[…] Many of us are familiar with the experience of making New Year’s resolutions to boost our physical fitness, get on top of the to-do list, save money, be less irritable around the kids and so on. What keeps us from accomplishing those things is rarely a lack of self-discipline, or needing a more efficient system for building healthier habits. More often, it’s the very attempt to make sweeping changes—to “become unrecognizable,” in the parlance of contemporary self-help—that stands in the way of a different, happier and more meaningful life. […]
The truth is that the appeal of a “New You” doesn’t have to do with exercising more, making more money or accomplishing any other concrete change. Rather, it’s about obtaining a sense of security and control over life. With a new year beginning, we want to finally feel that we’re in the driver’s seat when it comes to our health, finances, personality traits and so on. We want to rid ourselves of the feeling, so vividly described by the English novelist Arnold Bennett, that “the years slip by, and slip by, and slip by, and that [we] have not yet been able to get [our] lives into proper working order.” […]
Buying the equipment and watching the tutorials—or, to confess my own particular weakness, drawing up beautiful schedules in overpriced notebooks—all help fuel the feeling that control lies just around the next corner. By contrast, actually making a change in your life, here and now, requires the surrender of control. It demands that you exercise for 20 minutes today, even if you don’t have the best running shoes, with no certainty that you’ll enjoy the experience or manage to turn it into a long-term habit. Maybe you’ll never do it even once again. Who can say? […]
Really, though, life as a finite human is better understood as piloting a little one-person kayak down an unpredictable river. We don’t get to know what’s coming next—when the peaceful or challenging or terrifying periods might arise. Everything rests on our capacity to navigate from moment to moment, making the best decisions we can, and not allowing ourselves to be disheartened by the ways in which our journey doesn’t exactly map the plans we might have had for it. In this situation, the only action that really matters is the one you take right now.
Indeed, the very notion of “New Year, New You” crumbles under examination. By definition, the only person who could ever engineer a New You would be Old You, with all his or her familiar issues. In trying to erase our past selves, we become like Baron Munchausen in the old German stories, who tried to drag himself out of a swamp by pulling on his own hair.
Freedom lies not in this futile struggle to become someone else but in consciously accepting who we really are and starting from there. […] Instead of “becoming unrecognizable,” the New Year should be a time to commit to what I like to call “radical doability.” […]
Read more here.
— Oliver Burkeman, from ‘New Year, New You’ Doesn’t Work. Here’s How You Can Actually Improve Your Life. Instead of resolving to become a different person in 2025, try setting achievable goals and embracing ‘radical doability.’ (wsj.com, December 28, 2024)
Image via Freestocks
It feels like an exercise in fallibility – buying the next best sneakers, the copper-lined t-shirts and/or downloading an iPad with a perky instructor. All this as homage to the goal of getting into shape. The newer the toy, the longer the subconscious desire to engage. Until we decide we don’t want to – then the wheels come off the bike and we are left stymied and frustrated. I guess it’s still too early to suggest inverting the wants/needs. Get into the goal of working out before engaging in Google searches for the most delightful New Year’s garb for workouts. Is it ok to list the exercises of the day…
Yes!
I agree!
Me too!
Advertising really does play with our saner selves, doesn’t it? We lose ourselves in the promises made (No worry! Special price!) that really mean nothing unless we decide to work at it ourselves. And putting that pressure on, on New Years Day just adds to the stress. If you want to make a change, no matter what it is, you have to start now. Or after the leftovers are finished….
Laughing. So true Dale
😁
yes, baby stepping, sidestepping, and jumping in, all a part of accepting life
Yes!
A nice share. One step at a time. I am not a big fan of making changes in the Winter and will plant the seeds for growth in Spring.
Sounds like an excellent plan after Hibernation!
Good thing we’re all… already…. ENOUGH. Happy New Year DK. Cheers to 2025 being one of health, happiness and cloudy TL’s (timelapses). You’ve been a light this year. Appreciate you. Just don’t tell anyone I said that.
Thank you!
Cara, it seems many here agree with you! So do I – and DK can tell anybody he wants; you’re not losing any of the glimmer in your crown 🙂
Well that comment took a direct hit to my heart. Much love for saying that. Think DK can hear us?
I agree. No resolutions for me. I just want to get on with doing things I want to do.
Now we’re talking!
Radical doability 👍❤️
Exactly!
Nah. Set in my ways.
Nothing wrong with that!
sorry, can no longer agree with that content. i don’t make resolutions, i’m taking one day at the time and i’m just thankful that i make it through every single one of them. i think i’m all the happier for that reason too – no goals i know are not achievable. i had a boss who told me in the job interview: if you have job ambitions, pls don’t come to work for me – i’m just doing my job as good as i can until i’m being pensioned off, but i’m not offering you a job ladder!!! i liked his explanation…
And this is what makes us all some uniquely human – what works for you works for you. Thanks for sharing Kiki.
Your writing seems to be very popular. Kudos.
Not my writing. But agree with you.
Favorite thought… we don’t need to resolve to do anything.
Happy New Year, Dave!!!!
-Alan
Thanks Alan. Happy New Year to you too!