My theme for 2022: The Year of Recalibration

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Every year, my wife and I each pick our words for the year. These act as intentionality markers for our decision making, and help us stay moving in a desired direction. For example, if one of your words for the year is health, simply reminding yourself of that can help you skip the donut or hit the gym.

I like words (or themes) much better than New Year’s resolutions or goals because they are by nature imprecise. With a New Year’s resolution (“I’m going to lose weight”), you get discouraged after a little while because you don’t see the progress coming as quickly as you thought it would. With a goal (“I will lose 15 pounds by December 31st”), success is defined as pass/fail. You either hit the goal by your target date (pass) or you don’t (fail).

But if you lost 12 pounds and you failed to hit your goal, that doesn’t mean you didn’t make any progress! If you established healthy eating habits and made a routine of working out regularly, that’s still a big win that will continue to pay dividends going forward.

And this is where words or themes can help.

If your theme was “the year of health”, the fact that you didn’t lose as much weight as you wanted isn’t a personal failure. The theme simply provides a supporting framework for making better decisions. Those individual decisions grow into regular routines, making it easier to choose them again. With a theme, your job is simply to make choices that align with that theme – not to hit an arbitrary goal.

Generally, I like to pick a couple of words as I think about the new year. But this year, I’ve condensed them into a single theme.

For me, 2022 is The Year of Recalibration.

When I think about calibration, I think about tuning a machine or system so that it produces better results. If you calibrate a piano by tuning it, the sounds that come from it are much sweeter. If you calibrate an engine (once again, by tuning it), it runs smoothly and performs at a higher level.

But I really like this definition of the word “calibrate” from DIctionary.com:

This aligns a lot with something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately: “what does it look like to hit the mark in the different areas of my life?” In the past, I’ve been focused on making small changes to move the needle on the things that mattered. But this year, I feel the need to reconsider everything.

In other words, I need to “re-calibrate.”

I don’t want to simply do what I was doing, just a little better. I want to examine all aspects of my life without falling back on “this is what I did before.” So, I’m going back to the drawing board. This year, I want to redefine what success looks like for every area of my life.

As a theme, I believe that the “year of recalibration” will help me in challenging my assumptions. I don’t want to default to the way I’ve always done things. I’m hoping that when I’m faced with a decision, my yearly theme will help me to explore the uncomfortable option. I want to be open to new ideas and new experiences. I want to experiment as I dial things in. The year of recalibration is all about seeing what hits the mark, and what I’m really capable of.

What are your words for 2022? Do you have a theme chosen for this year? I’d love to hear about it!

Until next time – keep going, and keep growing.

— Mike Schmitz

Recent podcast episodes

​Focused Episode #142: Sparky Gets Focused ​

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Sparky finally put his money where his mouth is and he’s doing just one thing now. In this episode, I have questions, and David has answers.

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​Bookworm Episode #136: Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows​

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In this episode, the author attempts to help us develop the systems-thinking skills we need to avoid confusion find more effective solutions.

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​The Intentional Family Episode #47: 2022 Words for the Year​

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In this episode, Rachel & I share our words for the year, and talk about why broad themes are more likely to create positive changes than specific goals.

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This Week’s Sermon Sketchnotes video

Every Sunday, I take sketchnotes of my Pastor’s sermon and post them to my website. Here’s my sketchnote from January 9th.

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