in defense of boring resolutions
the case for rebelling against your new year's resolutions
The new year is always a strange time for me because I both adore, and despise the art of resolution-making. Most people are supremely goal-oriented or they just aren’t, but I identify with neither pathology. I feel like I have the personality for discipline, but not the actual skills for it, so I’m often left with a long list of dreams and no clear path to actually accomplishing any of them.
A lot of people talk about the agony of not knowing your purpose in life, but I’d argue that the curse of knowing what you’ve been placed on this earth to do, without having the means or the map to achieve it, can be just as perplexing. It can mean that you are constantly stuck grieving a future that robs you from your present.
I remember one year making a list of resolutions with a particularly entrepreneurial boyfriend, and making a list of comically unrealistic goals like “become the kind of person who does intermittent fasting” and him lovingly stopping me in my tracks. He recommended that I make another column linking each resolution with either an action, tool or a behavioral change, or else my rosy resolutions probably wouldn’t happen. I got so angry at him that I think I even stormed out. But with time and space, I realized that I wasn’t angry at him, I was angry at myself. It was easier to imagine the dream house than make a list of all the tedious tasks I would need to plow through in order to actually one day live in it.
But here’s the thing: getting what you want is not sexy. Success is completely mundane and unglamorous. Others will see the awards, the accolades but not the grueling personal conflicts, the eviction notices or the bathroom tile mark that’s imprinted on your face after lying in the same crying position for too long.
And besides, change doesn’t happen in the big, it happens in the small. It’s not in the decision to make a huge leap, as much as the tiny habits and the repetition that builds the muscle and sustainability to sustain that bold choice. You don’t get sober by making a dramatic vow to never want a drink ever again as long as you live, you get sober by waking up every morning and making a commitment to do it just for today. It’s called a step-program for a reason, because progress is most possible when it comes in smaller bites.
That’s why this year I’m rebelling against my resolutions, by making them as boring as possible. I know we’re supposed to be in the romanticize your life era, but why not, instead of dreaming up the most impossible goals, make them as impossibly dull as possible? Instead of wishing that you’ll land a big business deal, why not commit to going to bed 30 minutes earlier so that you’re rested enough to work the long hours that goal would take. Or instead of making a resolution to go on more dates than your schedule can handle, what about making a resolution to say something nice to a stranger, regardless of their gender, just once a day. Those five seconds of kindness once a day, may not feel as significant or as glamorous as going on dozens of dates, but it might actually help you get to your goal a lot faster and help you preserve your sanity too.
Let me know what you think, and how you’re approaching resolutions this year!
I can’t wait to do 2023 with you.
My fiancé is like your old boyfriend. In the ten years we've been together he's gotten me over onto his side of thinking. Now I understand that even outlandish goals are achieved by taking small boring steps forward. He says: don't tell me the end result. Tell me the first thing you need to do to get there. During the past few years this advice has helped me through many periods of low motivation. What's the first thing I need to do? The very first thing is to open my laptop. Then I open the writing app. One foot in front of the other.
I've never made resolutions before but this year I made one for fulfilment, one for personal growth, one for how I'm going to change my approach to parenthood, and one for my relationship. I have a vision for what success will look like if the year goes fine, just okay, and a vision of what overwhelming success would look like. The reason I never made them before is because I never was under any illusion that I'd manage to follow through, having been told all my life I'm so unreliable. This year I'm betting on myself, and have hope that I'm ready to hold myself accountable. Good luck to you with yours and happy new year!
this was EXACTLY what i needed to read before sitting down to write my 2023 resolutions. thank you. i usually get carried away with loftier aspirations like ‘read more,’ and therefore my lists always look the same year on year which can be pretty disheartening to see. so i’m going to try and make more actionable goals and focus on the daily momentum rather than the end goal. to the year of boring resolutions !!!!! <3