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I have a confession: I have never made a New Year’s resolution. To me, they’ve always felt like a recipe for failure... especially because the narrative around them is always so distinctly pegged to pushing hard in the first two-ish weeks of the year before falling off the proverbial wagon.
After all, January 12 is colloquially known as “quitter’s day”. And if that’s not a sign that there’s something wrong with the way we’ve been approaching New Year’s resolutions, I don’t know what is.
While I understand the appeal of starting a new year with a few goals in mind, I don’t love setting myself up to feel like a failure. This is especially damaging to women because quite frankly, the world sends women enough messages to make them feel like they’re not measuring up to an impossible standard.
But even without formal New Year’s resolutions, I’m not immune to the pressures of self-improvement season, which tells us we need to go to the gym more and wake up earlier and set better boundaries and be more social and cook organic, home-cooked meals. I find myself spiraling into thoughts of all the ways I could be better, healthier, and more productive in the new year—only to realize I’ve set my expectations too high or in the wrong place. And there’s nothing productive or healthy about that feeling.
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that messages from the outside world become the messages in our own heads, and that all feeds into the vicious cycle of goal-setting and goal-abandoning. In light of all that, here’s how I’d recommend staying motivated (in a healthy, self-honoring way) beyond quitter’s day.
How to avoid Quitter's Day
Don’t be afraid to shift your goals
Maybe you began the year vowing to journal every single day, but now that you’re weeks in, you realize it’s tough to fit that in alongside all your other responsibilities. If that’s the case, think about *why* you decided to journal every day in the first place. Chances are, it was to help you feel more grounded or grateful, not more stressed, right?
So if your goal feels more stressful than beneficial, remember that it’s okay to shift those goals to better serve you. I think the key here is taking yourself back to the source and remembering why you made that resolution in the first place.
What did you really want to gain from the resolution? Then, ask yourself whether or not your resolution is bringing you closer to the root of that goal. Is it making you feel the way you thought it would make you feel? If not, feel free to adjust.
That may mean adapting another approach altogether or tweaking it to better suit your lifestyle.
For example, maybe you vowed to do yoga five times a week in hopes of reaping the practice’s mental health benefits… but now you find yourself scrambling to make it work in your schedule. It’s worth asking yourself: Is this actually serving my mental health? You may be better off shifting the goal so it serves the intended purpose. And that may mean vowing to squeeze in three weekly sessions instead of five.
Remember there’s nothing magical about January
The weight of “new year, new me” culture can be hard to ignore at the beginning of the year. But you know what else can be hard to ignore? A constant barrage of viruses. Freezing temperatures. Short days. There’s a lot about January that lends itself to a new start, but there’s also a lot about this month that lends itself to a real lack of energy, which can certainly impede motivation.
Say you make a resolution and have a solid week or two of staying on track… and then you get hit with the flu. Suddenly, your body has other plans, and your goal of, say, getting 10,000 steps a day is the last thing on your mind as you focus on recovery.
It’s natural in situations like these to fall out of a habit, then abandon it completely, vowing to tackle it again the following year. But what if instead you just gave yourself permission to take a break and get back into it whenever your body feels ready? Just because you’ve broken the streak early in the year, it doesn’t mean you have to wait for the “right time” to restart. It may just be that the timing needs a little tweak.
Think about self-improvement vs. life-improvement
I like to think of it this way: There’s a difference between vowing to do something because you feel it will make you better vs. something that will make your life better. The former is often the result of external pressures: You absorb beauty standards that tell you to lose weight, for example.
The latter? That’s about adopting habits that make your life feel better. That may mean committing to starting therapy, eating more intuitively, exploring forms of movement that actually feel good, or even holding yourself accountable to making plans with friends more often.
I really think this is the key to making resolutions stick: You want to do the things that actually honor your life and your personal needs. So if you resolve to wake up an hour earlier each day, but find that the resolution is leaving you perpetually exhausted, maybe that’s not the right resolution for you. It’s okay to reevaluate a resolution if it isn't improving your life.
Don’t beat yourself up
If your resolution didn’t pan out, it’s not the end of the world. Maybe it just wasn’t the right resolution.
However, if it’s something you feel strongly about keeping, consider tweaking it to make it more realistic, giving yourself a little bit of a break, enlisting an accountability partner, or even challenging yourself to document your efforts on social media.
Find what works for you
Motivation comes in many forms, and finding what works best for you may take some trial and error — and that’s okay!
Ultimately, keeping a New Year’s resolution doesn’t have to be perfect or linear. You can reevaluate, take a little time away from your resolution, or change your approach. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Resolutions shouldn’t feel punishing, and neither should holding yourself to them. Instead, embracing a more fluid, forgiving approach to resolutions just might be the thing that keeps you motivated.
Zara Hanawalt is a freelance journalist and mom of twins. She's written for outlets like Vogue, Parents, Marie-Claire, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Motherly, and many others. In her (admittedly limited!) free time, she enjoys cooking, reading, trying new restaurants, and traveling with her family.
