever, I have completely lived as an authentic “me”.

So what does this have to do with The Social Age? As you move into the New Year, think about what kinds of things you can do that will make the world a kinder, gentler kind of place. “Being conscious”, “being aware”, “focusing on others”, “being kind to strangers”, “being green”, “living generously” are all great Social Age themes.

So how do you come up with a theme? I find it best when they come organically, out of an experience, and emotion, a desire. So check in with yourself and see if there is something that you are craving to change, do or experience.

As for me? I have two themes for this coming year. The first is “a healthy attitude”, which means not just a healthy outlook on life, but an attitude of health about my physical being. My other theme was inspired by Michael J. Fox, the actor who is personally struggling with Parkinson’s Disease and publicly struggling to get stem cell research on the map. I read an article about him recently in US News and World Report where he was saluted as one of “America’s Best Leaders 2007″. He said, “when I look to the future, I always look to the best version of it”. For me, this translates into my second theme which is “image the best future possible and live it now”.

So what is your theme for 2008 going to be? I encourage you to grab a cup of tea and contemplate what change you want to make in the coming year. I look forward to what you have to share.

Happy New Year

Susanneикони