For as long as I could remember I’ve been one to make new year’s resolutions. I am a big fan of new starts, beginning new projects, and the approach of a new year definitely gives me the satisfaction of starting off with a clean slate. As cliche and basic as it sounds, I often do feel like the new year gives me a chance to level up into a better version of myself because, omg like, new year, new me! For the past couple of years on the last days of December, I would have my journal open ready to write a new list of things that I hoped to achieve in the new year, and it would look something like this:
2016:
- Lose weight
- Eat healthy
- 3.0 GPA
Upon reflection, my new year’s resolutions over the years stayed largely the same. I never did feel like I achieved the goals I set out to reach. Every year I would want to lose more weight, eat healthier, and do better in school. The lazy perfectionist (and drama queen) in me was prone to giving up as soon as I did something wrong- if I skipped a day of healthy eating my routine was basically ruined, might as well start again next week, or next year.
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You would think that, over a decade of setting new year’s resolutions, I would’ve found out what I was doing wrong somewhere along the way. While growing up, I was always told to dream bigger and aim higher when it comes to setting goals. As a result, my goals were often times vague and lofty. I would aim to weigh 50 kilos by the end of the year, when reflection on the previous years would suggest that I hadn’t been 50 kilos since I was 12. It was next to impossible for me to eat healthy every single day when time over time I would pick fried chicken over tofu and balk at the notion of sweating; let alone intentionally going to the gym to do just that. And when it comes to cutting classes, I was a serial offender. So to expect myself to magically be able to attend all lectures at the turn of the new year was expecting pigs to sprout wings and fly, I was basically setting myself up for failure.
As younger adults, we are conscious about the fact that there are many years ahead of us. We have decades to do the things that we want to do; so it doesn’t matter that we don’t attain our goals this year. We can try again the next for there are many more to come. We dream big because we can. We want to be part of the next best startup company, for our careers to be traveling the world and talking about it, to have a million dollars before we hit thirty. While for some, having big goals gives them motivation and drives to live life with a purpose, some of us can’t help but experience a little anxiety because we don’t even know how to go about reaching these goals.
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I titled this article Think Small to Think Big because I believe for people like me in the latter camp, we could benefit from the idea of setting smaller attainable goals and working our way up from there. For me, it helped to think that I am better today at something than I was yesterday; that today I chose a sandwich over McDonald’s, that I put away 30 dollars this month for savings. We have this idea that a new year is the time for a drastic change, and for some of us it can be. As the saying goes, “go big or go home”, we tend to do that with our goals. But in truth, we don’t have to. Small changes can yield big results, what matters is that we follow through.
For a while, I grappled with the fact that thinking so small makes me seem unambitious. People around me spouted big dreams, they wanted to be millionaires and here I was wanting to eat one less fried chicken a week. But I realised there can be joy in taking things a day and a step at a time. In a food related metaphor, some of us like to snarf down our cakes and some of us like to savour it bite by bite. All it proves is that there’s no right or wrong way, but that we’re simply different people.
I hope this helps provide a little perspective when you’re setting your new year’s resolutions this year. If you’re in the same camp as I am, just remember that you don’t have to be the best right now, you just have to be better than before.
Have a happy new year,
Winnie xx