Defining who I want to be..

Like last year, I’m going to set some loose themes for this year. They aren’t goals or resolutions, but they do give me a nice guidepost for what I want to accomplish during the upcoming year. For 2020, I only have four themes.

One note about my themes this year: I’m thinking about them more as statements of identity. During this past year, I read Atomic Habits by James Clear and one anecdote in particular has stuck with me. When people are trying to quit smoking, people who say “I’m not a smoker” are more successful than people who say “I’m trying to quit.” Defining who you are can help shape your habits and actions. So I’m framing my themes as statements of who I am instead of what I want to do.

I’m a graduate student. I only have a handful of classes left and my thesis. Most of my time and energy will be focused on completing my Master’s degree and presenting at conferences. I’ll be doing a significant amount of reading and writing for classes and research this year. If all goes according to plan, I’ll graduate in December of 2020.
I’m a healthy person. I need to start taking better care of myself. Yes, that means eating better and working out regularly, but being healthy does just mean physical health. I’ve read a lot in the past year about meditation and mindfulness and I feel like I’d benefit from carving time out of my schedule to focus on mental health as well.
I’m a typeface designer. I love designing typefaces. Honestly, it’s my favorite thing to design and I don’t do it frequently enough. (This year, despite it being one of my themes, I only finished a single typeface.) I’ve got plans for a variable typeface and my plan is to finish it in 2020.
I’m a reader. It wasn’t one of my themes for 2019, but I decided in the spring that I’d like to read more books. I used Goodreads to track my reading, rediscovered my local library and finished 24 books over the course of the year (not including all those journal articles and books I read for class). I’d like to keep it going...

And that’s it. I have other projects and topics I’ll work on, but these are the four big themes. Last year, I wrote a follow up at the midpoint of 2019. For this year, I’m going to try and write about my progress at least once a month.

Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create.