Best wishes for 2024 - New Years Resolutions
Posted on January 1, 2024 • 6 min read • 1,184 words
Best wishes for the new year, Happy New Year. You have undoubtedly heard and said it many times. When people wish you a happy new year, you often get the follow-up question: Do you also have any resolutions? Do you feel obliged to answer that? Do you, like many people, believe that you should have resolutions on January 1st? And that you should work hard on them?
Why, actually
Maybe it’s because we want to put an end to old habits and start new ones. We’re not entirely satisfied with the life we had or the things we’ve accomplished, so we’re going to do things completely differently now. Often it becomes a long list of things to improve ourselves.
I have such a list too, you know. But I don’t start it on January 1st. In fact, I don’t have any (new) things that I’ve resolved to do on January 1st this year. I’ve already made a list of things I want to change, achieve, or stop earlier. And it’s not really a list of things. It’s more like a list of criteria and words.
Must or want
I’m not a psychologist, so question everything I tell you :) But I do think I have the necessary experience as someone who enjoys many things and quickly finds things boring. If things are a “must,” I have a serious struggle with that.
That, in my opinion, is also the most important thing you have to do: not have to. It’s a bit contradictory, to say in the same sentence that you shouldn’t have to “have to” anymore, but well. If you want your resolutions to succeed, don’t see them as something you have to do. I don’t remember where I read or heard it, maybe in the book Nonviolent Communication, but by “having to,” you place the responsibility outside of yourself. So you actually don’t want to do it, but others think you should. But if it’s something imposed by someone else, does it really help? I don’t think so.
Your true goal
I think it’s much wiser to search for your ’true goal.' When you say ‘I want this or that,’ it often comes more from yourself. Especially if you add the why: ‘I want this or that because…’, for example, ‘I want to go to the gym more because I want to live a healthier life.’ If you then reverse some words in that sentence and replace ‘because’ with ’therefore,’ it becomes much clearer for yourself. ‘I want to live a healthier life, therefore I’m going to the gym.’ In the end, it’s about living healthier, not so much about the gym. The gym is just a means in this case. That, in my opinion, also makes it easier to stick to your resolution. Because now you’ve put your true goal first, you probably value it more yourself. And if it doesn’t work out one time, you can come up with an alternative for the action you associated with your goal. Instead of going to the gym, I’ll go for a run or go skating.
SMART
There are whole groups of people who swear by goals that meet the SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. And of course, it’s important that the goals you set are realistic and achievable. That goes without saying. But some goals can’t necessarily be made SMART. How do you make your health goal SMART? When are you considered healthy? At 55 kilos? At 80? When you lose 10? And how do you make it time-bound? Some goals, in my opinion, benefit more from a ‘guideline’ or intention. I want to live healthier, yes, that includes a weight, but it’s more than that. If I crash diet to reach a certain weight, is that still healthy? If I lose 15 kilos in, let’s say, three weeks, am I still doing it in a healthy way? And what if life happens? There are other important things that come up, am I no longer doing well on my goals? With the inevitable self-criticism of ‘I set a goal, but I failed again’? No, I’m not a big fan of that.
Intermediate goals
I have set a rather big goal for myself: I want to run a marathon when I’m fifty/before I turn fifty-one.
That’s a huge mountain to climb. That’s why I’ve set some intermediate goals. After all, it’s easier to keep the mountain in the background in sight when you have some smaller mountains in between. It keeps you motivated to achieve your big goal, and in the meantime, you achieve some smaller ones as well.
My intermediate goals are:
- First, I want to participate in a 5km run ✅
- Then, I want to participate in a 10km run ✅
- After that, I want to complete a half marathon ✅
- Finally, I want to run a marathon
If I had started directly with ‘I want to run a marathon in 2024,’ then it would meet the SMART criteria, but would I have achieved it? I don’t know. I mean, training for the marathon all the time and nothing else in between? I think I would give up, knowing myself. Now I have already checked at least 3 intermediate goals, plus various related goals. I wanted to lose some weight, I was ready for yet another new hobby, etc.
Starting on New Year’s Day
And finally: Do you have to start on New Year’s Day? Is that the only way to achieve your goal or resolution? Well, maybe it would also work on August 15th? I’m pretty sure it would work on a day other than New Year’s Day. Every time you intend to change something in your habits, big or small, you can start doing it immediately. That way, you don’t end up with a huge list on January 1st, but hopefully you’ve already changed some things in the meantime. In 2018, I decided on July 27th to start running. And not only did I decide that, but I also started doing it right away! And you know what? I’m still doing it. Like many other things, it has its ups and downs, but I’m still running. Even today. I didn’t think of starting a resolution on January 1st, but I did say: “Let’s start the year off right” and ended up going for a run around three in the afternoon. And yes, at three o’clock, of course, I also had trouble convincing myself to go out on New Year’s Day. It wasn’t exactly dry outside. It wouldn’t have mattered whether I did a New Year’s dive or this little run. I still got cold and wet. But I did it anyway.
Conclusion
I think there is only one conclusion to draw: Don’t take those New Year’s resolutions too seriously. If you want to change something: Great! But make sure it happens in small steps. Don’t try to completely turn your life around all at once. The chance of achieving your goals or sticking to your resolutions is not very high.
