Today marks the beginning of a new calendar year, a day that many people enjoy with friends and family. The start of January is also a time where people over the age of 40 traditionally plan or begin their new year resolutions. It wasn't always like this. Just twenty short years ago new year resolutions were made by the vast majority of people regardless their age. What I am seeing a lot more recently is a growing number of people who announce that they will not make any resolutions for one of two reasons:
- The resolutions will be broken before February, so why make them at all?
- There is no need to make resolutions because we're fine just the way we are.
The logic behind the first reason certainly seems to make sense. We want to better some aspect of ourselves or our life but the resolution is just so grand or, more commonly, so vague that success seems an effort in futility. So, rather than redefine the resolution1 we give up entirely.
The second reason, however, strikes me as remarkably shallow and narcissistic.
Every one of us has people we look up to. These personal heroes come from all walks of life, all professions, and all ages. We admire and emulate aspects of these people because they show us a better way to act or think or play or create or work or dance or love or learn or simply be. It's the people whom we respect that we strive to be more like. Heck, these role models do not even need to be real. How many of us grew up respecting a fictional character?
We emulate others – or how we perceive others – because we know that we can be better in some fashion. We can choose to be more mindful, more eloquent, more patient, more active, more inquisitive … more than we currently are. Nobody is "fine just the way they are". The only person who could even come close to having that distinction would be Jesus Christ, and goodness knows that none of us can live up to the standard He set.
New year resolutions are personal goals to become a better person. This benefits ourselves and the people around us.
With this in mind, choose an adjective that you would like people to associate with you by the end of this year and go for it. For me, I resolve to be more generous in 2023.
I like to use the SMART methodology here to ensure the resolutions are not so vague that identifying accomplishment seems impossible.