If you’ve ever felt the guilt and shame of not keeping a New Year’s resolution, you’re definitely not alone. That said, it’s easy to feel jaded and bitter towards the tradition of resolution-making—to feel that resolutions exist only to make us feel bad and that January 1st has no real magic to offer (though we might beg to differ). But maybe the problem isn’t that we’re setting resolutions at the start of each year, but that we’re setting the wrong kind of resolutions.
Identify bad pressure from good pressure
Here’s the thing about resolutions: they’re inevitably a source of pressure. Now, there’s a good kind of pressure and a bad kind of pressure. Chances are you’re familiar with both.
The bad kind is overwhelming, anxiety-inducing, and ultimately demotivating. It makes us feel like we’re struggling to crawl towards a goal post, instead of being enabled to achieve the goals that we set for ourselves. Yet this is the sort of pressure our usual resolutions tend to impress upon us.
The good kind of pressure, on the other hand, is invigorating, equipping, and empowering. It doesn’t just pile pressure onto our shoulders like dead weight—it puts us in the right mindset and acts like our fuel.
Enjoy the thrill of exceeding your expectations
Let’s compare and contrast these two sets of resolutions:
- Goal-Oriented Resolutions
- Lose 30 pounds by February (or go to the gym 5x a week)
- Get promoted
- Buy and move into a new home
- Go on a hiking trip every month
- Save x amount of money
- Mindset-Oriented Resolutions
- Hurry more slowly (or live in the present)
- Be more empathetic and compassionate
- Treat your body well with food and exercise
- Be more intentional about your goals
- Surround yourself with good people
Although these resolutions all start with a verb, they aren’t as immediately actionable as they sound. At a glance though, the first set seems more concrete. Each resolution requires that you do something by x date (save up and move in), have something happen (get promoted), or do something at a certain frequency (exercise 5x a week).
However, not only will these resolutions (with all their implied goal posts) inflict the bad kind of pressure on you, they’ll also require a little bit of luck to accomplish. What if you meet a terrible accident or illness, or have to pay a huge surprise expense, or find that you actually hate your career? You never know what might happen in the course of a year to prevent you from achieving your desired results.
In contrast, the second set is more flexible and forgiving, giving you the freedom to be creative with how you achieve each listed resolution. You can feel good about just having the resolution, while simultaneously enabling yourself to keep it—whether in small or big ways. No more quitting out of frustration; you can simply enjoy the thrill of exceeding your expectations instead.
Differentiate goals from resolutions
Feeling worried that you’re fostering a false sense of accomplishment with these “softer” resolutions? Don’t. The most important thing we ought to learn from the two lists above is that goals probably aren’t meant to be resolutions.
Turning goals into resolutions can make us feel as though we lack discipline and character when we fail to meet said goals. But in reality, goals are by their nature aspirational, while resolutions are to simply represent the things we want to implement into our lives.
Practically, this means that you might want to create two different lists for yourself: one for goal setting, and one for resolution making. Doing this will help temper your expectations, and make it more likely for you to turn your resolutions into reality.
Make each resolution concrete
Don’t think for a second that your resolutions won’t require any deep thought or concrete action. You do have to take real steps towards being a better version of yourself. But leave those concrete steps out of your resolution list, and pen them into your calendar or diary instead.
While maintaining a flexible list of resolutions is important, it’s also important to monitor how you’re actually living them out. You can do this by scheduling some of these concrete steps into your planner (as a to-do list), or recording the times you’ve been true to your resolution in a sort of journal (as a “ta-da list“).
This way, you won’t just have a nebulous idea of what your resolutions are. You won’t have to sentence yourself to an impersonal list of goals, either. Instead, you’ll be able to look back on this year having accomplished very real things, all in line with the kind of person you want to be.
Remember to be kind to yourself
At the end of the day, we need to stop constantly berating ourselves for not getting things done or trying hard enough. By creating more flexible resolutions, we give ourselves the space to exceed our expectations and the heart to pursue even more. See, it actually is possible to pressure ourselves positively.
Instead of simply losing a set number of pounds, we can aim to make our bodies feel strong and healthy. Instead of blindly slaving over our passion projects, we can find a way to draw more strength and energy from them. Instead of rushing to schedule bigger, busier, and more stressful vacations, we can focus on making our free time as restful and rejuvenating as possible.
It’s not about reaching yet another impossible goal. It’s about taking intentional steps in the right direction. We might make three small steps toward that goal—or maybe a thousand. What’s important is that we slowly put drops in the buckets that matter most. If we set the right intentions, the results will surely come.
