We open with a familiar scene to everyone. Each year, we gather with family and friends. We discuss the past, we dream up the future. When the clock strikes midnight, we find ourselves suddenly accountable for this new person we said we would become…or not.
This business of new year’s resolutions is coming from a pure place, actually. It’s beautiful to conceive of a new, better version of yourself. We all have dreams, and there is nothing that says we ought to keep ourselves from achieving them. Many people, however, give up on new year’s resolutions a couple weeks–even a couple days–after instituting them. So what’s wrong with us, anyway? Do we not really care that much about our resolutions, are we lazy, or is there more to it than that?
My refusal of resolutions
About eight years ago, I got really tired of this yearly question, “what will you be vowing to change about yourself this year?” It bothered me that people seemed so eager to hear that I was recognizing myself as not good enough, someone who needed changing. Although I was angry about a lot back then, this question always got to me. I felt the whole thing was presumptuous and toxic.
So I came up with the most clever, annoying resolution of all. From then on, anyone who asked me about new year’s resolutions got the very curated answer, “Well, (x) number of years ago, I made the new year’s resolution to stop making new year’s resolutions, so I’m making good on that promise.” It certainly sent a message, and most people stopped asking me after the first year they knew me. Unfortunately, it was a bit dismissive to other’s good intentions.
The problem with changing ourselves
I think, even now, that I was really onto something, although I definitely wasn’t thinking (or caring) about the abrasive way it came off to others. I didn’t like this question because underlying was a presupposition that I needed changing, which hurt, and really felt like a judgment. But it was less of a judgement of me than I realized, because people do this to themselves. It was only an outward reflection of their dissatisfaction about who they were.
It seems that every year, we are persuaded to find a new way (or reintroduce the old way) of rejecting ourselves. This is so prevalent in our society that it crosses all sorts of traditions, like religion, cultural traditions and class lines. We want to reinvent ourselves, not to become more authentically ourselves, but rather to get rid of us–to get rid of the person in the mirror that we don’t like or are embarrassed and ashamed of.
And this judgement of ourselves and where we’re at in our lives hurts us. We can’t just get rid of who we are, so we end up in pain, with emotional and psychological wounds that we end up either having to cover up or disentangle. At any rate, making goalposts and resolutions from this place of self-denial brings self-sabotage (failure to meet the goals) and/or emotional strife down the line about the person we’ve become because we don’t see who we know ourselves to be in the life we have created.
For this reason, it is important to make goals coming from a place of joy, of hope for the future and of loving acceptance for yourself. You will find that while your goals may even stay the same, how you will go about getting to them will differ greatly.
Wanting to grow is wonderful
As I said, this intention of improving and changing ourselves really can be from a beautiful, pure and wise place inside of us. I am supportive of humanity’s drive to follow their dreams and become a person they can really be proud of.
That being said, why would you only decide to follow your dream on January first if you truly felt this drive inside of you? Back as a sassy teenager, I latched on to this idea by sheer chance, but the true spirit behind dream chasing does not seem to be often correlated with new year’s resolutions, and even in the cases it is, it is certainly not activated by it.
What are my goals?
This new year, I am changing my response to anyone who asks me about my resolutions. You see, I do in fact have goals and changes that I am looking forward to implementing, bit by bit into my daily life. However, these new aspects of myself, my habits and my world are not activated by the new year itself, and they are not coming from a place of fixing who I am at my core.
Instead, my “new year’s resolutions” have already been started, and they were started the instant that I thought of them. Not because I have some incredible resolve, but actually the opposite. I know that my biggest asset towards achieving my goals is riding the inspiration and motivation burst that I get from realizing them in the very beginning. I know that I can use that to insert a new habit into my routine!
So this year, when people ask me about resolutions, I think it is very important to my growth to honor that idealistic part of them that wants to grow, learn, change and evolve. I’m going to say that yes, I have resolutions, but they are just natural outgrowths of the life that I’ve been living, not motivated by some shame that makes me think I should change. This year, my resolutions are a medium for helping me further explore the world around me.
Should I make a new year’s resolution at all?
But what about your resolutions? Do you feel that you have to lose weight, eat healthier, cut spending or get a new certification to spruce up your resume? Do you feel that you are a lesser person for not having achieved your goals in the past, and that if you don’t “make this your year”, you are wasting your time, wasting your life?
If this is the case for you, I have one simple but powerful suggestion that I would like you to mull over all the way through. The best way for you to keep your new year’s resolution this year is to not make one at all.
There is a darker side to this custom of “resolutions”. Year after year, it is a trap. A trap to remember your failure last year, and the year before that. When you look at your past failures, instead of dreaming your way to success, you strive and claw at its’ coattails. You frantically reach for weight loss, better professional performance or a more harmonious relationship, but instead of transforming yourself, your personality starts to stagnate and grow sour.
My challenge for you
I suggest that you try it. Resolve to stop making new year’s resolutions, and embrace yourself for who you are in this moment, see what happens. I promise you that you will not be stuck the way you are. Life has a way of growing and changing you. Instead of judging who you’ve become, celebrate who you’re becoming and who you could be. And know that from this place, you will still be called to move, change and grow.
The fear that you are inherently lazy and stubborn to change at your core is just that, fear. The less energy you give it, the more you will find yourself moving to change, naturally and voluntarily, just by letting yourself authentically be who you are in the present moment. This year, know that you have the power to embrace the wise, idealistic and hopeful side of you that wants to change, while also releasing the frantic, toxic part of you that needs to not be the way you are. It’s a delicate balance, but an empowering and exhilarating one that is a possibility for you.
Still want to make a resolution?
If you still feel called to make a new year’s resolution, make one for you. Don’t focus on what you “should” be changing, but rather focus on what you want and need to change to be a happier, healthier person who is moving toward becoming the person you feel you are deep down inside.
Your resolutions should be an outgrowth of who you honest to goodness are on the inside. If you want them to work, they will need to be a healthy way for you to express the kind, wise and confident being that you are, slowly or quickly, becoming.
If you find a goal like this, it won’t automatically become easy. You will still have to put in the work. But you will find that you need less “discipline”, because you have connected with your true self and you know in both your head and your heart that this is what you want to do.
So this year, consider changing up your new year’s resolution. Don’t make one, or if you do, make one for the right reasons, with the best motivations. You don’t have to reject yourself to improve yourself.
