Every year, around this time, I watch all the social media posts pile up in my newsfeeds with hopeful, and sometimes ambitious, goals for the New Year.
This year, I will eat better and lose weight.
I will move more and exercise.
I will launch my business and crush my goals!
I will remember to put ‘me’ first.
I will make time for meditation and self-reflection.
Not that these are bad goals. In fact, they are wonderful, and I encourage anyone to work toward them.
However, about four years ago, I stopped making New Year’s resolutions. And not for the reasons you may think.
What Everyone Else Says
I’ve read a myriad of articles that list a myriad of reasons why New Year’s resolutions are a bad idea:
Millions of people make New Year’s resolutions, but only a fraction actually keep them, Business Insider
New Year’s resolutions deal in absolutes, which position people for failure, The Independent
People tend to construct New Year’s resolutions in a negative light that automatically paints them as lazy, a failure, or something else that’s freaking sad, Forbes
“Resolutions could be counterproductive in a tough year,” (and boy, were 2020 and 2021 tough years), CNET
Here’s What I Say
None of those reasons from the articles are why I stopped making New Year’s resolutions, albeit they are solid, science-backed reasons.
I learned the hard way why resolutions are pointless, and it boils down to one conclusion:
Life doesn’t care about humanity’s organized, 12-month calendar.
Back in early 2018, I was walking to my car in my work’s parking lot during lunch, and I felt a painful pop behind my left knee. After limping around for a few weeks, I learned I’d torn my hamstring. Yes, just by walking.
I started with physical therapy. My immobility gave me more time to concentrate on my writing, so in May 2018, I published my debut novel, The Apollo Illusion. While promoting my book from my computer, I also gained weight from the inactivity. Nonetheless, I pushed forward with my physical therapy.
By that summer, I was healed enough to take a vacation. My boyfriend and I took an amazing trip to Laguna Beach, Calif., and the healthy living goals I would have made in January became the goals I set sometime in July.
Yet in August, a gigantic, mature eucalyptus tree fell on my house during a monsoon storm in Phoenix, Ariz. Looking back, that tree seems like life foreshadowing the bullshit that was about to hit.
The following month, in September 2018, my grandma died. And three months later—one week before Christmas—a virus attacked my brain stem, jarring me into disability with something called vestibular neuritis.
Vestibular neuritis triggers a constant vertigo that feels like spinning yourself in fast circles for one minute, then jumping onto a roller coaster immediately afterward. And. It. Never. Stops. Even when you lay down to close your eyes.
I went on family medical leave from work, unsure if I’d ever be able to support myself again, and opened the New Year in 2019 unable to prepare food, walk without falling, or drive. I couldn’t even handle a car ride, or looking at a phone screen, or showering, or reading a book.
I spent three months in vestibular therapy, which is similar to stroke recovery. I returned to work with disability accommodations in either late February or early March 2019. I continued improving over the next months, and by the time August rolled around, I bought a new car. The last gift from my grandma. I still miss her.
In December, I landed a promotion.
Things were beginning to finally feel stable and hopeful again. As the New Year approached once more, I remember feeling like 2020 would be my year.
Yeah. I placed that line above because we all know what happened in 2020.
Joke’s on me!
You could break your ankle on New Year’s Day, but get active again in mid-April, when you decide to run a half-marathon in October. Or your spouse could die in February, and you find love again two years later in June.
Life doesn’t care about humanity’s organized, 12-month calendar.
For this reason, I no longer make New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I make life goals when they make sense for me, even if that means starting to eat healthier the same week as Thanksgiving.
And you know what? In this new way of thinking, I’ve found freedom.
Shari, you are beginning to sound like a life coach.