New Year, Same Me
As I sit by my fireplace trying to remember what outside looks like when the sun is an active participant (it has been consistently gray outside), I’m amazed that the first month of the new year is almost over. I did not make a New Year’s resolution this year. Which is not new for me considering it has been years since I’ve done so. For years I even replaced New Year’s resolutions with a “word of the year” in an attempt to move away from goal setting and toward intentionality. However, this year, I gave that up too.
I have no qualms about New Year’s resolutions, finding a word of the year, or any other New Year’s traditions that help us transition into a new year. I think that those traditions can be incredibly meaningful and fulfilling.
But for me, a recovering perfectionist, setting a new year’s resolution often resulted in me setting unrealistic or surface level goals that resulted in a lack of fulfillment and a pressure to be a different version of myself. Furthermore, giving myself a “word of the year” resulted in disappointment as I failed to remember the word I’d chosen time and time again.
So, what is my posture towards the new year? New year, same me. Though I strive to continue growing and evolving in my personhood, I am learning to love and embrace who I am at my core. I am choosing to identify my values as well as live in alignment with those values. I am deepening my ability to accept and process the full range of human emotion. I am choosing to lean into vulnerability, connection, and imperfection.
What about you? How do you welcome a new year in ways that honor your personhood? What hopes and dreams do you have for yourself this year? Or is it just another marker of time? However you feel about the beginnings of a new year, I hope yours is an experience of healing, abundance, love and connection.
