Seven Alternatives to Resolutions
better wisdom for the new year
Happy New Year!
For as much as I value personal growth, and I never met a self-improvement project I didn’t jump on, I’m not super big on resolutions. Think about the word itself: aside from congressional actions, and the quality of your phone’s screen, the only time you hear the word resolution is when it’s combined with “New Year.” Which means that here on January 3, if you haven’t made a resolution yet, or if you’ve already broken it, it’s all over.
But it doesn’t have to be over! When I worked as a grief support group facilitator, our supervisor used to quote Mary Anne Radmacher to help us appreciate the hard work our clients were doing: “Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” Whether it’s getting through another day without a loved one, or finally quitting smoking, we always have a chance to start again.
The rolling over of a new year is a natural time to release negative patterns and destructive behaviors and make a fresh start. So I understand the impulse to make some pronouncements this time of year. (My birthday was yesterday; I’m big on taking stock in early January!) But there are many alternatives to resolutions that I find more humane and helpful. Pick one or more that work for you:
Nothing.
Here in The Year of Our Lord 2024, kids are still being held hostage in Israel and many more are being killed in Gaza, it will probably be the hottest year on record, again, and a presidential election promises to be new levels of ugly and scary for democracy (see below for more on this, including an invitation for supporting subscribers). Consider the possibility that you don’t need to do a damn thing to be better, or thinner, or more efficient, or less dependent on [insert maladaptive behavior here].
If you’re feeling like you “should” engage in some kind of self-help project, or you normally do but this year feels forced, open yourself to the thought that it may be our dysfunctional culture saying you’re not enough and peddling a solution that probably comes with a hefty price tag. In my spiritual tradition, we believe that some of the best transformation comes in spite of ourselves. And in a system that already valorizes a grind mentality, we don’t need more pushing, we need more ease. So stop. And read this post.
Intentions.
I’ve long argued that intentions are much more gracious, more pliable, than resolutions. Intentions are our North Star, pointing us in the direction we want to go.
The saying goes that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I’ve never agreed. The world is way too complicated and fraught and demanding to render intentions irrelevant or malevolent. I have 24 hours in every day and 38 hours’ worth of important stuff I could do. Yes, impact matters—we can hurt others and ourselves even when we don’t mean to. But positive intent means there’s a willingness to learn and to steer oneself back to true north.
I’ve recently started attending an online writing group on Friday mornings. The facilitator always has us set an intention for our time. I believe yoga instructors do this too. It only takes a few seconds, which I like. Intentions are intuitive; we don’t need to overthink them. And intentions can change over time. Maybe instead of setting an intention for all of 2024, we might set an intention for the first part of the year, or just for right now, setting us off on a trajectory that currently makes sense, but is open to shifting as time passes.
Priorities.
What are your priorities? Consider creating a short list of things that matter most to you. Similar to intentions, priorities give you a yardstick to help evaluate where to spend your time. Before you say yes to something, ask yourself: how does this opportunity support my priorities?
I’ve followed the work of Dan Blank for years as he helps writers develop their platform. His Clarity Cards exercise is an easy way to establish a sense of priorities, and would work regardless of your field.
Values.
Values are similar to priorities. Doing a values exercise like this one allows you to articulate a set of principles you wish to embody in how you live your life.
A word.
This Saturday is Epiphany, the Christian holiday (technically the twelfth day of Christmas) in which we commemorate the arrival of the magi to visit the Christ child. I’ll never forget taking a trip to Geneva during seminary—a group of us went to Florence beforehand and stumbled right into a Three Kings parade outside the Duomo. While the rest of the world has decidedly moved on, with naked Christmas trees on the curb and lights shoved back into the attic, we have this little Christmas remnant on the 6th of January.
Anyway: in recent years, numerous Protestant churches have given out “star words,” which are small paper stars with words on them, intended to provide guidance and focus for the year. We did this at Trinity on Sunday, which you can watch happen here (preceded by sermon), and if you’d like me to pull a star word for you, email me at maryannmckibbendana@substack.com and I’ll get back to you. But you can also pick a word yourself. I have a longtime coaching client who always picks the best, juiciest words for herself. (My self-chosen word this year is freedom.)
Habits.
James Clear is the guy when it comes to habits. His newsletter is good, and Atomic Habits is a book-length distillation of his research, which boils down to this simple idea: we don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems. If you want to run a 5K, don’t research what a reasonable time goal would be, or scour the internet for the flattest and fastest course with the best medal; instead, buy some shoes, put some workouts on your calendar, and go.
At the beginning of 2023 I decided my only intentional “thing” would be to do a 30-second plank every day, and if I missed a day or more (which I did often), I could make them up. Do you see how that’s a habit and not a goal? A goal would be “I want to improve my core strength by X%.” I have no way of quantifying how much stronger I am today; all I know is that I did 365 planks in 365 days, and they’re easier than they used to be.
I also did a couple rounds of the Whole Life Challenge last year, and liked it enough to get a year’s subscription. (Disclaimer: I find their nutrition stuff to be nutty and made up my own rules for that.) Here’s what the Whole Life Challenge folks have to say on the subject of habits v. goals:
If we focus on the process instead of the outcome, we find intrinsic reward in the work itself, instead of delaying happiness for the end results. Taking action cures our fears and boosts our self-esteem. And the best part? You can be successful today, instead of some day in the future when you achieve that certain goal. (Here’s the whole post)
A story.
When it comes to the power to change lives, stories are more powerful than convictions. (After a conversation in our parents’ Sunday School class about how to handle the Santa myth with our kids, a member sent me this Instagram video that I Am Obsessed With.)
At the beginning of 2023 I shared a story from the Netherlands in which communities stopped trying to fight the river with elaborate dams and fortifications, and simply built a channel for when the river overflowed. The idea spoke to me of acceptance and serenity… that flooding will happen and we need to work with the world around us, as it is, not as we wish it were. I decided to make it my “story” for the year.
Full disclosure, that story fell out of my memory at various points in 2023, and there were times when I really needed it and it wasn’t there. One thing that helped was that my friend/coach/accountability partner LeAnn, with whom I talk weekly, would bring it up in helpful ways. If I choose a guiding story again for 2024, I would print some photos or other reminders and tack them up in various places to keep it top of mind. (I may stick with that story, actually. To be determined.)
Whatever feels right to you at this moment, I wish you all the best in 2024. Thanks as always for reading.
~
Anxious about 2024?
Election already got you down?
Join me for a book discussion and some positive conspiring!
I can’t even count how many people have told me they’re dreading 2024, specifically the 2024 election and potential aftermath. I agree. It does feel scary and fraught right now.
When I feel anxiety or despair, two of my best antidotes are relationships and action. We’re going to lean into both of those with a two-part roundtable discussion of the 2017 book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Professor Timothy Snyder. I try to read this slim book every year or two—it’s short enough to revisit often, and my library always has the audio version available, which you can knock out in less than two hours. It’s historical yet practical, bracing yet hopeful. I always tell people when I recommend it: even if you think his warnings are totally overblown (respectfully? I don’t), the book is an instruction manual for being a good citizen. We are the co-creators of our civic life together, and On Tyranny provides a practical guide.
We’re going to chat about the book, find wisdom for this moment, and come up with our own individual calls to action, however small and localized they may be. This will not be one-sided instruction from MaryAnn; this is intended as a conversation, so come with an openness to share, whether you’ve read the book or not. (Here’s a version of the article that eventually turned into a book.)
We’ll meet for two successive Thursdays via Zoom at noon Eastern time. January 25 will focus on the first half of the book; February 1 will be the second half, but we’ll bounce around a bit as the Spirit moves. Come to one or both.
Here are the details:
MaryAnn McKibben Dana (she/her) is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: On Tyranny Book Discussion
Time: Jan 25, 2024 12:00-1:00 PM Eastern
Feb 1, 2024 12:00-1:00 PM Eastern
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Meeting ID: 830 5880 1386
Passcode: 472696
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See you then.
This is a wonderful New Year's message, even if on day 5 it's already a kind of scary year.
Happy Birthday! Looking forward to the Zoom discussions.