At this time of year, I always find myself trying to set goals for the New Year, often known as New Year’s Resolutions. This year, I sat myself down and began writing in my journal to solidify my intentions for 2026 – but I ended up ripping out the page entirely. Everything listed on it was the same as it always is: drink more water, be consistent at the gym, don’t DoorDash as much food on nights out, lock in on school, and all other things that may be written in your own journal from three weeks ago. The reason I ripped it out is relatively simple, but something to consider as your adult years progress.
New Year’s Resolutions rarely work.
This might make me Captain Obvious, but it’s true. Every time I make what feels like a thousand goals for the new year, it stresses me out, which makes it all entirely more difficult to complete. It also defeats the purpose of goal setting at any time. Why is it that we always try to justify waiting to start new goals until the new year? Why couldn’t we just start when we think of the goal? It feels entirely unrealistic to create all of these intentions at once and overwhelm myself with these options as opposed to taking the initiative to start goals whenever I think of them. It’s less of an overload of goals to complete and it would transform me into the kind of person to get them done in the first place, which is like its own goal in and of itself.
I like to call the idea of the list being the same every year “Resolution Debt.” Carrying over the same goals year after year, like drinking more water, turns them into chores more than they are aspirations. When we fail to meet them, we start the year with a sense of moral failure before January is even over. It is always better to clear the slate entirely than to carry around the baggage of the unkept promises of the year before.
Using New Year’s as a sort of start date is the trap of the “Fresh Start Effect”. People have a tendency to wait for these landmarks in the year like birthdays, New Year’s, or even Mondays to distance ourselves from past failures and work to move forward. While it’s true that these dates may give us more motivation, they also create a fictional version of ourselves. We imagine that on January 1st, a new version of ourselves will miraculously appear who suddenly loves eating kale and working out at 6:00 AM, completely ignoring the habits and stressors of the people we were on December 31st.
We aren’t the only ones that are benefitting from Resolution culture, either. Things like gyms, diet apps, and planners are marketed heavily at this time of year for a reason. It creates a performative productivity culture, where we aren’t just setting goals; we are being sold an often unsustainable lifestyle. Ripping out the page of these resolutions is an act of rebellion against those pressures.
To support the idea of starting goals whenever they come up, I would recommend contrasting the event (New Year’s) with the process (daily life). In reality, genuine change is boring. It’s not a journal entry or eating grapes under the table when the clock hits midnight; it’s a random Tuesday in March when you decide to walk for ten minutes or download Hinge to put yourself out there. By rejecting resolutions, you are choosing systems over goals. Anyone has the power to change on any day of the year, and using a landmark date to pile on yourself is essentially piling on the guilt that you will experience at the end of the year when you’ve only implemented a few of those goals.
Instead of a list of demands for my future self, I’m giving myself the gift of a blank page. Growth isn’t a seasonal event; it’s a year-round evolution that doesn’t require the countdown.