January 1 Has Nothing To Do With Making (And Keeping) A Resolution

Unsplash/Brooke Lark

As soon as the Times Square ball drops and the fireworks burst, everyone and their mothers start chattering about the classic New Year resolution — fresh goals to kick off the 365 days ahead. If you don’t have one, well, you’re just left out of the conversation until the next year begins.

And pardon us for saying so, but that’s bullshit.

Because what about all of the people who set important goals for themselves whenever they feel inspired rather than waiting for one momentous day to make them official? They’re the ones who will find that much more success in their efforts because they wanted to make self-improvement changes badly enough to just get going the second it occurred to them.

New Year’s Day mainly provides a unique sense of camaraderie around this act of goal setting, and it’s this group mentality that tends to inflate our personal perception of how important it is for us to identify a new way for us to grow ASAP. But that’s not how our individual evolution works. It must be driven by inspiration, motivation, self-awareness, passion and purpose —not by social trends alone.

Unsplash/Jamie Street

The fact of the matter is you can set a goal for yourself any day of the year and be successful in achieving it because the day that it begins has nothing to do with the final destination. It’s about all of the little steps you take in between, all of the little deadlines you set for yourself and make sure you hit. It’s about what propels you as a human being to see progress in your own life and on your own watch.

So don’t feel like you have to wait for January 1 to roll around so you can decide to give yoga a try or cut back on your alcohol consumption. All you’re doing is procrastinating on something that is (or at least should be) important to you. And if you don’t have a new goal in mind the very minute the countdown to midnight ends, don’t fret. Your personal inspiration just might strike you the next day, or the day after that… or the day after that.