As much as we all want to say goodbye to the pandemic-related horrors and heartbreaks of the past few years, a new calendar year is not going to solve all of our problems. Each new day does get us closer to getting out of this mess, but January 1, 2023, is not going to automatically reset the economy, eliminate COVID-19, or wipe away all of the sacrifices so many of us have made to keep ourselves and others safe.
And 2023 won’t magically fix all of our personal grievances, either. If you are feeling pulled into the "new year, new you" marketing ploy found in self-help and self-improvement products and brands, then let me give you this advice: It’s OK to not make any New Year’s resolutions. Let go of the obligations you feel about making improvements or changes to yourself because you think you should be doing something better. I have a feeling you’re already doing the best you can in so many parts of your life, and the last thing you need is pressure to look at your awesomeness and think, how can I keep surviving this pandemic but better in 2023?
I am not a big fan of resolutions during non-pandemic years; when we’re ready to make changes, we will, and they will be lasting, and sometimes that comes in the middle of June and not on January 1. But I’m really struggling to see now as the time to challenge ourselves — or set ourselves up for more struggle — because we think we should sign up for that fitness program, lose weight, write the book, get the job, etc.
I am a sober alcoholic. I battle mental health ups and downs. And this year has been a constant balance of me screaming "Eff this mess!" and listing all of the things I have to be grateful for. I have always known that doing my best looks different from day to day, but this year I was forced to accept it, too. I know I have been hard on myself at times for being off or unfocused, but I have tried to find ways to maintain routine and reasonable expectations for myself within the limitations of COVID-19 restrictions. Part of what made this easier was to find elements of my day and life that I could control. I wanted to eliminate uncertainty and fear. I wanted to feel like I had some say on the direction my life was going instead of feeling like a hostage to COVID-19. But I didn’t create obstacles to do this.
Sometimes control means starting my day with a small checklist: get up, brush teeth, wake kids, make coffee. And then, depending on the work I have — because as a gig worker and freelancer my work has been unpredictable — I plan out the rest of my day. I will myself to finish necessary tasks and give myself grace for not accomplishing anything beyond those requirements. This self-permission to let go of perfection or some version of productivity that I can’t meet actually helps me do more self-care and self-improvement than if I force myself to put it on my daily to-dos. I don’t exercise, stay sober, or find ways to relax because of some standard I feel I have to live up to; these elements of my life are important pieces of who I am, and they didn’t start as New Year’s resolutions; they started as ways to make very messy parts of my life more manageable.
I’m not telling you to not make bold statements about all of the wonderful things you want to accomplish in 2023. Write, scream, vision-board the sh-t out of those goals. But don’t announce them because of guilt or pressure or comparison to others. And don’t give up on them if you start and then have to stop chipping away at them. People go into New Year’s resolutions with an all-or-nothing attitude, and if they don’t see results as fast as they think they should or need to jump bigger hurdles than expected, they give up as if they failed.
First of all, trying something because you want to make a change is never failing. Yes, sticking to something often takes discipline and some sacrifice, but there are always external forces that may put our efforts on hold at times. If you want to use January 1 as a starting point for a new goal, then have at it, but don’t do it out of obligation, and don’t base your success on a timeline that will be impacted by unpredictable forces.
So much of 2020 has failed us, but none of us are failures. This year has been unpredictable and hard, and some of us have barely survived. We have second-guessed our parenting skills, productivity, and creativity in the thick of a pandemic when we need to remind ourselves that we are in the thick of a damn pandemic. Perhaps our resolution for 2023 can be to realize we’re human and doing the best we can. Resolve to keep going.
