Resolutions Shmesolutions

It’s the first 1^st of January I haven’t spent banging on about my New Year’s resolutions. That, friends, is because I’m not making any. And neither should you. You’re bloody wonderful exactly as you are.

It’s a decision I landed on over dinner after a few margaritas last night. My friend Chris suggested that not having a resolution should be my resolution. He said he had never made one. Astounded I was. I thought everybody chewed over a long list of all the ways they could improve and took the New Year as the optimal time to kickstart the process.

Not so, apparently. It emerged that our other friends round the table were equally uninterested in resolutions. They said that life is challenge enough on its own. That resolutions create unnecessary pressure. That it’s fine to be as we are. I knew I loved those guys but I never really saw them as my spiritual teachers before…

I’m still getting used to the idea though: old habits die hard and all that. My pattern is to make three or four overly ambitious resolutions, talk about them relentlessly for the first few weeks of the year, then see out the remaining months in a state of mild self-loathing over my failure to execute. Then I never mention them again, and scowl at Tom when he starts sentences with “Remember when you said you were going to….”. Honestly, if he mentions that bread making equipment one more time it will be my head – rather than a freaking loaf – going in the oven.  

Previous resolutions have ranged from said bread making; drinking less alcohol; writing more regularly; learning guitar; learning Spanish; volunteering; meditating; and, once and for all, dragging myself out of bed when the alarm goes off on a morning. I’m nothing if not optimistic, I’ll give myself that.

I realise now, somewhat soberingly, that I can’t think of a single meaningful change in my life that resulted from a New Year’s resolution. Not one. I’ve drank less since being pregnant with Rubes (with the notable exception of last night), I’ve written more regularly since Covid came along, and I’ve given up on the rest.

I’ve found that real change tends to summon us; we don’t summon it. Some deep realisation descends, we know what we need to do and we crack on – sometimes without a word. Even as someone who likes to comb over everything, I realise now that I’ve barely talked about most of the big decisions I’ve made; I knew what I was going to do in a way that didn’t feel much like making a choice at all.

Still, it’s hard to resist the lure of a new year. It’s like the first blank page of a new notebook: you get to write how you’re going to be this ‘better’ version of you. And maybe, to some extent, these intentions satisfy a desire to make changes. Verbalising that we’re going to be fitter/healthier/more whatever might, in part, relieve us of the burden of actually doing it. All talk no trousers, innit. All fart, no poo (as one of my favourite and least sophisticated sayings of all time goes).

But constantly aspiring and striving for stuff has the effect of putting us – or at least me – in a state of feeling that what we are now isn’t quite enough. I could be better. My life could be better. The narrative in my mind is often that I could and should be doing more of something or other (this post is testament to that). And that’s sort of the opposite of contentment, isn’t it?

I saw a brilliant post from Fearne Cotton earlier. She said:

I do not need to improve myself. You do not need to improve yourself.

I just need to love myself a little more. You just need to love yourself a little more.

Then followed a list of positive things that flow from loving yourself. Yes Fearne! I’m here for it.

We’re approaching two years of life-altering measures in response to Covid. There’s an ever-present threat of further lockdowns. It’s a glaring reminder that we don’t know what’s going to happen, when it will happen and, sometimes, even why it’s happening. On top of this, becoming a mum has made my previous designs on being the architect of my own destiny seem somewhat ridiculous; I’m barely the own architect of my own afternoon. And – you know what? – I find that life is better. Harder and, unexpectedly, less predictable – but undoubtedly, infinitely better.

So I wonder: maybe more valuable than sustaining the illusion that we are in control is embracing the knowledge that we are not. To keep releasing the things many of us cling to so tightly: the pressure, the plans, the scrapping around for some kind of certainty.

If we can find contentment in the current moment – regardless of the shifting world around us – maybe we stop all the doing and start being. I think in mindfulness it might be called ‘being centred’. If we can find a way to come back to this centre – a psychological home I suppose – we build resilience. And resilience surely makes us reliable: it means we can count on ourselves when the world wobbles beneath our feet.

So this year is different. No health regime. No new skills. No pre-booked holiday to keep looking ahead to. Just holding on to the premise that, when life is in flux and my thoughts run away from me, I can come back to this place where I have what I need. Right here, right now, in the infinite wisdom of Fat Boy Slim.   

So Happy New Year! Happy New Moment, as my oldest brother once wished me instead. And thanks for reading.