A Resolution Against Resolutions
Day 97 of my 100 days project
Each year, I attempt to be the kind of person who “doesn’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions” as if self-improvement and goal setting are the equivalent of Santa Claus. I’m sure I’ve said this phrase to a handful of people with a flip of my hand more than once in the last twelve days:
“Made any resolutions?”
Who me? “ Nah, I don’t believe in them.”
All the while, I’ll be scrambling in my brain, wondering if I should, in fact, right then and there, start making resolutions - like a lot of them. Because after all, I’m getting older, and if I’m going to make changes in my life, it’s going to have to be now.
Even now, I have a brand new blank book sitting on the high shelf in my office. If I turn my head, I can see its spine. Leuchttrum 1917. Dotted. A5. Teal. The desire to peel open the plastic wrapping and mark the first full blank page with the words January 1, 2026, is palpable.
Because isn’t that what a New Year represents? The blank page. A chance to start over, start fresh. After weeks of best of lists and personalized summaries by digital entities I’ve provided with far too much personal information, I’m primed to treat today as a do-over. A chance to do the next year right.
To:
Run more, eat less, write more, be kinder, be more charitable, be patient, be braver, drink more water, get in more steps, cook healthier, cook more, be more present, be more thoughtful, read more books, watch more movies, spend less time scrolling, spend less time on social media, catch up with friends more often, cultivate silence, revel in boredom, get more accomplished, clean out my cabinets, buy fewer clothes, donate more, create a capsule wardrobe, travel more - perhaps with that capsule wardrobe, get involved, get more engaged, and on and on and on.
If given just half a minute, I’d rip open that new blank book and habit track my way into the new millennium. The neurotic side of my personality would like nothing more. My social media algorithm has spent all day feeding me an endless stream of cute planning tools and stickers and gym memberships and home workouts - going back to that scrolling less goal - maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to malign that one.
I have been falling for “new year, new you” for so many years, it's embarrassing. Sometime during this month, I will re-read both Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit, which I love, and Atomic Habits, which I like to make fun of, despite my high re-read rate. I want desperately to believe that if I just do this one thing, buy this one accessory, join this club, or download this app, that 365 days from today, I’ll be an entirely different person. The draw of this feels both absurd and deeply possible.
Yet at the end of the year, I’m mostly the same. I’m slightly heavier than I was last year, but not so much that I need a new wardrobe (capsule or not). I’ve had a mid-ish year for running, but all my running has been on a gentle decline since my forties. I’ve had the excitement of my book, but my writing output has settled back into more of a norm than the high production that occurred as I was preparing to send my book out to agents and publishers. I’m still not particularly good at drinking enough water.
So right at this moment, I’m clear-headed enough to proclaim that I AM NOT INTO RESOLUTIONS. But I assure you that at some time this month, maybe as soon as tomorrow, my resolution against resolutions will crack and by mid-January, you’ll find that A5 notebook open and on my desk, filled with Instagram-stolen bar and pie charts mapping out the goals I swear I don’t have.
Till next time,
Jessica