New Year’s: A Time Of Resolution, Failure, and Disappointment
As we hit the beginning of yet another year, one thing is on many peoples’ minds: what their new year’s resolutions will be. For many, it might be wanting to hit the gym every day, or to read a new book every month. For others, it might be to pay off credit card debt or to get a promotion at work. No matter what the goal, the new year is a time for people to think about and put their mind towards something, anything, they might want to accomplish in the year ahead.
Though many might put their mind towards something, and maybe even make some progress towards it, many if not most of these resolutions are ultimately doomed to failure. Human nature leads people to make excuses; they’ll convince themselves that they’re too tired to hit the gym or pull those extra hours at work; they’ll get too busy to finish that book they’re halfway through; they’ll get too lazy to get into that new study habit consistently. And while most might chalk it up to yet another year of failure, to me, these left-behind resolutions are a valuable lesson.
Relying on a specific time to set resolutions is a mistake. A huge one, in fact. Most people face pressure to make these new resolutions, to find something they want to accomplish in the new year, to find the time to better themselves. And this pressure is what ultimately dooms their resolutions; it hovers over them, demands that they go overboard in their pursuit of these goals, and ultimately tires them out enough that they quit.
Goals are all about pacing, and pacing by definition fails under pressure. The pressure to have immediate results. The pressure to jump headfirst into their new goal. The pressure to make an immediate change, without any building up to it. The pressure to improve on a failure that they might not have figured out the cause of, or thought about how to overcome. Many of these pressures are what ultimately dooms these new year’s resolutions to failure, and are what make these resolutions so flawed.
If you truly want to change yourself, or set a goal for yourself, when you do so shouldn’t matter. There should be no outside pressure to do so. It should be on your own terms, at your own pace, within your own boundaries. You should take the time to think the goal out, figure out what you need to do to hit it, set your own timing and pacing for it, and make a realistic plan to accomplish it.
This is a process, and a long one at that. It might take you weeks, months, or even a year to flesh out and set a reasonable list of goals for yourself. It might be something tiny at first, like finishing that day’s work on time, but no matter how small or “irrelevant” the goal is, it’s progress that has been made, and sets the foundation for further improvement.
Personally, I used to always set huge, overarching goals for myself that I had no chance of hitting. These would be things like “get all As this semester” and “finish all my homework on time this year” — things that were too large and daunting for me to reasonably tackle. And fail I did. I failed, over and over, at hitting my goals, and would wonder why I failed. Was it that I wasn’t good enough? Was it that I was too inconsistent to put my mind towards it? Was it that I was simply stupid? I would beat myself up over my failures, without realizing that it was my own fault for aiming too high and not taking things one step at a time.
So my goal this year is to change that. My resolution is to take things one step at a time, in pursuit of my more ambitious goals. Whether that’s graduating college a semester early, finding a good job and romance, or even losing those extra couple pounds that have followed me through college, I’m going to break things down and tackle them, one piece at a time. And it begins here, with the first goal I’ve set for myself this year.
I want to reignite my personal passion for writing. When I was a kid, I loved writing; whether it be fiction, nonfiction, essays, or papers, I loved being able to convey my thoughts in written words. I found it easier to express what I truly meant, what I really wanted to say, what I couldn’t get across verbally. My struggles with effective oration notwithstanding, I truly thought I had a passion and talent for writing well. That all fell down around me when my college admissions essays failed to get me in anywhere (though I still blame my English teachers for not being honest with me!). I quit my writing hobby, convinced that I wasn’t as great at it as I thought.
Even though I might not be great at writing, I still want to do something I enjoy and get better at it. That’s why, for the first month of 2020, I’ve set a goal for myself to write something, anything, every single day. Whether it’s a Medium post, a LinkedIn thought, even a short story, I want to write something that I can look back on and improve upon, something that I can use to make a difference in myself or others. And it starts today. Let’s hope I don’t fail like 80% of new year’s resolutions ultimately will.
See you all tomorrow!
Day 1/31
