Why I Hate New Year’s Resolutions

I have always hated the idea of New Year’s Resolutions. I have felt for a very long time like they set you up for failure. There is all this pressure at the very beginning of the year to make big, sweeping, epic changes. The problem with that is that most humans can’t make big sweeping changes straight out the gate. That’s why small, actionable steps is what I preach all day, errrry day.

There’s also the aspect of commodification of resolutions, because businesses have figured out that the pressure for “new year, new me” has resulted in people being more willing to invest in new equipment, programs, products, and so on at the beginning of the year. You cannot escape the myriad voices telling you what you need to do to make the most of the year in front of you. (Also, don’t get me started on the toxicity of “new year, new me,” I’ll save that for another post.)

When clients working with me begin crafting a self-care routine, I have them start with three questions. Asking yourself these same three questions as this new year begins will ensure that any resolutions, goals or intentions you set come from a place of deep self-compassion.

Why These Questions Are Important

It is vitally important to answer these questions any and every time that you are wanting to start something new. Too much too soon too fast will lead to burnout and abandonment of the new thing. An honest evaluation of where you are at and what could help you is invaluable.

When you don’t evaluate what you want, need and can do, you can tend to make decisions based on external messaging or pressure or persuasion. No one outside of yourself can know the answers to these questions. You could accept what someone else is telling you that you need, only to find out down the line that it is really really not helpful (or even accessible) to you for whatever reason.

When that happens, the tendency is to blame yourself. The negative self-talk around that can be crippling.

When I first started trying to get my shit together from a self-care perspective, I fell into this trap over and over and over again. I’d let an outside influence into my self-care routine, implement the thing, absolutely HATE THE THING, then be mad at myself for hating the thing. This is NOT HEALTHY, friends.

There is nothing wrong with recognizing that something is not working for you. In fact, that’s one of the most powerful things you can discover when walking through a self-care journey. This thing isn’t working. Why isn’t it working? Go back to the three questions and try something else.

Discovering What Works for You is the Point

Trial and error is a fundamental part of creating and implementing a self-care routine. If you knew yourself deeply, and understood yourself really well, you probably wouldn’t need to start from scratch to build a self-care regimen.

There is no shame in getting to know yourself better. Just because something worked for one person doesn’t mean it will or even should work for you, and that is 1000% reasonable.

Remember how I said self-care is individualized? This is where the magic happens, in the discovery of what works for you.

We are surrounded, all day every day with messaging surrounding what our “best life” should look like. Is it any wonder at all that we have no idea sometimes what our true needs and wants are? We’ve also been told, as I discussed last week, that saying no, setting boundaries, and taking care of ourselves is selfish. So we don’t know what we can do, because we have been living on caffeine and exhaustion for forever and a day.

Self-compassion means loving ourselves enough to know our limits, knowing what we need, and knowing what we want.

The Best Way to Answer These Questions

The very best way I have found to get a clear picture of the answers to these questions is to make three columns on a piece of paper and start with the need column.

What do you need?

What do you NEED to do every single day? Eat, drink water, and sleep are usually the top three. Work? Care for family members? Exercise? Take medication? Put all those things down in that first column. Now - is everything on that list absolutely critical? Does it have to be done every single day? Are you telling yourself it must be done when it doesn’t necessarily have to be? Better yet, if it must be done, are you the only person on planet Earth that can do it? Could you delegate it to someone else? If you are doing it, not because it needs to be done, but because you want to do it, move it over to the second column: Want.

What do you want?

In the want column, I want you to answer this question: In the perfect world, where time and money did not matter, what would you want to do every day? Put all the things in that want column. Even if they seem unattainable. Keep going until you’ve gone from when you get up in the morning to when you go to bed.

What can you do?

Now - the secret sauce: What CAN you actually do, without exhausting yourself, without running in circles, without wanting to cry? In an ideal world, where you get enough sleep, adequate food and hydration, and work/life balance, what CAN you do? Be brutally honest in this moment. This is the time to recognize if something is wearing you down, becoming a time or energy suck, or plain making you miserable.

You are not required to continue doing something that is making you miserable. If you’ve been waiting for permission to quit the thing, I hereby grant it.

Honoring Yourself = Self-Compassion

When you can honestly and vulnerably recognize what you truly need, want, and can do in a given day, not only will you better understand what your self-care regimen should include, you’ll also move toward honoring yourself in deeper and more meaningful ways.

When you honor yourself, self-compassion is built up no matter what. It is a natural byproduct of honoring yourself and your needs.

For ideas on what simple wants and needs might look like, sign up for my 10 Beginner Steps to Self-Care here.