Boycotting your new year’s resolutions

The New year bells have rung, fireworks exploded, we got giddy (some of us went to bed at 9pm because we’re now over 40 and hate the sodding night), maybe you woke and went for a brisk walk, or were too hungover to move.

Whatever way your year has started, a large chunk of you will have made some new year resolutions  - or at least feel you should have -  and for those of you who have, we wish you well.

Eat less junk, train more, give up alcohol, run a half marathon each week, call parents every Sunday etc etc. Isn’t it fascinating that due to traditions and the pressure we absorb from advertising and media, that we feel we need to sort ourselves out as the clock strikes midnight?

You don’t need to be mystic Mike to know that time and time again, these resolutions fall flat on their face by the time we’re into February (or, for us, 5th Jan).

why cant we make these changes stick?

“I’m going to loose weight, so I’ll eat less chocolate”, yet our cupboards are still full of Heroes and headless Lindt bunnies, and we’ve 5 lunches out in January. 

“I’m going to climb a munro every month” good luck Bob. You’ve got newborn twins and a 5 year old, you work in a high pressured job, and weekends are your only time with the family (Bob’s wife is going to be PUCE).

In a lot of cases, it’s due to the fact we don’t plan how we’re going to achieve our resolutions, or consider how we’ll navigate potential threats. 

Or we’ve gone cold turkey on something we’ve previously enjoyed but perhaps isn’t very good for us, and our bodies are physically craving the thing, so we cave. It’s incredibly hard to go from having an ingrained habit, to suddenly abstaining and sustaining that. The success rates, you’ll be unsurprised to read, are low (read James Clear’s Atomic Habits to understand this fully). 

Sometimes our habits are so ingrained that we do what we’ve always done and forget about the resolutions we’ve made (midway through a pint it dawns on you you’re doing dry January.)

And also, just because we’ve had a week or two off, it’s likely that once back to work, our lives will go back to being fuller and faster than ever. The juggle we had in 2024 is likely to be pretty similar in 2025, and so the very idea of resolutions can instigate a rush of unwanted pressure, inducing guilt before you’ve even started, because you’re not sure how you’ll fit it in or be able to implement the change.

All in all - if your new year’s resolutions haven’t lasted, go easy on yourself. Making any kind of change in your life isn’t typically easy.

An alternative approach

Rather than setting resolutions, perhaps this year we need to check in ourselves more regularly.

It’s a complicated, messy, politically and economically unsettled landscape out there. We’re bombarded by messages, alerts, reminders and demands 24/7. We have responsibilities, work pressures, home pressures, and an endless list of to-do’s that quite frankly, are never getting done. 

We’re seeing clients who, in amongst this hamster wheel, rarely take a second to think about how they’re actually doing. And it’s leading to burnout, feeling stuck, or not sure of what they’re doing or where they’re going. How can we speed at 100 miles per hour, 365 days a year, if we’re not taking care of the engine that does it all?

So instead of / in addition to new year’s resolutions, maybe have a go at this.

The following tool is a good one to take with you throughout the next 12 months. It takes 5 minutes and is a really simple way to take stock of where you’re at each month.

• Once a month, wherever suits you best, write down how you’re doing on a scale of 0-10 (10 being good, 0 being not good). “How you’re doing” will mean different things to each of you. You might base it on how you’ve felt that month overall mood wise, or how much your achieving, or how in balance things feel. The measurement is up to you. The important thing is you’re asking yourself the question.

• Next, answer the following:

  • What’s contributing to how i feel?

  • What’s working?

  • What’s not?

  • What needs to change?

  • What’s one step I can take to start making that change?

That’s it.

A simple and quick way to check in throughout the year.

It’s the antithesis of the cold turkey approach of (some) new year’s resolutions and, instead, offers a consistent way to take stock, and be proactive in making small tweaks to our lives, for the better.

Here’s to the year ahead!