Monday Moment:
A New New Year’s Resolution
When it comes to talking about self-care, New Year’s Resolutions can feel like a daunting task. I often think about it like this: we know what we need to do, but the idea of change often traps us in a paralyzing medium. We are stuck between wanting to do something and the bombardment of messages telling us the likelihood of success is minimal. Even if we are not folks self-identifying as perfectionists or achievers, these sorts of thoughts may lead us to not even bother with New Year’s Resolutions.
So the question befalls…
Why do we make New Year’s Resolutions?
I would suggest that we make resolutions with the best of intentions, but then “life” gets in the way (y’all know what I am talking about…). It seems like we set ourselves up for failure because we expect too much out of ourselves in a lived experiences realm. We have made resolutions unbearable because we have not treated them in a truly forming way to our self-care. We try to lose weight, spend more time with family, spend less money, and the list goes on and on, but we never truly get to the root of the problem.
Self-care is about baby steps, as hard as that may be to expect, and it comes with an immense amount of grace. If we are unwilling or unable to abide by these two ideas then I fear we will continue to let our New Year’s resolutions fall by the wayside before we even get to February.
Therefore, let’s resolve together to focus on a holistic manner of self-care in 2023.
You are probably thinking at this point, “Novel concept RunninRev…I never thought of that before.” (said with the greatest amount of sarcasm).
I know it seems simple, but here it is for each and every one of us. What if instead of the pointed goal of say spending less money, going to the gym more, etc…we made the goal focus on the holistic meaning of self-care? What if our self-care-related resolutions are just too focused that we lose sight of why we are even making them? How would it look to name our New Year’s resolution around the true meaning of our intentions, and then create smaller goals that feel achievable as we go throughout the year?
I think a broad resolution can be a smart thing to do. Write it somewhere (IN LARGE LETTERS), and then each month revisit that vision and discover your smaller goals to help you get there. Plan a month or two or three at a time. Know that a year is a long time, and to think we can just make a broad goal is not helpful, but making the resolution that is true to the heart of our desires is going to take us further (at least I hope…).