The Strand’s staff on New Year’s resolutions and personal growth
Recently, I’ve picked up journaling as a way to sort through my thoughts, process my experiences and feelings, and vent without forcing my friends to do emotional labour for me. Honestly, I’m bad at it. I forget for weeks on end, only picking up my too-expensive journal when something dramatic has happened and I absolutely need to get it out.
Despite my bad journaling habits, I have found that I genuinely enjoy it—when it’s unplanned. Journaling and I never worked out in the past because I always felt pressured to write in my journal every day, to have something smart and incisive to say in every entry, and to come to epiphanies constantly. Now, I write in my journal when I feel like it, when I actually have something to unload, when I want to spend an hour and a half writing five pages about why something someone said to me made me feel “icky.” I’ve found this mode of journaling to be so much more productive, not just because I’m not wasting my time agonizing over writing something “good,” but because I do feel as if I’m sorting through my thoughts and processing my emotions.
Like journaling, New Year’s resolutions never worked for me. I can’t force myself to change, just like I can’t force myself to reflect every day. Despite the new year, and the new decade, I know I’m the same me. A simple calendar change is not going to undo 22 years of bad habits. This year, I’ve decided to take my “when it works for me” approach to journaling to my New Year’s resolutions. I know the things in my life that I want to change, but I don’t feel a need to put myself on a timeline. Taking my time to make gradual steps towards self-growth, rather than cramming a year’s worth of personal development into January, will ultimately serve me better than a set of hard resolutions ever can.
—Rebecca Gao, Editor-in-Chief
Up until a few years ago, I would write up an extensive list of New Year’s resolutions
every December. I remember feeling so optimistic about introducing habits in my life to become
a better person, but I was never able to make lasting changes. Eventually, I gave up on New
Year’s resolutions and I figured that I could set goals at any point during the year. I think, in the
back of my mind, a new year still represented a fresh start, but I was deterred from making
resolutions because I had never been able to keep them in the past. That changed in 2019.
Everyone I knew, in person and online, was so enchanted by the prospect of getting to really
begin anew in 2020. It wasn’t just going to be a new year; it was going to be a new decade. I
couldn’t help but also get a little excited about what this new chapter in my life could hold.
However, now that it’s 2020, I’m not going to make the same mistakes as before and try to work on a multitude of life-changing resolutions at once. Instead, I’m planning on introducing small
goals at various points throughout the year. Though, to begin the year, I’ve decided on a word
that captures the essence of all my resolutions: balance.
—Khadija Alam, Editorial Assistant
When I was in high school, I used to scribble down a list of New Year’s resolutions in a
notebook I kept in the bottom drawer of my desk. I don’t think I ever referred to that list after I
wrote it, not until another New Year’s Eve came around and I was faced with writing in That
Notebook again. In most recent years, I haven’t bothered to write a new list, because the items I
can think of are activities I am simply going to do anyway: going to ballet, practicing guitar,
learning German, etc. However, thinking about what I liked from the past year and what I’d like
to continue can be productive. In some ways, imagining what I see myself enjoying is a form of
intention-setting. Intention-setting is a practice which emphasizes a principle or vision by which
you align your actions. It seems healthier than having distinct goals, because I don’t want to be
disappointed by goals that are too lofty or feel guilty if I don’t enjoy the new activities I’ve chosen.
I don’t think the new year or new decade alone have inspired me to do anything
particularly different. I think the impetus for change comes in unexpected moments—when we
have a near-death experience, when we fall in love, or when we see people acting selflessly. I’ve had some such experiences throughout the past year, and I’m keeping my eyes out for the
moments that encourage me to act more generously and thoughtfully.
—Jasmine Ng, Podcast Editor
Making New Year’s resolutions is something I no longer participate in. I used to believe in the symbolism of a new start, but over the past few New Years, I’ve come to realize that this
symbolism means nothing—for me anyway. Perhaps it is my own cynical view because of
previous failed resolutions, but I think New Year’s resolutions place an undue pressure to
succeed, and when I don’t follow through on them, I feel like failure in my own life and that I’ve ruined my whole year. But the thing is, there is nothing special about the new year; time is a societal construct. The universe isn’t keeping track of time, it just exists. So why do I need to change myself and my life at the start of a new year when I could do that at any time in the year or throughout my life? Instead, I believe in reflecting on my year, myself, and my life, so that I can move forward; that is something I try to practice throughout the year instead of at the beginning of each year.
—Julianna He, Copyeditor
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