For over a decade I've given each new year a title before it begins. It started as an experiment, became a habit, and then a small piece of how I live.
Why it works
Name the chapter before you live it.
This isn't a word, a phrase, a theme, or a direction, the way a lot of people do it. It's not about setting an intention. I see each year as a chapter in a book, the story of my life.
So the question isn't "what do I want to get out of this year?" It's "what will happen this year, and what would I title that chapter in the book of my life?" Pick the three big things you're going to do next year. Pick them now. Then name the year around completing those three things.
Diana Patel and I have met regularly for more than three years to compare notes on our year names and check in. Here she is on the difference between a one-word name and a title, and me on what “Ukiyo” meant before that year began.
I'd been naming my years for a while before I ever talked about it out loud. Eventually it made its way onto a TEDx stage, in a talk called "Discover Your Incredible Future." Here it is.
The current year
2026
The Renaissance.
The art is one person doing many things, well. Writing the words, designing the site, building the product, recording the song, telling the story, shipping the company. Renaissance, originally, meant rebirth. This year is mine.
Essay in progress
The archive
Every year, named.
2025
LMNOP
Learn. Make. Notice. Observe. Practice. A year of attention.
My friend Justin Breen and I go back to our Triton College days. When he wrote his book Epic Life, he built a whole chapter around naming your years, a practice he picked up from me.
Justin Breen and me, working it out at the whiteboard.
“One of his great ideas is he names his years,” Breen said. “So, one of the chapters in the new book, Epic Life, is ‘naming your years.’” The practice kept Breen focused while promoting his first book, Epic Business, which launched in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. That year was “global growth,” and Epic Business went on to become a bestseller in six countries.
Rachel K. Hindery, on Justin Breen's Epic Life
Add to the museum
Name your years too?
If you name your years, share this year's name and the story behind it. The best go up on the wall.
Read the year in review
