2023: The Year of Connection

Also see:

• 2022: The Year of Adventure (and the annual review)
• 2021: The Year of Courage (and the annual review)
• And if you aren’t down with yearly themes, watch this.

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When I was writing this year’s review, the themes that popped up all came from a lack of connection to different things in my life. I want deeper connections to everything. To my family, to myself, to the world, to my work.

Here are some examples of what “increasing connection” means to me right now:

To my kids:

• Less distraction during family time
• More weekend activities, less sitting around
• Plan and book more family vacations

To my wife:

• Get regular date nights going finally
• Replace passive aggression with honesty and vulnerability
• Work harder to get kids to bed on time to maximize time together

To my coworkers:

• Replace small talk with big talk
• More honesty and less people pleasing

To myself:

• Give therapy a fair shot
• Start journaling (on this blog!)

To the world:

• Be outside more
• Travel with Nancy more

That’s what it means to be right now, but the beauty of a yearly theme is that it’s flexible. What it means right now could be totally different than what it will mean in six months, and that’s OK.

In past years, I forgot about the theme after the first 4 or 5 months. To fix that, I’m going to try having seasons that line up with 12 week goal cycles. So for example, I may start with the Winter of Honesty, and base goals around that. Then maybe the Spring of Presence. I dunno, I’ll ponder that a bit more.

Anyways, that’s my theme for 2023. What’s yours?