Why Hasn’t the New Me Shown Up Yet?

One of the weird things about January is that the end of the month always feels very different than the beginning.

You start the year full of hope. You have goals. And resolutions. This year is going to be different—new year, new you.

And then you get to the end of the month, and the “new you” still hasn’t shown up yet. Your new instant pot is still in the box, you haven’t opened your meditation app since January 3, and you still haven’t made it to the gym.

The new you look suspiciously similar to the old you.

So, what do you do now?

When we find ourselves behind on our ambitions, it can be tempting to double down on our initial goals and push ourselves even harder. Or to just give up and accept that this is who we are and what we do.

But what if these aren’t our only choices? What if, instead of immediately responding to our failures and disappointments, we hit pause and reevaluate our aims?

Here are two questions to ask yourself if you’re feeling disappointed that the new you still hasn’t arrived:

1. Are you relying on magic?

At the beginning of January, it can be easy to overestimate our ability to change. We start the new year dreaming of better versions of ourselves and our lives, which makes us feel good—for a while.

As New York University psychologist Gabriele Oettingen has found, however, fantasizing about a better future can make people happier in the short term but less happy over the long term if they avoid putting in the work actually to achieve those outcomes.

So, when the short-term pleasure of imagining a new you eventually wears off, the end of January can feel like an unpleasant reality check. Sadly, the better versions of ourselves didn’t just magically show up because we flipped the calendar over.

If you’re feeling frustrated or disappointed that the new you hasn’t shown up yet, figure out how to do the work and keep putting in the work.

2. Are you expecting too much?

As University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin Seligman reminds us in his book What You Can Change and What You Can’t, “There are some things about ourselves that can be changed, others that cannot, and some that can be changed only with extreme difficulty.”

As we get to the end of January, it’s time to reexamine our hoped-for changes. What are you hoping to change or accomplish, and what category does it fall under?

If you’ve been trying to change things that can’t be changed, ask yourself whether there are some aspects of the situation that you can have some control over. Maybe you can’t change a diagnosis, a care obligation, or a past trauma, but you can get some help managing it. Maybe you can’t change your entire personality, but you can sign up for an improv class, guitar lessons, or a yoga class that will help you build and develop new skills.

There’s a limit to how much we can change, but that doesn’t mean that change isn’t possible. When we focus less of our time and energy on things we can’t change, we can focus more on things we can.

© Jen Zamzow, Ph.D. 2024