I don’t do New Year’s resolutions
‘Happy New Year’
I may be disorganised and a bit haphazard in my social media posts, but no, I haven’t posted early!! However, New Year being happy is a pretty big assumption! And in the UK, January can be a depressing month with short days, long nights, grim weather and a long time till the next thing to look forward to.
In Chinese medicine, it is suggested that during winter we should practice self-acceptance and care, taking time to listen to our body and replenish our reserves. We should nurture our body and mind, allowing our feelings of hope for the spring to develop naturally. Take time out to discover who we really are.
So my question is, why start something new in January? Why push yourself at a time in the year when your body is telling you to rest, to sleep, and when putting your body under stress is more likely to lead to illness due to lack of sunshine, vitamin D deficiency and hence lowered immunity.
Why deprive yourself of treats when your fridge and cupboard are still full of bite sized yorkshire puddings, chocolate and Baileys?
Why go from feast to famine in 24 hours? Surely that’s just going to be excrutiating!
Why make life harder when it is already pretty tricky?
I find January really hard. To be fair, I find winter pretty hard. I am that person who suffers with SAD. I supplement with vitamin D, spend as much time outside as I can, exercise, try to eat a healthy diet, practice gratitude - all the things which should make me feel fine, but the dark days make me glum. So I just don’t do New Year’s resolutions.
I tried in the past. Like everyone, I set myself up to fail! I decided to run a mile every day in January, or go sugar free, or learn to play the clarinet. But I don’t think I ever stuck to any of it, because I wanted to be perfect, and trying to be perfect always ends in failure. And then of course the voices in my head started. ‘Why can’t you stick to anything?’; ‘You are rubbish’; ‘Everyone else can do it, why can’t you?’; ‘Why are you so pathetic’.
Well of course, most other people can’t do it and most of us set ourselves up to fail by setting the bar too high and expecting too much of ourselves. BUT other reasons we fail are because we have temptation in the cupboard; because mood is low when the sun is low in the sky; our bodies are meant to rest when the days are short and be more active when there are more hours in the day.
AND there is so much pressure to be perfect! If you set yourself a New Year’s resolution to stop drinking coffee and on the first Saturday you have a coffee, does this mean you have failed? Is this the end of it? It doesn’t have to be! Perhaps you were drinking two coffees a day, so actually you didn’t drink 10 or more coffees before you had one - that’s a big win!
So here’s my advice for January.
Firstly, if you want to have a New Year’s resolution, then go for it, but don’t expect perfection. 80% is good enough.
If you don’t want to have a New Year’s resolution, this isn’t because you are rubbish at it or can’t do it. It is a choice you can make - a choice which is more in line with the season and your body’s need to rest and recouperate. Postpone it to February; do it at the spring equinox; start on the 10th January or the day after you eat the last chocolate and drink the last dregs of Baileys!
Take January to recover from the excesses of Christmas. Rest after all the family gatherings, be kind to yourself. Listen to your body - what does it actually want or need? Perhaps just taking things slowly - having a massage, going for a gentle stroll, eating a bar of chocolate while watching a film on a Friday night - is exactly what you should be doing at this time of year.
New Year doesn’t have to be a new start. It can be, but it isn’t essential. You aren’t a failure if it isn’t or if you feel you can’t do it… New starts can start at any time - tomorrow, a Wednesday, when you’ve eaten all the crap out of the fridge, or when your new trainers arrive.