I don’t necessarily believe in New Year’s resolutions. For me, they always set expectations that are too high to meet at once and become a recipe for failure. However, I don’t necessarily mind there being a time of year that is centered so much around self-reflection and goal-setting. I like to set my mind straight and know what has worked for me in the past year and what hasn’t, so I can keep aiming to be the best version of myself. I don’t necessarily do New Year’s resolutions formally, but I have been taking this time of year as a time to reflect on myself, my life and my goals.
Earlier this school year, I wrote an article about valuing female friendships and I find that the topic still rang true. Specifically, I have spent time with my friends talking about what intentions we have when we go out. I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by people who love the same things as me when going out – the most important being dancing. I love to dance. Recently, however, we discussed how we feel like we are subconsciously going out for the wrong reasons. It’s not spoken into existence that we are going out to see guys or get their attention, but to an extent it’s coded; almost as if that’s what we should be doing as women. Whether it’s coded by the university environment, the people around us, or some sort of societal expectations, we’ve all acknowledged that this subconscious thought is not something we are proud of.
In light of this discovery within my group, I’ve decided that one of my goals continuing forward is by de-centering the man, or men’s attention, from my list of subconscious priorities: I am decoding that part of my brain. I don’t consider this to be something that brings guys down or puts them out – I have friends who are boys that I care for and enjoy being around. To me, it’s just decoding them from the center of my thoughts, which may or may not be hard considering those thoughts are usually more or less hard to recognize at the moment.
One of the realms that I’ve chosen to start is the aforementioned going out. I like to go out because I love being with my friends, dancing and meeting people, and I feel like those intentions have been led astray by the influence of centering my attention around men. Since getting back, I have made it my mission to focus on dancing with my girlfriends as the central reason for the pleasure of going out – almost like forcing the idea of seeing guys out of my brain completely – and it works! I have genuinely wanted to go out more frequently because of it. The nights in the past two weeks that I have spent pregaming and dancing with my amazing people have been some of the best nights of the school year, whereas I felt like going out last semester was very hit or miss based on my preconceived intentions of being there. The consistency in having fun lines up perfectly when I’m going out with my friends and dancing.
This may come off as a shallow goal, but speaking to other girls has reinforced the fact that I am not the only one who feels this way, whether the male being the center of our attention is at the forefront of our minds or buried deep down. University is about learning, both academically and about ourselves. So, no matter how silly this goal feels to me, making it has made all the difference in my life. Intention is everything. Speaking things into existence is everything. Centering your life around the people that you love and make you feel good is EVERYTHING. 2025 is my year of the girl; the year of spending time and dancing with my friends, meeting more great people and focusing my attention on who and what gives it back right.