What New Year’s resolutions have you made this year? CTV News asked this question to Montrealers, and maybe their responses will resonate with you. Maybe you have made a resolution with a specific goal in mind and have been waiting for the New Year to roll around to kick it off. Perhaps, though, you have not made a New Year’s resolution because you do not think the start of the New year is particularly important. Some individuals interviewed agreed with this sentiment, as they noted to CTV, “I make resolutions every day that are important to me. I start whenever,” and “I think we should always be improving, not just once a year.” Another reason why you might not have made a resolution is that you already have a lot on your plate and a New Year’s resolution will just add to your stress. One individual interviewed agreed with this sentiment: “We always tell ourselves that we are going to be better the next year, but let’s honest, we don’t really change, do we?” Before writing this article, Ifirmly stood in this camp.
Why have so many of us rejected New Year’s resolutions? Many of us have an approach to resolutions that focuses on large-scale goals, ones that are so distant from our starting points that we struggle to draw the path that will get us there. Yet, we only consider as having reached our final goal, not by the arduous process that we were already brave for committing to. With this one-track mindset, resolutions become daunting tasks. It is no wonder that so many of us reject making them before we have the chance to see them through, if we expect to fail.
There is something about the beginning of a new year that makes me think that something radical ought to be achieved now. When I think “New Year,” I think of big fireworks, big lights, the big ball dropping in Times Square, big cheers, and big hugs; think massive change ought to occur urgently. I reflect on how I often hear, “This year is going to be my year, I swear” from my friends, peers, social media creators, and those sitcom characters who just cannot seem to get their act together. This high-stakes approach to resolutions implicitly puts pressure on us and others to have a “successful year,” in which we get everything we want by the end of the year. These sky-high expectations have made me feel helpless in the new year because I feel as if I have to adopt an attitude of “all or nothing.” Since I want to start playing the jazz saxophone, I should maximize my time and effort to be a “good player” as soon as possible, but then I am paralysed. I cannot feasibly imagine achieving these goals at this pace, given that I am already trying to best in everything I am doing now – classes, sports, relationships, food blogging, writing articles – not to mention the assumptions that will be made about my willpower if I fail to follow through.
In schools and workplaces, we often hear that we need “SMART” goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant/Realistic, and Time-bound. SMART goals might work in some contexts, such as meeting short-term deadlines for work and school. However, when it comes to making progress on a task over the course of a year, most people lack the foresight to tell if New Year’s resolutions are truly achievable. A 2015 Ipsos survey found that 73 per cent of Canadians break their resolutions. It is beautiful that we are ambitious creatures, but many of us bite off much more than we can chew. Instead, I propose we do the opposite of what the SMART framework advises: stay flexible. Throughout the year, unforeseen circumstances arise, and our goals evolve. Life can be busy, so strict consistency is often unrealistic. Maintaining flexibility allows us to make progress on the things we care about without the additional stress that can lead to failure and resentment of resolutions.
“Your Theme” by YouTube creator CGP Grey has transformed how I view New Year’s resolutions. He presents the idea of centering your resolutions on a general theme. You choose a broad word or phrase and orient yourself around it. For example, instead of reading one book a week, he proposes a “year of reading,” where the theme stays in the back of your mind. Then, in instances when you might want to habitually scroll through social media on your phone, you can reflect on your goal, and make the choice to pull up an article instead. CGP Grey redefines what we tend to think of as “progress” and lowers the stakes; we only need to “be a little different in little moments, sometimes.” I want to draw attention to this idea rather than focusing on attempts to make radical changes in the new year. Further, the changes we seek can happen in a “little moment” or in the process, as opposed to culminating in one achievement. Making our goals more flexible increases our chances of success, because it lets us make steady progress, without the pressure of reaching a single large end goal. With this mindset, we can stay motivated and avoid the kind of cynicism about New Year resolutions that discourages us from pursuing what we want.
I invite you to reflect on your theme for the year, month, or season. While the date can be arbitrary, consider using a theme as the first step towards reaching your ambitions, however slow the process is. Change can start any time, so why not begin now? It may not always feel like we are making progress in the moment, but that might be how we achieve our New Year’s resolutions.