New Year, Old Resolutions

2013. New year, new beginning...or so they say. I’m not much for New Year’s Resolutions myself (I never seem to get past day one), but over many a jubilant champagne during the festive season, I became well acquainted with many of my friends’ resolutions for 2013. At the time, I blamed the champagne-induced cloud, which made me swear I’d encountered very similar conversations with these people before. However, the next day, a clear head enabled me to recall that, yes, some of my well-meaning, optimistic friends had pledged the same resolutions before, some even year in, year out with monotonous regularity!

This got me contemplating the nature of the New Year’s Resolution and whether it is indeed a useful vehicle for self-improvement, or simply an inevitable spiral toward self-flagellation and loathing. I many NYE resolution-oriented conversations of days gone by quickly sprung to mind and a couple of clear patterns began to emerge. The serial offenders (resolutions which seem doomed to fail and therefore appear on peoples’ lists year after year) tend to fall into one of two categories:

1.       The Epic- What a given person genuinely wants to achieve; usually a concrete goal (eg. I will lose 20 kg or I will learn to speak fluent Spanish). These are usually noble pursuits which the individual believes will set them on the yellow brick road towards becoming their best possible self. The problem? When, after slaving away in the gym for a fort night you have only lost 1kg (What do you mean I gained muscle?!?) or, after six Spanish lessons with that gorgeous tutor, the only phrase we can muster is “Hola Chicas!” we quickly become disheartened and quit. Hence, that hard-won 1kg loss is quickly regained, the tutor told “Adios” and our resolutions filed in the “For Future Consideration” file.  

2.       The Filler- let’s be honest; these are all show and no follow-through. Just like many of us pad our resume with vague statements such as “good communication skills”, setting resolutions such as “work out more” or “volunteer” are doomed to fail. Think about it, if you can’t even be bothered to set a goal of how many times per week you want to work out, or give even a cursory thought to what organisation you would like to volunteer for, the outlook is pretty bleak. Yes, it may make your list of resolutions appear “well rounded”, but your life is not a job interview!

Apologies if I’ve deflated your ego, or made you question whether you will be able to, “Cook just like Julia Childs” by the time 2014 dawns, but as my mother always says, there's nothing like a little tough love!

However, there does appear to be a caveat, a light at the end of the tunnel, for those devotees of the New Year’s resolution. I also recalled a conversation I had with a friend, let's call her Tanya, who wanted to start her own business. Yes, it was an epic resolution and she could easily have cast it aside into the “too hard” basket. However, she didn’t. Instead she broke her resolution down into bite-sized pieces (apologies to those of you who’ve sworn off chocolate!). She fastidiously planned what needed to be done, week by week, month by month, until she (of course) succeeded in achieving her goal.

So best of luck to those of you still on the wagon with your Resolutions and to those who have already fallen off, remember:

 

As for me, I have decided to resolve to be a (much) more active blogger. I will be posting at least one blog per week...feel free to hold me to that!

Welcome to 2013, darlings! Xx