Just as it is popular to start a health kick on a Monday, New Year’s Resolutions are often created with an ‘all-or-nothing’ mentality: we tend to view breaking a resolution as a failure until we try again the next year. You could take up running in June, or stop smoking in October, the significance of the new year traps us in a vicious cycle.
to get us through a difficult time.
Hindsight is 20/20, and there is perhaps no better example of this than the year 2020. When we pledged to cut down on sugar or alcohol or takeaway consumption last January, we had no idea that in a couple of months we would be confined to our houses, with little more than food and drink for solace. Our circumstances changed in ways we could never have imagined, and it’s understandable if resolutions were forgotten during lockdown. We shouldn’t see this as failure, instead we should view it as doing what was needed
So, this year has put me off new year’s resolutions for good – at least in their current form. It doesn’t mean I didn’t spend January 1st thinking about what I’d like to achieve in the coming year. But 2020 has taught me that we don’t know what the future will hold, and therefore we shouldn’t judge ourselves against a set of goals made by effectively a different person.
“You could take up running in June, or stop smoking in October, the significance of the new year traps us in a vicious cycle.”
And, if we had to make one resolution for 2021, it should be to be kinder to ourselves.
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