I’ve always been fascinated by the concept of new year resolutions; for at least a week before and after the beginning of a year, this is the only thing we seem to be talking about. It is a time of looking back at ourselves in retrospection and reflecting on the year that went by, while also contemplating all that lies ahead.
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For a lot of us, the resolve to stick to our New Year resolutions does not last beyond the month of January. I’m one of those people. I remember one year, when I was a kid, I resolved to study for at least an hour every day. That went for a toss pretty soon. Around the time that I was a teenager, my resolutions became slightly more creative and personal. When I was 15, I decided that I was going to be more grateful about the little things in life that year. I resolved that at the end of every single day of the year, I was going to write down on a piece of paper at least one thing that made me happy that day and keep it in a jar. The goal was to have a jar full of 365 reasons that I was happy for that particular year. I stopped writing those chits by the time it was August. I felt horrible about it and decided to take it up again at the beginning of a different year but that is yet to happen.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that, New Year resolutions are overrated. In a world that’s as fast paced as ours, where every single one of us is struggling to be the best versions of ourselves and trying to successfully reach the finish line of a marathon we didn’t sign up for, sticking to New Year’s resolutions is hard and problematic. The year I turned 16, I stopped making ridiculous resolutions that I would inevitably fail to keep up with, and decided that irrespective of what year it is, I’m going to make the best of all the time that I have.
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I’ve also come to realize that we’re exceptionally hard on ourselves when it comes to New Year resolutions. Self inspection and the desire to change into a better person are all positive emotions, but we often end up taking unnecessarily harsh routes to obtain those goals. The entire concept of having a new year’s resolution seems to be pointless. Since I love making lists in order to explain complex concepts, here’s one that will hopefully convince you why it’s okay to have no New Year resolution.
Why it’s okay to have no new year resolution?
New year, new me?
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I honestly don’t get people’s obsession with this phrase. We’re in the 21st century, but we still cannot seem to understand time and space. Unlike Cinderella’s story, nothing magical happens at the stroke of the midnight hour! You will be the same person at 12:00 a.m. 1st January 2018 that you were at 11:59 p.m. on 31st December 2017. You will still have the same imperfections and flaws; that same weird laugh where you snort in between giggles; you will still love cake and hate waking up in the morning to exercise; you will still have the same fears and dreams. Change doesn’t come easy, and it definitely needs more than a mere resolution made in a drunken haze at the first stroke of midnight. The year maybe a new one, but you’re still the same old you.
We feel this incessant need to revamp our personalities and our lifestyles with the advent of every New Year, and I wish it was as easy and effortless as installing an update for an app, but it’s not. We need to learn to accept the fact that changing one’s self is not an easy thing to do and it requires an abundance of patience. The beginning of the year is a good place to start, but it’s okay if your progress doesn’t align with the Gregorian calendar and there is absolutely no shame in taking a little bit longer to reach your desired goals.
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Stop being so hard on yourself
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We are all unique individuals and we all have our own paces at which we move. Don’t box in your accomplishments, dreams and goals into 365 days. What is important is to know your pace and keep working on it. Remember how when you were in school, not everyone understood the lesson at the same time? Some of us were fortunate enough to understand it at the first try, and some of us had to read and reread it a couple of times before we fully understood it. It didn’t make anyone less or more intelligent than the other; it simply showed how we all have varying degrees of strength, and sometimes it takes us a little longer to get to where we want, but that’s perfectly okay because we’ll get there eventually anyway.
15-year-old me may have given up midway and failed to stick to my new year’s resolution of being more grateful; but I definitely made progress and reached my goal, even if that took a little longer than I thought it would.
You don’t need the New Year to make a fresh start
That’s the beauty of this life. You can start afresh anytime you want to. It doesn’t have to be a Monday, or the beginning of the year to recreate yourself and start living life the way you want to. You’re living in the here and now, and the possibilities. You need no New Year resolutions to start pursuing your dreams. You can start right at this very instant. All you need is a little bit of faith in yourself.
Make each moment count
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Life is essentially just a series of plot twists; it is unpredictable and full of uncertainties. Burdening yourself with resolutions and leading a forcefully rigid lifestyle often robs us of the exciting moments that we’d otherwise have experienced. Instead, choose to make the most of every moment that you’re breathing because you don’t know which one is going to be your last. Get that extra scoop of ice cream; don’t beat yourself up for getting off work early to attend your niece’s dance show; go buy that expensive dress you’ve been eyeing for months now. Life’s too short to stick to silly New Year’s resolutions and not do the things you crave for. There’s no harm in breaking rules once in a while.
Set short term goals
Instead of setting one massive goal as your resolution that is to be achieved in the span of a year, set smaller goals for yourself with shorter deadlines. Like I said before, change takes time. You cannot expect to wake up one morning and decide to change into a brand new person. By setting smaller goals for yourself spread out throughout the year, you’ll be able to achieve a lot more and assess your progress for yourself. If, for example, your new year’s resolution is to give up smoking; don’t expect to be successful by giving it all up at once. Start by cutting down on the number of cigarettes you smoke in a day, and gradually bring that down to a zero.
Don’t forget to love yourself
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It doesn’t matter if you have no New Year resolution to follow; what you must, however, always practice is self love. Love yourself for coming such a long way, for making the effort become a better person. Love yourself for who you are; you are the best version of yourself today and you deserve all the love in the world for that. Celebrate every victory and every insignificant achievement; there are plenty of people out there waiting to put you down.
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At the end of the year, it doesn’t matter how successful you were in following the resolutions you made at its beginning. What matters is that you survived, and that you did it with grace, kindness and compassion, not just for others but for yourself as well. It’s okay if you couldn’t achieve all the things you wanted to. You gave your best and now you’re here back at the starting line, ready to give it another shot. Life cannot be measured by the number of resolutions we failed at or succeeded in keeping. It’s measured by the friendships we basked in, the laughter we gifted each other with, the memories we plastered all around us. Let’s promise each other to live this year to the fullest, to exhaust every single possibility that it might present us with and to help build each other up as individuals.
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