There’s merit in questioning whether you’ll be keeping up with your New Year’s resolution of running every day. There’s a chance you probably won’t. While the new year is a tempting landmark to reconfigure the way you live, setting harsh or specific rules denies you access to spontaneity. Saying I oppose New Year’s resolutions is critical, but the common language for resolutions is all too iron-clad. There is no wrong way to fix your life, but not all approaches to achieving your goals are created equal. The all-or-nothing approach is not something to aspire to; when you say you will “always go to sleep by 11:00 p.m.,” you have removed a whole gulf of flexibility in your life. Maybe the ideal version of you has no desire to stay up late but the current you (I mean me, really) is not realistically surrendering that pleasure. Self-improvement is a detailed and complicated process, and leaning on the first of January sets an arbitrary deadline. Exemplified by the hard-and-fast fresh slate of the new year, resolutions are anti-spontaneity. Being able to adapt to new things is one of the most important venues for self-improvement. As such, New Year’s resolutions are not ideal rulebooks to instill positive change in your life.
Syntax and diction are invaluable when composing a sentence. A resolution is not a plain sentence, it is a goal. It should be about adding new experiences to your life, not just extinguishing bad habits. While the goal to cut-back on drinking might be a healthy one, I think phrasing the idea as trying new cafés (or some other non-alcohol drink) is a goal that seeks to colour your life with novel experiences that benefit you in many long-lasting ways. Some of which are improving your memory and increasing your happiness.
As such, your language choices could make or break your path to achieving your resolution. Wording your resolutions with statements that emphasizes your need, takes away from your freedom. Compared to the phrasing “it’s important to me that,” resolutions with agency make goals easier to keep because you are in control. In authoring statements with agency, you are empowered by your choices.
Keeping your resolutions means framing them with margins for spontaneity in the first place. The satisfaction that comes from integrating your aspirations into good habits is only possible if you are patient with yourself for the entire journey. Progress isn’t linear and will inevitably include lapses outside of the airtight, best-case-scenario. Expect the unexpected by making your goals specific but flexible and reap the rewards of self-efficacy, happiness, and motivation.
In leaving some room for spontaneity, a future you has a fighting chance.
Many fail by February because they place expectations that are too high or too drastic, and the idiosyncrasies that make life so fun aren’t accounted for. By cutting things out, you close yourself away from what your shiny new 2026 has to offer. If the point of a resolution is to compose a “better you,” I think we can agree that framing your goals by what you shouldn’t do is counterproductive to learning new things.
