Centring You in Your New Year’s Resolution
For me, the idea of making a New Year’s resolution typically occurs at about ten past midnight on the 1st of January. Oh dear, perhaps I should drink less, so I tip the remainder of my champagne in the nearest plant pot, unsure if the last sip I took was on the wrong side of midnight, and if it was, then I’ve already spoiled dry January. Mid-morning the next day, while feasting on bread to remedy the hangover, I will probably think up more. Often starting with the carb in hand: I should really eat healthier. Looking down to a belly of carbs and the dead fizz of last night’s champagne, I determine to join a gym too. Sound familiar?
Your resolution, your aunt’s resolution and your co-worker resolution
Data from Statista shows that in the UK in 2023, the most popular New Year’s resolutions were: 48% wanted to exercise more; 48% to save money; 45% to eat healthier; 36% to lose weight and 33% to spend more time with family/friends. After a month that many have spent draining their finances on gifts, outfits, decorations and eating a series of Christmas dinners, these resolutions are unsurprising. But they are also a product of marketing. My algorithm becomes polluted with suggested resolutions. Veganuary is pummelled at me, even though I became a vegan on a random October morning over a decade ago (I do appreciate the supermarket deals on vegan products in January, however). Fitness influencers parade before and after shots, while gyms flaunt their shiny facilities, all available at reduced rates. I have worked in marketing: I know exactly what they are doing. And yet still, out of an intellectual laziness, I comply. I agree that I will lose weight, eat healthier, drink less, watch my mournful-looking bank account. And like us all, they each fall down, one by one.
I am, as is quite evident, no great wise woman when it comes to creating and sticking to resolutions. However, I have noticed a few things along the way…
The power of a personalised resolution
What strikes me is how impersonal our New Year’s resolutions are. If almost half of us have the same resolutions, then they say little about us as individuals. No wonder I have failed to stick to many resolutions, they are not mine, I haven’t thought of them myself, they lack any true Scarlett flair.
So, at the start of 2024, I determined to make a resolution that was less a product of doing what I thought I should do, and instead to create one that felt like me. I tried to do a little soul searching, rather than doom scrolling. I wanted resolutions that felt enriching, not restricting.
Eventually, I resolved to read more. Not to read the book that everyone else is reading or the one Amazon suggests after my latest purchase. But instead, to go into a bookshop and scan the spines, the covers, the blurbs, flick through the first pages – to truly find books that resonated with me. I love introspective novellas where very little happens, the prose is beautiful, and the feelings are potent – and they were just not on my bookshelf in quantities that reflect how much I adore them.
Indulging in something that is purely pleasurable can often feel like it should not be a priority. We must always be progressing, prioritising monetary and health gains, not joy for its own sake. Change is hard. And committing to a change that we do not believe in is even harder.
Lift the pressure, find self-compassion
Come January, if your purse and abs are flinching under the pressure of a series of unfulfilled resolutions, try to have some self-compassion. The world didn’t magically transform at the strike of midnight. You do not have to change right here right now forever because it is January 1st. And you certainly do not have to change right now here right now forever to fit a resolution that does not belong to you, that does not enrich you, but rather feels like a change that you “should” make. Resolutions can be made on a random November morning. They could even be made in the afternoon. If you believe in them, they’ll feel like a plus and they will naturally become long lasting.
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