New year, new me.
If you literally just exist in the weeks before and after New Year’s, you’ve most likely heard this catch phrase. It’s a way of people saying they’re going to change in the upcoming year, hopefully for the better.
Over the past few years, as I’ve entered adulthood and finally gained consciousness, I’ve realized New Year’s resolutions aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. It’s evolved, or devolved, to a point where it feels toxic — a way of keeping people ashamed of who they were before Jan. 1.
There’s this pressure surrounding what should have been just a fun way to try to better yourself. As social media grows and more and more people attempt to be influencers and push their “perfect” lifestyles, it really feels rough when you “fail” your resolution.
People shouldn’t create resolutions as their claim to fame or to seem better than everyone else. It should be for you, the individual, the one putting in the work. Sharing it with friends and family for motivation to continue your journey is totally fine, but sharing it as a way to make yourself seem better than everyone else that’s following you, while it gives momentary satisfaction, ruins the idea of the resolution.
The idea of a resolution is working to be better for yourself, not others. Don’t let a superiority complex ruin what should be a fun challenge.
There’s also a fear of failure surrounding resolutions. “Failing” your New Year’s resolution, while not set in stone, is still a likely occurrence. But that isn’t a bad thing.
Bettering yourself, or changing, is a process, and it’s usually not linear. Someone can make a resolution to lose weight, work out and still not lose the weight they intended. Building muscle mass can cause you to gain weight, or maybe you’re just not built that way from health factors like metabolism. And every time you step on that scale and see the numbers rise, there’s this pit of shame building.
Then you stop completely and promise to be better next year.
But it doesn’t have to be like that, and it shouldn’t. You’re still putting in work and still working on yourself in a way you find positive. People shouldn’t have to be ashamed of “failing” just because they’re not reaching goals when they originally wanted to.
Failure means you’re learning, and learning means you’re getting closer to meeting your goals.
Resolutions aren’t inherently evil or bad; they’ve merely morphed as time has gone on to match how our world has changed. Still set goals for the new year if you want, but set them without fearing you’ll fail. Resolutions shouldn’t cause you to feel fear or be ashamed of you who were the year before.
