Let’s Resolve to Stop Making Resolutions

No one in the USA is thinking much about New Year”s Resolutions at this point. Oh wait - I just remembered that I’m talking to a bunch of perfectionists. Someone reading this has totally been doom scrolling on a treadmill lest they miss their step goal. And someone else is beating themselves up over not increasing their kale consumption as planned.

Not that you shouldn’t care about feeding and moving your body in a way that makes you feel good in times of political turmoil. But in times like this you need to be more flexible about metrics.

To paraphrase Airplane: you picked the wrong month to quit sniffing glue. (Metaphorically. Don’t sniff glue. Accomplist is officially anti-glue sniffing.)

But once things settle down, we’re all going to go back to trying to whip ourselves into shape. It’s not just a January thing. We perfectionists are always looking for ways to clean up our act. There’s always something we could be better at.

On the surface, there’s nothing bad about that, but we tend to use resolutions as a way to identify what’s wrong with ourselves and fix it.

Here’s the thing, though. There’s nothing wrong with you. Nothing. Maybe your life could use a little fine tuning, or your habits need to be adjusted. But you? You’re fine.

Resolutions fail because they tend to be overly ambitious. Plus, we perfectionists decide that anything less than 100% is failure, so there’s no point in trying anymore once you’ve skipped your daily meditation session even once.

But resolutions also fail because they’re rooted in the belief that we need to do something (or give up something) to become worthy. Worthy of love, worthy of respect, worthy of existence. Carrying around the weight of shame and self loathing makes it more difficult to do anything. It’s no wonder resolutions fail.

Making changes becomes a lot easier when you approach it as enhancing your wonderful self. Giving your closet the Marie Kondo treatment can make it easier to get dressed. Eating a diet that’s healthy for your individual body can make you feel better in a variety of ways. Exercise and meditation come with physical and mental benefits. But these improvements are Nice to Have, not Need to Have as far as your worth as a human being is concerned.

We’ll always hit points in our lives where something has to change. That thing doesn’t always have to be us. We can change our daily routine, or our way of doing something without viewing it as change to ourselves. We can see it not as a performance improvement, but an investment in our own happiness.

Alternate Approaches

Some people pick a Word of the Year to guide them in the coming year rather than choose a traditional resolution. Which can be great as long as your Year of Yes doesn’t turn into the Year of Being a Complete Pushover with no Personal Boundaries. Consider picking a new word whenever you feel like your life needs a shakeup.

Or you could pick up a new habit every now and then just for fun. You remember fun, right? Vaguely? Start doing something just because you feel like it. It can be vaguely self-improvementy like learning a new language. Or it can be self-serving, such as learning to bake so that you can eat delicious homemade cake. You could even get full-out self-indulgent by rereading your favorite books, or rewatching your favorite TV series.

I know it’s not easy to change your mindset like this. One way to start is by resolving to give up resolutions.

What resolutions have you made? Share them in the comments.

If this resonates with you, leave a comment below and join the Team Accomplist FB Group.