New Year’s resolutions are a whole load of kablooey and we all know it.
At the beginning of each calendar year, we all intend to improve the parts of ourselves that we don’t like. Whether it be our bodies, our personalities, our relationships or our work ethic, we collectively make the decision that what we are doing is simply not enough.
We decide that we must be better.
While I agree that the sentiment surrounding this behaviour is not a bad one, the way we go about it is all wrong. Wanting to improve your fitness is a good thing, but if you want to get in shape, don’t wait to start exercising and fueling your body properly until the new year. Start immediately. Take ownership for your personal health and start the trend right away. If you look at your academic or professional life and decide you want to make a change, all the power to you. It’s great to want to get better grades in school or work towards a promotion at work, but don’t wait for some distant start date for your success. Push yourself to be better in the moment.
Yet, the brand-new year, brand-new me trend is an easy trap to fall into. Plus, these resolutions often don’t come from truly wanting to better oneself. Instead, New Year’s resolutions are usually born from a place of toxic comparison. Instead of bettering yourself because you have identified something you’d like to work on, you make drastic changes to our body, mind and soul because you feel it isn’t good enough when compared to others.
I admit that as human beings it is hard not to contrast our lives against those around us and want to have the so-called “perfect” life they are leading. Yet, when you watch your next-door neighbour go on their daily jog and begin to put yourself down for your lesser commitment to fitness, you aren’t really seeing the full picture. While your neighbour may be more committed to running than you are, perhaps this daily jog is the only quiet time they have for their mental health during their busy day to day life.
As they say, the grass is greener on the other side. When we look at the lives of others and draw comparisons, we do both parties a disservice. Not only is this ignorant to the real-life struggles of those around us, but it also puts ourselves down because we don’t meet the expectations of an idealized characterization of a person who’s real life we aren’t truly aware of.
In the end, it’s a good thing to want to be better. Humans are ever-growing and evolving creatures and if we stayed stagnant forever, society would fall apart. Yet it’s the way we go about wanting to make these changes in ourselves, and the motives behind making the change at all, that truly impacts whether you’ll be able to follow through on your New Year’s resolution.
If you make a change for you, and you do it at a comfortable pace, you are more likely to follow through.