New Year’s resolutions don’t have to suck
November 30
The time for resolutions and new beginnings is almost here. It feels as though, year after year, I commit to half a dozen goals to enhance my life and better myself, but halfway through January, I find that I’ve either fallen off the wagon or realize that my new and improved life goals suck. Honestly, I’m not sure what feels worse: the guilt that I’ve failed at my resolution or my regret for blindly subscribing to a new lifestyle.
Rather than putting myself through the emotional ringer every January, I’ve decided to implement a new system to mitigate poorly designed resolutions. The solution? A trial period.
What better use of the last month of the year than taking my new goals for a spin and letting myself fail one, two, or five times at my goal? At least at that point, I’ve gotten a taste of failure. I can leave that feeling happily behind when I skate into the New Year with a true understanding of what resolutions I want to commit to and how I can realistically achieve them. Nobody goes into the Olympics without training first, right? Why are we throwing ourselves headfirst, eyes closed, into self-improvement?
Some of the classic resolutions that appear in January are centered around reducing stress, promoting health, and “getting out there”. If there is one thing that does not mitigate my stress, it’s setting too many goals and then failing at multiple of them.
So, here are some of my goals for this year and how I plan to approach them:
Learn a new hobby: The question every January is what will my new hobby be? Being as indecisive as I am, sometimes I find that come spring, I still haven’t decided on a hobby, and I end up hobby-less. This December, I plan to use my trial period to explore a few hobbies and see which ones stick and carry over into the new year.
Ol’ faithful, dry January: Last year, my goal was to complete dry January. This goal turned into what I called a “misty 1st quarter,” where I drank less from January to April. Last year, I did not drink less. I did feel successful, though, for creating the epic concept of a misty 1st quarter. I don’t drink much in general, but I do feel some of the negative effects of alcohol, even if I have a couple of drinks a week, such as increased anxiety and decreased sleep. I personally feel better mentally when I don’t drink often. This year, I am ready to be committed to my misty 1st quarter. My main guideline is to drink only at special celebrations, but not to the point of being drunk. For example, maybe I’ll have one drink at a friend’s birthday dinner. This rule is to take some of the pressure off. The goal of misty 1st quarter is to profit from the health benefits of not drinking and easing into the lifestyle of drinking less.
Focus on meaningful connections: The good thing about this goal is that it’s not very easy to fail. My goal here is to remember to be intentional about the relationships I have with my friends, family, loved ones, etc. It’s easy to take a solid and healthy relationship for granted when nothing is stirring the pot. Putting work into a relationship doesn’t have to mean that something is wrong, and I need to fix it. It brings me immense joy when someone sends me a picture of something that reminds them of me or even just a text to ask how things are going. One of my friends and I recently started sending weekly updates to keep each other posted on what’s new. When life gets chaotic, or I find my mental health isn’t in the best spot, I can neglect those little rituals even though they mean so much. This year, I want to be more mindful about reaching out to people in my life.
Journal more: This one doesn’t feel too hard to accomplish. I find that habits that feel “low stakes” are a lot harder for me to build. For example, when my goal was to floss more, and I decided to opt out early in the year, I got an earful from my dentist. I had someone or something holding me accountable, which is not the case for journaling. It’s on me to stick to my goal even if the benefits aren’t as visible as healthy gums or the improvements I might see from going to the gym. Journaling is something I love to do, but lately I haven’t made the time for it. I’m hoping to write at least twice a week, so I plan to pick two days of the week when I write at least one paragraph about anything on my mind. This is more about getting back in the habit of doing it, rather than trying to force oneself to become extremely introspective.
Create micro goals: My life lately has not been too eventful. I live in a small town where there isn’t a lot to do, and I’ve fallen subject to doomscrolling for hours on end more often than I’m proud to admit. One thing I’ve started doing in the last week or so is setting one goal for myself every day. Sometimes it’s doing my laundry, drawing, going on a run, or calling my mom. Whatever it is, it helps me feel that I’ve done something productive that day and helps me spend less time doing nothing.
When New Year’s came around last year, I had a whole list of goals for myself to become “the new me” in 2024. January was a bit of a blur. I had intentions to create goals for myself, but within the first week of the new year, I got poison oak, started working at the dining hall at my university, my romantic life was not doing well, and both of my grandparents died. So, I could say I was a bit preoccupied.
Even though I didn’t succeed at Dry January this year, I do feel that I’ve made significant strides in more important parts of my life. I endured the greatest loss of my life while still trying to stay afloat in my academics, maintain friendships, and figure out what I was going to do after graduation. Looking back on my year, considering all that I experienced, I feel proud of how I dealt with it and how far I’ve come mentally since then. I feel proud of how I took care of myself during that time by prioritizing my mental health, engaging in physical activities, and maintaining balanced, healthy relationships.
It’s hard to set a goal. This is why I see so many of the same goals on my list every year. I know that I must strike a balance of being regimented and holding myself accountable while also being flexible and understanding of the times when I might fail. “Success isn’t linear,” said everyone to anyone who’s ever tried to do some self-improvement or healing.
Going into this year, my final goal is to be less of an asshole to myself. My New Year's resolutions are not created to make my life harder or to make me feel bad about myself. Just the act of creating a goal for myself is already one step closer to improvement, and that’s one thing to be proud of.
