How to Make and Keep a New Year's Resolution With Less Stress
It’s that time to make a New Year’s resolution again. If this is your tradition, for sure you start thinking about everything you want to accomplish in the new year. But you may also wander about your resolutions in the previous year. If you have not crossed much on your list, do you tend to blame yourself? Call yourself names? Question your capability of achieving anything?
The pressure of reaching your New Year’s resolutions can get under people’s skin. It can make you feel like a failure for not reaching the goals you said and having a completely finished list. This article is for anyone who feels stressed over their New Year’s resolutions year after year. The resolutions you set shouldn’t make you feel this way!
What is a New Year’s Resolution?
A New Year’s resolution is an intention or goal someone sets for the upcoming year. Usually, people make their resolutions at the end of the prior year. When the Times Square Ball drops, and everyone screams “Happy New Year!” it can feel like time has reset. Some people don’t think New Year’s is a big deal; they feel like it is just another day, and when the year changes to the next, it doesn’t really affect them. Other people see this time as a new beginning or chapter in their life.
These people might have had a challenging year and are looking for a change. Many people make resolutions that they feel would improve or improve their lives. They may make resolutions to finally do something they’ve always dreamed of doing, achieve a goal they’ve always wanted to achieve, or alter their life drastically.
Resolutions are usually meant to inspire people to stick to their goals. Unfortunately, many people may feel discouraged looking at their incomplete resolution list at the end of December. As mentioned before, if you don’t achieve these goals, you may start feeling like a failure- this should be the case!
What Are Typical New Year’s Resolutions About?
Body Changes
You may be wondering what people make resolutions for the new year. Often, losing weight or becoming healthier are common resolutions that arise. Gyms seem to become busier at the beginning of the year as people try to stick to their new resolutions.
Being more health conscious and taking care of your body is good, but the desire to achieve this goal can add a lot of pressure to someone’s life. Many people may take this goal too far or deal with the pressure of losing weight in unhealthy ways. Some people may develop disordered eating or unhealthy habits with their bodies because of this goal.
Financial stability
Many people make New Year’s resolutions about their finances as well. Especially in the world today, many people are worried about their savings and expenses. A goal for someone can be to be financially independent or stable in their lives.
Many people make resolutions to finally get a good job, graduate school, and make a living for themselves. Someone might resolve to change their career entirely and start over in the new year. Others may have goals to finally buy a specific thing like a house or car they’ve been saving up for.
Relationships
Money is not the only thing people may wish for in the new year. We, as humans, are social beings, and we usually thrive off the relationships in our lives, whether romantic or platonic. Especially as we mentioned in a previous article about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), people can struggle during the colder months. They may look forward to finding someone new to spend time with in the New Year. Our article about cuffing season discussed why people go together in relationships in the winter.
You may have also resolved to meet new friends in the new year. You may have looked back on 2022 and decided that the people in your life are no longer serving you. Many times, people look back and realize that the people they thought were their friends are actually harming them. Also, you may have recently gone through a friendship breakup that hurt you. Some view friendship breakups as even more painful than romantic relationships. You are looking for new and healthy relationships in 2023!
Travel
Similar to wanting financial independence, many people want to spend their money to travel the world. Especially after the pandemic started, people’s travel plans may have changed drastically or been put on hold. People may finally be ready or willing to travel in the New Year.
People resolve to travel for many reasons; you may want to travel somewhere you’ve always dreamed of going or where your family or culture is from. Traveling can be a great way to see the world and meet other people.
Why Do New Year’s Resolutions Create Pressure?
Each year is filled with new pressures and stressors. New Year’s resolutions can bring stress to ambitious people who want to change their lives and achieve their goals; perfectionists may need help in this area. Perfectionists are people who want to do everything flawlessly and make no mistakes. Perfectionists often put a lot of pressure on themselves to reach their high expectations. However, they may feel horrible about themselves when they fail or make a mistake.
Many people measure their worth in the goals they achieve, for example, academically. As mentioned in our past article, many people feel stressed over achieving good grades to please themselves or others. People-pleasers often measure their worth by the love, and affection others give them.
You may be in a situation where you’re unhappy and not enjoying your life; your New Year’s resolution is a way to escape into a world where you can achieve all your goals and things that have looked up to you. Reaching these goals is meaningful because it means improving your life. This one’s with a lot of pressure for someone, especially if they feel like they aren’t.
How to Make Sure To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions
The key to not only make but keep your New Year’s resolutions is to create healthy and SMART goals. As we all know, SMART goals represent goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. When it applies to New Year’s Resolutions, you may want to use flexibility, compassion, and support to help you. Specifically,
1. Let Go of a Strict Timeline for Achieving Your Goals
The pressure of New Year’s resolutions can come from feeling like you have to achieve them all at once or immediately. Sometimes people feel like they aren’t making giant leaps or intense progress and aren’t actually changing. However, many times change comes gradually into our lives.
When we are growing, it may not look like much is going on at first.
Let’s remember that butterflies take time to grow and develop in their cocoons, and you do too. Accepting that you will not achieve all your goals overnight can help you.
Setting realistic time frames for yourself can relieve some of this pressure. For example, you may have a goal to earn a certain amount of money this year. Taking your goals into smaller pieces and making small victories can help you feel more accomplished in your progress. For money saving, you can deposit a specific amount of money in your bank account each month, so it is manageable, and you see the progress going up.
2. Keep Your Goals Ambitiously Realistic
You should be able to dream of anything you want to dream of in your New Year’s resolutions. However, remember to be still as realistic as possible. For example, you may want to be a doctor one day; this goal may require you to achieve a lot of steps before becoming a medical professional.
Recognize the steps you need to take before becoming a doctor, which may take longer than a year. For example, you might have to take prerequisite classes, earn an undergraduate degree, get more time volunteering, etc. Think of the steps you need to take to reach your goal and give them realistic timelines. Will this plan take longer than a year? See what you can do in a year, and be proud of your progress, whether it’s big or small, toward your goal.
3. Don’t Compare Yourself to Others
Comparison is often the thief of joy, as Theodore Roosevelt once said. When you compare yourself to others, it’s unfair to yourself. Everyone is on their own journey in life and has their unique timeline. Your timeline is different from your best friend’s or your sister’s. Please don’t compare yourself to others because they are not YOU and are not living your life, feeling your emotions, walking in your shoes, etc., and vice versa. Be proud of your progress, and don’t compare where you are to other people.
4. Lean on Trustworthy People
Many people are “open books,” which can be a great quality to have; these people like to share everything with other people, including their goals and dreams for the future. Sometimes when you’re an open book, you may share things you regret later.
You may have told someone that you plan to buy a car this year, and when you don’t, you may feel embarrassed. Reconsider who you share your news with and if they are someone who will support you, good or bad. You may want the best for everyone around you, but unfortunately, not everyone feels the same.
Instead, tell trusted friends and family members your goals if you choose, but you can also consider keeping some goals to yourself. Sometimes people say that “moving in silence” helps protect your energy for yourself on your journey. When other people’s expectations and eyes aren’t constantly placed on you, you may feel freer to make mistakes or mess up. You don’t feel the need to please everyone around you, only yourself.
Set boundaries and know that not everyone needs access to everything about you. Some people need to earn that right from you.
5. Have Self-Compassion
You may have a lot of goals for yourself in the new year; even though you have these goals for your future self to achieve, don’t forget to be kind to present-day you! You deserve kindness and self-compassion always, even when you don’t reach certain goals or make mistakes. Have patience with yourself when doing thing like saving money or building relationships, those things take time!
If you are trying to alter your body in some way, please remember to do it in a healthy way- always treating your body with respect, care, and gentleness. Know that you are already enough by being who you are and to accept and embrace the body you have at any point in your life.
6. Remember That There’s Always Next Year
A year can feel like not enough time to do it all! You may think, “how can I get all this done possibly in a year?”
The truth is that you can accomplish anything you didn’t get done this year in years to come. Your life goals don’t have to be confined to 365 days of the year. As mentioned before, some plans may take a long time to complete. Allow yourself the time to grow at your own pace, and don’t rush your progress.
Also, have compassion for yourself and accept that making mistakes or taking detours from your destiny to plant is totally normal. You are a human being, and you are allowed not to be perfect all the time. Most of the time, our goal is to turn out differently than we want them to usually, and that’s okay- that’s life!
7. Trying Therapy Can Be A New Year’s Resolution
Why not? Actually many people list therapy as their New Year’s Resolution. Therapy can help you if you are struggling with New Year’s resolutions. Struggling with your New Year’s resolutions may signal that you are dealing with things internally. You may feel low self-esteem and feel like you need to prove yourself to others this year, or you may feel depressed about your life and are yearning for a change. Therapy can help you manage stressors, build confidence, and cope better to live a happy and healthy 2023!
Content Creator, Victoria Gallo; Reviewed by Dr. June Cao