New Year's Resolutions

So it’s been 2023 for almost a month now, and I can proudly say I didn’t give up on any of my new year’s resolutions! That’s because… You guessed it, I didn’t make any.

I know, I know, you’re probably thinking “Don’t you want to improve yourself?” And obviously, I do, but being in university is stressful enough as it is, why do I need to add on all the weight of ‘becoming the best version of myself’ within a certain time frame? The end of the year is meant to be a joyous holiday full of love and warmth but more often than not it’s filled with stress. Exams, money for Christmas gifts, and family dinners consisting of various aunts and uncles asking what you plan to do with your Bachelor of Arts once you graduate. As if you aren’t already asking yourself the exact same question every day of your life until the point where your face is covered in stress pimples and your hair is falling out. (TMU? More like TMI.)

Did you know that 80% of people abandon their New Year’s resolutions by February? (Forbes, 2021.) Whether that be because there’s too much pressure, or because they simply didn’t have the time. More often than not, when people make resolutions they go for the ‘all or nothing’ route. They say they’ll exercise every day, but when they’re too busy and miss a day, they decide there’s no point getting back on track because they ‘failed.’ 

It is for this reason that I decided to not give myself any crazy expectations for 2023. Do I have goals? Of course. But if I don’t achieve all of my goals I’m not going to be mad at myself. University was supposed to be the best years of my life and I spent half of it in a global pandemic and all of it worrying about the future. Instead of focusing on all of the things I didn’t do, I want to look back at the end of 2023 and be proud of myself for the things I did. Why should I make commitments that I won’t stick to because life gets in the way? Why not just let life happen? Sure, sometimes life throws a curveball at me, but I’ve made it through every hard time so far, so I clearly must be doing something right.

I don’t want to give myself crazy expectations to live up to and feel as though I’ve failed if I haven’t become the epitome of human perfection in 365 days. In 2023 I want to enjoy my time being 21 (arguably the best age to be) and live in the moment instead of living for the future.

Aw, shoot, maybe I do have a New Year’s Resolution.

CITATION:

Stahl, A. (2021) This new year’s set goals, not resolutions, Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Available at:https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2021/12/09/this-new-years-set-goals-not-resolutions/?sh=1c8f825d1ece