Let me start here with a very unpopular opinion: new year's resolutions are useless. Period. I’m quite sure this being said has thrown you off but let me elaborate more on why I find them not just useless, but detrimental actually.
Picture this; here is a typical setup of almost every one of us just a week or two before the year ends, each grabbing a pen and notebook writing down a list of goals to be achieved in the new year; a ‘new year, new me’ kind of thing. ‘go to the gym’, ‘save money’, ‘travel more’, ‘get a promotion’ etc. We get so excited that we amp up on all the things we need to achieve before the countdown of the following year ends.
Expectations
Like all of us, you finish this list, put the pen down, and promise yourself, yet again, that you’ll commit, that you’ll make it happen this time, that ‘this year is going to be mine’.
Reality
You are a month or two into the new year. You have probably forgotten about the list and what you had in it. Days, months, and weeks pass and you feel stressed and pressured to find yourself approaching the end of the year without crossing out any of those goals or maybe barely getting one or two crossed out at best. You end the year feeling disappointed, unaccomplished, and you promise yourself you’ll repeat all of that, and, add new goals to them.
Face It and Let It Sink In for a While
Now, deeper down beyond the outer layer of unachieved goals and resolutions, there is an urging question: ‘Why is it that your resolutions never materialize?’ Ask yourself why you haven’t hit that gym once even though you put it as a goal or haven’t planned this trip abroad yet. The ‘why’ has all the answers for you.
Maybe the goals you set for yourself are based on the expectations of others or maybe you are just conforming to certain societal norms that by this age you should have x amount of money in your bank account or build a family etc. Maybe the reason you are not committing to these goals no matter how many times you write them down year after year is simply because these are not the goals your heart is yearning for.
Truth Be Told
You don’t need to wait for a new year for a fresh start or a big change. New beginnings do not have to be only linked to a new year. Change can happen anytime, needless to say, life will always surprise us with an unexpected turn of events that make us either change track or consider if this goal is still relevant at this phase of our lives.
Resolutions feel like obligation, not motivation. The pressure of thinking you must get this goal ticked off before the year ends is not a motivation, it is an obligation that perpetuates feelings of stress, panic, and incompetence when you don’t get to achieve what you’ve put down on paper and promised yourself you would when your excitement about the new year was at its highest.
Maybe you haven’t even figured out what you want for the new year yet. A little of a flashback here, how many times have you sat down to write down your resolutions only to find yourself stuck not knowing what they should be but feeling the need to have something so you don’t start the year on an unplanned note? Sometimes you may have even written down things half-heartedly from last year, not because you really want them, but just because you didn’t manage to accomplish them the year before.
The point here is not to encourage you to become a demotivated, lifeless person who doesn’t care about the future, but rather to be realistic to give yourself the time to know what you really want.
Instead Resolutions, How about a Motif?
Like a theme you set for a party, let this year be themed with a specific motif or a value you would like to bring into your life and incorporate that into your actions. Let me explain further. So let’s say you are missing balance in your life and you want to bring that in, make the new year’s intention about bringing balance to your life.
While this is a much broader vision and doesn’t seem as defined and broken down into the action-plan methodology of goal setting, it will serve you best. This is in the sense that you have more flexibility to decide how you will bring in balance to your life, what decisions you need to take, and what you need to change in those small daily habits. Accordingly, you have not just changed one aspect of your life through a certain motif or value, but the entirety of it in the way you are trying to reach balance.
To further elaborate your motif for the year is health, accordingly, you will consider eating clean, exercising, getting better sleep, decluttering your home, etc. Now you didn’t set one of those actions as a goal without knowing your ‘why’, you reached these goals as a conclusion to what shape you want your life to take as a whole next year.
Wrapping this all up, if setting resolutions for the new year works well for you, then definitely carry on. But if you are one of those who has grown tired of doing the same thing every year, over and over, then it is about time to know you need a change in approach. Step into the new year with more freedom and belief in yourself, and above all good understanding of who you are and what you want. Do things your way, and your way only. Some things might work well with others but not for you and vice versa. Be creative. Be original. Let your intuition guide you throughout the year. You’ll love the process, I promise!
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