Stop Setting New Year's Resolutions Like You're Fixing Your Broken-Self
The "Real-You" Does Not Need To Change
If you’re old enough you’ve experienced enough broken New Year’s Resolutions to write your own Shakespearean opera.
We already know that setting New Year’s resolutions is, at least for 91% of us, a one way ticket to heartbreak town (Only 9% of us apparently complete our NY’s resolutions).
I have never stuck with a NY’s resolution. The reasons are generally the same for me as they are for everyone— lost motivation, didn’t actually want to do it, wasn’t ready, too big of a goal, no accountability.
And yet I feel the biggest reason why it doesn’t work… the reason to end all reasons… the one reason to rule them all! (ok, I’ll stop)… but they were all of them deceived, for another reason was made… (ok, done now)…
The biggest reason for why we don’t stick to our New-Year’s resolutions is because we set them in order to fix something about ourselves we believe is broken.
In other words, we see ourselves as broken.
Lets break this down:
We set a goal to try and fix something about ourselves we don’t like. Be it, weight, fitness, finances, lack of love.
When the New Year starts we hit the ground running after the prize on a stick, which is this idealized fixed version of you. This is when you’re most motivated, inspired, excited. Note that the whole time we’re doing this we’re actually sending signals to our mind and body that we are not okay the way we are. But we justify it by living in an idealized future… which, spoiler alert… is not sustainable.
When we get tired of running we resort to whipping ourselves to go harder, better, faster, stronger…
When we get tired of whipping ourselves we begin chiding and rebuking ourselves… calling ourselves ‘weak,’ ‘loser,’ ‘failure’ (labels we picked up when we were younger from people who otherwise may have loved us). This is when we start slowing down.
Finally when the mind and body has had enough of our self-directed hate-talk we stop, we drop, we curse, we cry and we break our own hearts.
Notice how in every step your mind and body is actually reacting appropriately. It’s normal to not be able to live in the future. It’s normal to get tired of running. It’s normal to use negative labels we picked up in our past in order to try to motivate ourselves (this is how our brains work). And it’s normal to get tired of us beating ourselves up. We got tired of our parents doing it to us, right? Right.
So…
If all of this sucks, but is normal, but still sucks… what’s human to do? Well first let’s recognize why we try to change…
For most people self-improvement assumes one of two things: You are either an empty vessel you need to fill or a broken thing you need to fix.
The truth is…
Well…
We’re gonna get into some spiritual stuff.
Why do you want to change anything about yourself?
To avoid pain and to feel pleasure. Those are the only 2 categories.
The first one, to avoid pain, can only motivate you for so long. For things that require a long timeline to change, like dropping a lot of weight, we need a deeper driver to sustain us, and that usually comes from the “pleasure” category.
The word pleasure, though, can sound rather hedonistic, so I’m going to substitute it with “love.”
Awww… Love… Amore…
No!
I mean “Universal Love.”
God. Universal Energy. Lovingkindness. Appreciation. Acceptance. Feel free to use any word that describes the experience “love” brings you. Because our experience of that feeling is the same— warmth, joy, spaciousness, openness, gratefulness, compassion, clarity, equanimity, etc.
Every change we make is because ultimately we want to experience more of those feelings that I just listed.
Which brings us to the ultimate question:
Can you feel love (or those feelings) without changing anything about yourself?
Even if you haven’t felt love in a while, you have certainly felt it at some point. Maybe a very long time ago.
You have the necessary equipment to feel love. I promise it was installed into your human model during assembly. It just maybe hasn’t received the latest updates.
Take a moment. Slowly and gently bring to mind someone who loved you very much as a child. A parent, a grandparent, a favorite uncle or aunt, a spiritual or religious figure, or a favorite pet. See their face if you can or simply feel their presence around you. Where do you feel their warm gentle presence in your body? An opening in the heart? A dropping of the shoulders? A smile across your mouth or eyes? Can you sense a bit of softening around you?
If you can, great. If you can’t, also great!
Why? Because love is not a thing you get. Love is a practice. You can feel it anytime you want. But the depth to which you feel it depends on how much you practice touching into it.
If you have trouble feeling love (joy, warmth, spaciousness, gratefulness etc), it’s probably because you haven’t felt it in a while. As a child you might have done it naturally, just like exercise, without thinking about it. But as an adult, just like with exercise, you have to make time to seek it out, to feel it on purpose.
So you can go ahead and skip the notion of “fixing yourself” so that you can feel love.
There is nothing to fix. Your true deeper self exists and can feel all those feelings that you think change will ultimately bring you, right now.
You are not broken. You can’t be broken. You are born whole and you don’t need to do or be anything else to love or be loved.
No amount of exercise, dieting, money, research, how-to lists or to-do lists will make you feel complete. Instead they might reinforce the notion that you are not complete. In the spiral of self-improvement you are always grasping for something better and forgetting just how much you already have.
The solution is not self-improvement, but self-realization. Instead of setting a New Year’s Resolution goal to achieve something, perhaps set an “intention” to understand who you truly are.
To me, an “intention” feels more gentle than a goal. It doesn’t feel berating. It doesn’t lord over you or whip you. It doesn’t necessarily assume that you need to do anything. It’s a soft nudge from a deeper wanting.
What if before you intend to, for example, lose weight, you set an intention to see yourself the way you wanted your parents to see you as a child?
What if you intend to uncover that sacred voice inside you that’s been there all along that screams at every “should” you throw at it? There’s a reason it doesn’t want to do it.
Can you listen to it? Is it tired? Is it scared? Is it begging you to stop?
Give yourself the space this part needs to be heard. Hold it in a deeper, wiser, more compassionate presence. If you’d like a resource on how to do this, check out this RAIN Exercise from my healing-anxiety program:
RAIN stands for Recognize, Accept, Investigate and Nurture
Once you give yourself what you really want (which is usually some form of love or self-acceptance) then you can set an intention from that deeper, more confident voice, that will be much easier to follow.
As far as my New Year’s Intention… I’m returning to a practice of self-listening.
I will do a simple 3 minute daily check-in a few times a day to allow myself to feel exactly how I need to feel. This includes grounding, listening to but not attaching to my mindstream, feeling and moving my body in whatever way it needs and then bringing in compassion for all my scared and lonely parts and then nurturing, nurturing, nurturing them with lovingkindness.
I’ve done this before on a regular basis, but had fallen out of practice in 2023. It is a seemingly short but powerful practice that adds up to big changes. It once gave me the strength to change careers, to sign up for a meditation teacher’s program, to start a private coaching practice and to invest financially in my business and well being in ways I finally recognize I deserve. Returning to this practice is a gift I am giving to myself so that I can change with wise intention.
How are you practicing change? Comment below, I’d love to hear
If you want suggestions for how to practice what I’m doing, let me know and I’ll share the steps!