New Year’s Unresolutions
2022 has well and truly arrived. January has offered me hot sticky days, a yet to be disposed of Christmas tree, and my annual exposure to one of my least favourite worldwide phenomena: the New Year’s resolution.
There is something about the subject of New Year’s resolutions that makes me immediately want to roll my eyes. I don’t know whether it’s because of the all too common food/exercise goals, which are deeply rooted in toxic diet culture, or the cliche “new year new me” barely hiding the underlying message that the “old you” is simply not good enough. Perhaps it’s the way that brands and companies use these resolutions to prey on people’s insecurities, convincing them that buying their product or programme will bring the happiness that is missing in their lives (let’s be clear- this happens year round, but is particularly blatant at this time of year.)
Anecdotally and personally, I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t be exaggerating saying that most New Year’s resolutions fail. I had my own theories- mostly being that resolutions tend to be unhelpfully vague or largely unattainable. In doing some research, I found an interesting article about resolutions and overall well being. The researchers investigated the effects of goal flexibility (adjusting the goal over time) and tenacity (persistence and determination through difficulty) on goal stickability and wellbeing. Although neither flexibility nor tenacity had a significant impact on the likelihood of one achieving their goal, the former (goal flexibility) was in fact correlated with greater mental wellbeing. Those who were able to reassess their goals and change them according to their progress and situation were better off, regardless of whether they reached them or not. In my opinion, this flexibility is far more conducive to living life, providing scope to pursue goals without feeling strangled by inflexible parameters or discouraged by never quite reaching the standard previously set.
I wonder if the motivation behind the many resolutions that fall by the wayside is born from a sense of dissatisfaction. Is our insecurity calling the shots? Is our imposter syndrome the driving force behind our supposed desire to change our lives? I’m not a goals grinch; I absolutely see their value. However, I suspect that more often than not, goals are shaped by a toxic inner conviction saying “you are not enough as you are right now.” Goals steeped in diet culture are a perfect example- I can’t count the number of times I have seen people around me (my past self included) express the desire to change their body. Even when veiled under the guise of a “healthier lifestyle,” Christy Harrison explains that the Wellness Diet is her “term for the sneaky, modern guise of diet culture that’s supposedly about ‘wellness’ but is actually about performing a rarefied, perfectionistic, discriminatory idea of what health is supposed to look like.” Goals based on external expectations like these can be extremely detrimental to our sense of self worth. If indeed our goals are driven by dissatisfaction with ourselves, the natural consequence will usually result in setting inherently inflexible goals. If achieving the goal feels like an indicator of success, then conversely, not achieving the goal will feel like failure.
It is on these grounds that I reject New Year’s resolutions. In a society that glorifies relentless self improvement and picture perfect lives, there seems to be little space for resting in the present. What if our New Year's resolution (anti-resolution? unresolution?) was to stop striving and to simply celebrate how far we have come? I was struck by the following quote by the wonderful Morgan Harper Nichols on her Storyteller app:
“[T]he future will arrive when it is meant to arrive and you do not have to exhaust yourself in the present moment trying to figure out how you will get there.”
This quote speaks to me of patience and humility. How many of us are exhausted from constant, unforgiving efforts to get ahead in life? What if all that matters is that we are here, right now? The future is going to come in its own time. I believe that to trust in God’s timing requires a rejection of external expectations, a reordering of what we deem to be our top priority. We are not robot people, programmed to meet identical milestones! We don’t have to have achieved certain things by 18, 20, 35, or 50, no matter what the self-help books say. The beauty of being unashamedly human is that we each have our own precious storyline. It can be scary to slow down and just take things a day at a time; we’ve been conditioned to believe that success is derived from a state of tireless striving. Quiet can be disconcerting; rest can be uncomfortable. I don’t think I’m the only one who needs to remember how to honour the stillness of Sabbath. How different could our lives look if we let go of the need for more, and saw the beauty of less?
All things considered, 2022 is not the year to make unrealistic goals, especially not ones based on your perceived unworthiness. With Omicron looming, I’m sure I’m not the only one experiencing heightened anxiety- after such a long time doing all that we can to avoid having Covid-19 in our community, it is jarring to suddenly have to come to terms with living with it. This pandemic has proven to us again and again the futility of trying to control every small part of our livelihoods, and the added stress of lofty goals seems to me the last thing that we need. “Survival mode” has taken on a whole new meaning, and I believe that now, more than ever, is the time to celebrate simply being right here, right now. We have survived the challenges of the last 24 months- battered and bruised as we may be, that’s a pretty amazing feat.
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Rebecca Hooper is currently editor at Metanoia.