Christmas is over, and the year will soon be ending. People are getting ready to finish this year and starting to think about how they want to begin the new year. Those plans usually include a list of resolutions for the new year (NYR). A lot of these resolutions are centered around improving one’s physical, mental, and or financial health. Common resolutions include working out, eating a healthy balanced diet, paying off debt, ending self-defeating behaviors, and unhealthy habits.
I will never discourage anyone’s aspiration to improve themselves or the quality of their lives. That said, I wholeheartedly reject making any NYR because I think too many people use them to set themselves up for failure. I know that I did when I made them, and that is why I stopped years ago. I am committed to my self-improvement every day, and if I need to make a change to optimize my health or wellness, then I am not going to wait until some set date, I am going to start now.
I made NYR in the past, and they were always nonsense that I knew sounded good but that I was not committed to making. I had no real desire to do like make any significant lifestyle changes on a set date because somehow, that change was not as overwhelming on the first day of a new year. Then when I didn’t wake up magically different on the first day of the new year, I gave that as an example of my failure to my vicious inner critic. My New Year’s Resolutions became one of the self-defeating habits I used to punish myself, and perpetuate my never feeling good enough.
The realization that I had made the tradition of making my NYR toxic is why I know
reject making them at all. I have learned that if I need to make a change in my life, then I need to do it now because it is going to take a while for me to develop a new habit, and I need to give myself time to make the necessary changes to improve my life.
Once I started explaining this to people when they asked what my NYR would be, many of them told me that they use NYR to defeat themselves as well. I was told that they always felt guilty about never following through on their NYR. So, if you are like me and the countless others that never follow through on NYR and use that to feel guilty and punish yourself, stop and reject NYR with me.
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