The start of January is commonly a season of mild regret, some panic, and a lot of hope for improvement.
As New Year’s Day passes, we reflect on the year gone by and pause to anticipate a fresh rotation, hoping for better days to come. It is a holiday of raucous celebration, of making mood boards, and of trying our best to embrace change. Resolutions are an integral part of Western New Year’s tradition, inspiring thousands to go to the gym or budget better. Some who round out the year feeling they’ve accomplished all they set out to do that January find the tradition (in combination with their hard work) has brought them lasting, positive habits. We’ve all likely heard the rare success story or seen a stranger’s progress documented on social media. These stories demonstrate how the New Year’s Resolution tradition can incentivise people to improve their lives.
However, by the end of the year, most people do not believe they’ve accomplished their New Year’s Resolution (NYR), and the percentage of those who do may be under 10%. This may be in part because when we come up with an NYR just for the sake of it, we are unlikely to accomplish it. A close friend of mine advised, ‘If it takes making a NYR for you to feel motivated to do something, you probably won’t follow through.
Is there any point in making NYRs, then? Or, does the tradition only emphasise our shortcomings?
Personally, when I consider New Year’s Resolutions, I am taken back to elementary school. I am at my desk, staring down at a worksheet, wondering how I can fill in the box labeled ‘My New Year’s Resolution is…’ and I have no idea what to say. Inevitably, I will end up writing something like ‘drink more water,’ which I will forget mere days later, as it was never meaningful to me in the first place.
Given how I associate resolutions with schoolwork, it is no surprise that, years later, I shy away from participating in the tradition. Considering New Year’s Resolutions brings out a pessimistic side of me, and I recall ambitions I have neglected. For those of us who year-round are generally anxious to improve, New Year’s brings up feelings of failure. Sometimes, aiming to have everything together and our lives planned out is just not realistic.
Takes on the Tradition
The norm of creating NYRs pressures us to turn ourselves into, sometimes unrealistically, productive and responsible people. Journalist Moira Donegan highlights how we often seek to transform into altogether different people, and to have that change come to fruition immediately. She believes this sets us up for failure and that ‘when our resolutions fail, we discover that our flaws are more persistent than we thought’. Real change takes time and is guaranteed to involve setbacks. Furthermore, as people, we will always have faults, regardless of how much we succeed and how many goals we achieve.
Conversely, we may benefit more from creating small resolutions. Journalist Dave Schilling proposes that the key to planning an effective NYR is to start simple. He urges us to create resolutions that are easy and create joy, such as going to the movies more often. With this perspective, why not set a resolution to find more everyday happiness? Relaxing our expectations opens the way for greater success and positivity.
Similarly, neuroscientist Nicholas Wright asserts that the importance of NYRs lies not in what we may accomplish if we stick to them, but in how the practice facilitates reflection and planning for various outcomes. In anticipating the year ahead with an ambition in mind, we visualise our expected progress, potential obstacles, and different possibilities. Thus, another positive of NYRs is how they provide a mental exercise in strategy.
Concluding Thoughts
Despite my pessimism, I acknowledge that NYRs can be a convenient reset, allowing us to evaluate our progress and consider how we can improve. It is easy to lose sight of things we want in the routine hustle of classes, assignments, and other responsibilities. Whether it’s a friend we always remind ourselves we’ll call but never do, or a trip we keep saying we’ll take but never do, the start of a new cycle can remind us to take initiative. The tradition evidences our collective wish to improve, to transform into better people with happier lives.
Our failure to achieve resolutions and the pressures for perfection that some experience caution us against setting unrealistic expectations. They show, not just in the context of the new year, how we should centre smaller joys in our everyday life and that personal transformation is slow and non-linear.
In all, resolutions do not need to be dramatic changes. Without a school worksheet, we are free to interpret the tradition however it best serves us, doing our best to abandon perfectionism and embrace easy opportunities to grow. New Year’s can be a prime opportunity to stay accountable for our progress and evaluate our primary goals.