Why I'm Sacking Off New Year's Resolutions
Most of us will do the same thing we always do around this time of year - set New Year's resolutions and then forget all about them. Having done some research, the main reason why we set goals, and the majority of us don't meet them, is because they aren't SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely.
Although this speaks a lot of truth for some people, I believe there's another side to the story which affects mental health, especially. So this year, I'm throwing the rule book out of the window and doing something a little different for 2020.
Why I'm Sacking Off New Year's Resolutions
I like to live in the present. I don't like to be let down, nor do I like letting other people down, so instead, I find it easier not to make promises to either myself or others. I find the easiest thing to do is simply protect myself from disappointments, and not making New Year's resolutions is the best way to do this.
Present me will be thinking differently to future me, and goals I've set myself now may not be applicable or achievable in the future. So when I don't meet those goals, I'll feel like a total failure and that's just not right. But you know what the worst part of that is? I'd have done it to myself.
I find that making New Year's resolutions do nothing but add pressure to an already stressful life, and I simply can't be doing with it. But do we need pressure in order to perform? I don't think we do. I think all we need is to be happy and content and the rest will follow.
For years, my New Year's resolutions have always involved the same thing - losing weight. Granted, one year I lost two stone and I was a happy-ish weight for a long time, but then I kept making the same resolution because I wanted to lose even more, but where does it stop? The answer to that is - how long is a piece of string?
I don't even think, subconsciously, I wanted to lose anymore weight, and I didn't. Instead, I was making myself resolutions and not achieving anything, so I ended up feeling worse and being annoyed with myself and my own body for having not lost weight rather than being proud of myself and being grateful to my body for the weight I had already lost - hopefully that made sense?
But I didn't deserve to feel like that, and again, that was self-inflicted but with good intentions. In my experience, you have to be inspired to take action rather than be forced. You're much more likely to enjoy the process of meeting goals if it's something you've been inspired to do. If you're forcing yourself to do it, then it's clearly not something you wanted to do in the first place, so no real progress will be made.
If we're not careful, it can quickly turn into an exhausting, incessant cycle of trying and failing, closely followed by an enormous feeling of annoyance and regret for having set the goal in the first place. Then we always say "I'll try again next year", just like "I'll start my diet tomorrow", but 'tomorrow' never comes, therefore starting another circle of nothing but absolute madness.
So Here's What I'm Doing Instead...
Instead of making ridiculous New Year's resolutions, I'm going to focus on developing myself as a person and make more of an effort to take everything in my stride. I want to make an effort to look after myself a bit more and feel happier both inside and outside as a result.
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Are you making any New Year's resolutions this year, or will you be doing the same thing I'm doing? Do you often find that you keep your resolutions or do you struggle with them? Let me know in the comments or via my social media links below. I will see you again soon with a brand new blog post!
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WHERE TO FIND ME
I think resolutions are good if you only set one or two. It's easy for me to create quite a long list and that doesn't pan out very well.
ReplyDeleteI'm exactly the same! A couple of realistic ones never hurt anyone, but if you set quite a few then it can be pretty hard to achieve them all, so I totally agree :)
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