Welcome to my New Year’s intention! Do you wanna know why it’s an intention and not a resolution? Well, simple. Resolutions are mostly unhelpful and unhealthy. Some people can use them to motivate themself to make changes that they already were already intending to do and it can help with consistency. Unfortunately, the average amount of days that New Year’s resolutions stick is sadly only 17 days! That’s why the gym clears out a few weeks into the new year. Those who make it past that usually last almost four months at best.(citation) The reason for that is almost always because shame is the motivator. Shame can push you to make some drastic changes pretty quickly, however when the discomfort of the change becomes more uncomfortable that the benefit of the goal, it falls to the wayside. Maybe you hit the gym, drop a few pounds, then stick with it a month or two, over time when the number on the scale doesn’t go down as quickly, then losing a smaller amount of weight becomes less valuable than something like quality time you’re missing, so the habit disappears. If shame pushes you to lose weight, it can only be short lived.
So what if we switched that up? How about we think of what we improved on this past year? What have you released? Where did you grow? Where did you get better? What are you more consistent with? (Was it staying alive? Because that’s a hefty goal too). My New Year recollection this year was that I was able to set better time boundaries with myself. I got really good at saying no to things I did not have time nor energy for? I encouraged myself to not take on too high of a caseload at work and select which social outings really meant the most to me. I really struggled with this the first half of the year with unexpected home repairs, however by the fall I just found myself picking things that matter to my wellbeing more often. I really hate doing things that are just seen as a formality, so I released those obligations. Now it seems like a natural choice. I love my lowkey pajamas and puzzle night with friends.
When we feel proud and accomplished we do more, kinda like crossing something off a to do list, the next thing becomes more possible. My New Year’s intention for 2026 is to prioritize my health. That may or may not mean weight loss. It probably will be more trips to the gym. It will probably be less sugar. But I wanna go swimming because I love my body, not because I hate it. And guess what? I’m gonna succeed! Will I get better at it? Heck yes! Because even if it means one more weight training sesh a month or eating applesauce as opposed to a cupcake, I am gonna do it. In fact a week or so in and I’ve already accomplished it. And now I want to do even more. The expressions ‘better is better’ and ‘slow and steady wins the race’ keep echoing in my head. Small realistic lifetime shifts will work, gigantic shame induced life altering changes won’t. And that’s how most people’s brains work. In fact over 90% of New Year’s Resolutions fail (and fail quickly) so why do we still do them?
So what did you let go or release in 2025? What do you recall as growth for yourself in the past 365 days? How do you hope to improve upon your already wonderful self in 2026? How can you love yourself into evolution instead of shaming yourself into change?
Davis, Sarah. “New Year’s Resolutions Statistics – Forbes Health.” Forbes, 18 Dec. 2023, www.forbes.com/health/mind/new-years-resolutions-statistics/
