The New Way to Make New Year’s Resolutions

Artwork by: Lauren King

Is making New Year resolutions still a thing? Can one make non-toxic resolutions and actually stay to them?

I have a very complicated relationship with resolutions made for the year to come. I guess I am not the only one. As a teenager all I promised (or punished) myself was things connected to my looks, my eating behaviors or athletic accomplishments. I went all in at first and then lost it and I when I failed I hated myself. It took a few therapy hours and getting out of my teenage years to distance myself from this. But every end of December I think about this and get sad.

This has made me fear new year resolutions like a cat fear water. I just don’t do them. But then I talked to a friend during those flaky non-days between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve and it got me thinking. He talked about resolutions like visions. I know it sounds cheap to just change the name of it and accept it. But he made different lists with goals and hopes both for himself and the world and put them away until next year and then 12 months later he took them out and read them.

Now this is something I can get on board with. No dream jeans sizes or workout programs, but one (or a few, you choose) dream and one hope for what the year will bring you.

I asked via Instagram what your hopes and dreams for 2020 are you all are so brilliant I thought I’d share it.

But the most important rule of all and I feel cheesy writing this but since it’s so hard to tell yourself and believe in it, I wanted to tell you. Be nice to yourself mmmkay.

And don’t forget to write it down and keep the note somewhere you won’t see it every day.

Also, tell a friend about what you’re wrote down. The power of telling people around you what you want is something one should never neglect.

I would like to call this the new way of making New Year’s resolutions but also the new way of making a vision board. Of course one can make one of those too. But I feel no-one sits and cut out things from magazines and glue them to a paper? And don’t say you save stuff on your Instagram. The point of it all is to have it physically and not digital.

And lastly before I count on that each and everyone of you do this (so we can take a recap of what actually happened in 11 months). Working towards something but not quite getting there in the timeframe of choice isn’t standing still. I had only buy vintage clothing for a year last year and even though I didn’t succeed it changed the way I look at how I consume. And I gladly put this goal on my list this year too.