A CASE FOR NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

This New Year can be the best one of you life not because something is going to happen to you but because you are going to make things happen.

It’s the first day of a new year. This and any other day/event that signifies a new beginning in a traditional way resonates with my core. Considering how massively unpopular New Year Resolutions have become over the last years, I feel like the sore thump sticking out because I love New Year Resolutions! Actually, it’s more accurate to say, I have a complex relationship with them. On the one hand, I love making resolutions and the challenge of following through. On the other hand, I dread them. For two reasons, first, because I sometimes fail at sticking with them and second, because it somehow became the thing not to do. It seemed to have lost its fervour. I am guessing for similar reasons there’s abundant content where people make a case against them.

New Year Resolutions are difficult and hard to stick with but I also think that just because most of us find it hard to keep them doesn’t make them bad, it just makes them difficult.

When I was a young adult, NYR was popular. Every year family, friends, neighbours, teachers, community would ask each other what they resolved to do/change/accomplish during the year. And every year, everyone had a thing or a list. Which of course most people failed at keeping but it was a thing. Gradually everyone just stopped talking about it. Others took it a step further and made it a point to share how NYR aren’t helpful, as they tend to achieve the opposite of the desired goal and leave people feeling bad. I mean, one can make the case that NYR are the perfect recipe for feeling embarrassed and inadequate in February or March- as you dread any questions about them and hang your head in shame muttering the words “no, I haven’t been able to keep up with that”.

I read an articles where someone make the case for pursuing rhythms and habits instead on thinking they would magically change at the struck of mid-night on January 1st. I agree with this.

But I also think that there’s something special about the New Year that sets it apart from any other day. Not because there is pixie dust that’s gonna come your way and instantly transform you but because it is a great day as any to take ownership and responsibility over the things you know could be better in your life.

A New Year Resolution is to make a firm decision to do or not to do something. For most people it marks a beginning or continuation of a habit or skill or conversely to stop being or doing something.

Instead of stopping things, start doing things.

Last year, after a three hiatus, I made 3 New Year Resolutions. I wanted to write everyday- an effort to pay attention to my thoughts and build my writing skills. I wanted to exercise my body and I wanted to read through the entire bible. As you can guess, it was a pursuit permeated with success and failures. I particularly struggled with writing, it’s the one practice that I’d never tried before. The easiest was the bible reading and I realised by mid-summer that the reason that I somehow managed to find time to keep up with reading even if I missed some days was because I had been practicing for 6 years. (It started as a New Year Resolution in 2015).

New Year Resolutions are difficult and hard to stick with but I also think that just because most of us find it hard to keep them doesn’t make them bad, it just makes them difficult.

I don’t think about New Year’s Resolution as a formula that magically changes our lives for the good or even as a self-improvement effort. Instead I think about it as a faith-full and hope-full act that creates a wide open space for us to grow, explore, and mature. I also think about resolutions as “safe” spaces for failure. Because we are going to fail in some way and I would argue that we should embrace that. Especially if we want to grow. But the failure is in the context of our defined pursuit so we can feel bad but not soul-crushed. And we get up and try again. A thought about Rhythms: They are great, perhaps even healthy but be alert enough that you are not so committed to your rhythms you miss out the opportunities for growth that lie outside them.

I also don’t have jaw dropping insights on how to keep your resolutions (New Year’s and any other really). I know from experience that consistency is essential for progress and it will do you good to share your intention with at least one trusted person. It will keep you grounded. Something new I learned from reading an article where the writer quotes Per Carlbring is changing how we talk about resolutions. “Instead of stopping things, start doing things.” I love that. I think it shifts the focus and energy from what’s missing or wrong toward what’s good and possible. I also loved Pst Erwin McManus’s sermon (from 2018) go check it out. Where he talks about an approach to life and success and the idea that our goal isn’t to “hope” our lives change or our visions happen but we make sure that we do our very best to see that they happen.

So I enter 2023 with New Year Resolutions that will help me grow in caring for my body, mind and soul. And also learn and grow new skills. I believe this can be best year of my life (and yours too) not because something’s going to happen to me but because I am committed to taking ownership and responsibility over my life and because I have a helper in the holy Spirit that is gracious and kind.