“What’s your New Year’s resolution?”
Ah, the question of the year. There’s such immense pressure put on people at the start of the new year. Why does everyone feel obligated to create these crazy goals? You don’t necessarily have to jump out of a plane to have fun.
I asked a handful of staff members whether or not they participate in the tradition of New Year’s resolutions. The majority of the staff reported that they’ve quit this tradition and found a different way to reset for the upcoming year.
Mrs. Boubou, an interpersonal communications teacher here at KHS, commented “I used to be a slave to New Year’s resolutions in terms of ‘I’m gonna lose fifteen pounds.’ But as I get older I think, instead of making the New Year’s resolution I use the time to reflect on my growth in the last year.”
This alternative start to the new year relieves the stress of picking at your insecurities and finding which one you want to eliminate most. Mrs. Boubou’s tradition adds time to look back and be proud of all you’ve accomplished. It’s important to reflect on the good and the bad, but make sure to show yourself some compassion, you’re not going to get any better if you’re so hard on yourself all the time. Celebrate the good moments from the year and start thinking about what you can do better when you’re ready to take the next steps in achieving those visions.
“I think that if you want to do something then you can just do it,” comments Mrs. George, principal of Kempsville High School. “You don’t have to wait for the New Year’s and so if I’m going to do something, then I’m just going to make a resolution right there at that time of the year I want to do it.”
This time of the year is when everyone tries to prompt you into setting goals to ‘better yourself’ when that may actually not be what you need. The pressure of making goals on the very first day of the year is a load many carry. Why not just set goals as you please? There’s much more room for improvement without all the background noise and coercion.
New Year’s resolutions have started to die down over the years, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily bad things you shouldn’t do. The purpose of New Year’s resolutions is to get yourself to reflect and figure out what you want to work on to improve yourself as a person and your life around you. I’m not saying to completely eliminate the concept altogether, just consider taking the pressure off of yourself to have all these big goals you have to do by an unachievable deadline. Make your journey fun!
Ms. Milo, Literacy Coach for the Chiefs, has a different approach towards New Year’s resolutions. She shared that she has some sort of general theme for each year.
“I try to think like ‘What am I going to do for the next year?’ …One year I did ‘Living my life like it’s golden,’ so I bought a lot of gold jewelry. But just… try[ing] to do things in that spirit of enjoying just gold things; doing fun things with friends, like a celebration kind of thing,” Ms. Milo added.
This original take towards the holiday offers a creative, fun way to take care of yourself throughout the year and provides motivation throughout the journey of whatever small goals you set towards self improvement.
“I think the fear of failure is the biggest pressure, some people think they have to be perfect with it, rather than saying ‘I’m good enough. I did enough.’ …So thinking of it more as a long term changing your lifestyle, is a little better than thinking ‘I have to make an immediate, really hard change,’” Ms. Milo added.
A word of advice from Mrs. George, “Do not go to the gym in January, wait ‘till February and it will be empty again.”
She is referring to the amount of people that set New Year’s goals to lose weight, then give up within the first month since they set such high standards for themselves and weren’t able to meet them.
“…most people want to get in shape and lose weight, so if you have ‘I want to lose fifteen pounds’ great that’s your ultimate goal, ‘cause you have to have that success along the way, so in the first two weeks maybe I will have lost five pounds. Alright so great, I did that, now what can I continue doing? Or let me give up eating or drinking sodas and see how that impacts me, ‘cause that impacts you big. And then alright, that works. I’ll keep not drinking sodas, and now I’m going to not eat sugar. You know, so doing all those little things versus some people try to do a really big thing. Like that’s a drastic life change, and if you try to be too drastic it’s not going to work,” Mrs. George advises.
All of the people that worked out for just a month, would have very well met their goals had they just taken baby steps towards them. You have to remember, it’s a journey, not an instant destination. Pace yourself a bit. Goals take lots of time, effort and energy, you can’t expect yourself to get it all in one day.
“I think we need to rebrand the New Year’s resolutions so that it’s based more on your reflection like ‘Because of this, I really want to change this about myself.’ Even in a small way.” Mrs. Boubou comments. “I don’t think we can fail if we say we wanna be more conscientious and wanna be kinder… I think those types of goals are achievable for everybody.”
Mrs. Boubou’s constructive view is a good reminder to all; it emphasizes the importance of setting positive goals versus something you feel you have to change about yourself. Practice self love and reflection rather than nitpicking at all the things you hate about yourself.
Whether you end up deciding to stick with the tradition of New Year’s resolutions or not, take some time to sit down and celebrate how much you’ve accomplished this year. Be proud instead of rapidly moving towards the next thing you want to alter about yourself and consider all the different approaches you can take for the start of the new year. So, what’s your New Year’s resolution this year? Just kidding! Happy holidays all!
