Alternatives to New Year's Resolutions

In this divided world, I’m sure we can all agree on this one thing: 2020, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. On second thought, do let it hit you. Hard.

At this time of year, people often turn to resolutions for a way to hit the refresh button. But after the barrage of 2020 and still-challenging circumstances, the idea of making resolutions may feel difficult at best and cruel at worst. Resolutions are about taking control and having agency over your life, and much about our lives right now simply isn’t within our power to change. Concrete goals may not feel appropriate to the moment, or realistic given all the uncertainty about the future, or manageable in the face of exhaustion, burnout, and reduced circumstances.

If you are in the frame of mind to make resolutions, Christina Caron has a recent piece in the New York Times about how to make them manageable, and I always recommend the advice of my friend Leila Sales about making them effective.

But if resolutions aren’t where your head’s at this year, here are some self-care oriented alternatives to making resolutions.

Set your intentions. You can’t control much of what happens in the world and even in your own life. But you can control the intentions behind your own behavior and decisions. Rather than resolving to make certain choices, choose instead what intentions will be behind your choices. For example, you might set the intention of being more proactive and less reactive, or centering your mental and emotional health in your choices this year.

Create a theme. For years, my friend Lexie and I used to come up with a theme or motto for each new year. “2007—I’m in heaven.” “Clean slate 2008.” (Yours don’t have to rhyme.) What do you want the theme of your 2021 to be, or what’s your motto for the year?

Define or redefine your mission. What is the driving force behind everything you do? What’s your personal mission in life? What’s the core value you always come back to as your highest priority, your personal north star? Take a moment to look at how you choose to spend your time—your work, your recreation, the people you choose to have in your life and how you interact with them, and so on—and you might see a core principle or motivation guiding you. The beginning of the new year may be a good time to rededicate yourself to your mission or to define one if you haven’t already.

Take a snapshot. If even these suggestions feel too daunting, that’s okay. You don’t have to commit to anything about the future—but at the very least, you may want to commit the present to memory. Take 10 minutes to write a snapshot of who you are at this moment in your life, at the end of December 2020. This could take the form of a Q&A—you might administer the Proust Questionnaire to yourself or ask yourself 21 Questions, or maybe you’d prefer to simply list your current favorites (TV show, movie, song, place, food, book, item of clothing, activity, and so on). Or, if a Q&A doesn’t appeal, you might write a description of yourself—through your own eyes or through someone else’s, a real person in your life or an imagined objective stranger. Whatever way you choose, it’s a valuable exercise to help you remember, later, who you were in December 2020.

Because, while some changes in our lives come through the work we do consciously—making resolutions, setting intentions, actively defining direction for ourselves—many changes also happen subtly, gradually and in the background, bringing us more fully into who we are without our even realizing it. And we often don’t see how much we’ve changed until we have the chance to look back at who we were.

As we turn the corner into this new year, who are you already becoming?