THE CURSE OF THE NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION

On the one hand, we’re halfway through January–that’s cool. On the other hand, there are all of those resolutions we made, especially that big one, and yet . . . we didn’t go to the gym every day. We didn’t study 5 hours each day; we haven’t got all of our thank you notes written, we . . . . The list goes on. So maybe we’re down on ourselves for not being perfect. And that plays hob with our motivation.

I call that the curse of the New Year’s Resolution, as we’d be better off not making those Resolutions than making them and then feeling guilty for not keeping them. What makes it even better is  that the New Year starts in January. We’re over the excitement of Christmas. We’re into the winter hangover: boots and slush and the car needs scraping and everything takes longer. Plus seasonal affective disorder.

Speaking of cool, did I mention that much of North America this past week is really, really hard cold–one thermometer outside the Edmonton International Airport bottomed out -55 Celsius (that’s sixty-seven below for you Fahrenheiters).

Wow. This blog is a real Debbie Downer!! What to do? Well, staying down is one alternative, I suppose. Cocoon up with weighted blankets and cocoa and feel bad about missing class. But that’s no fun and doesn’t get us where we want to end up. We can’t do anything about the weather, but we can take the sting out of the Curse of the New Year’s Resolution. 

I’m not saying throw out your Resolutions, but put them in their place. Take the capital R off. Reframe them. Look at what you really can expect to do and view getting those tasks done as tools rather than goals. “Attend All Classes” isn’t a virtue. Finding out what the instructor emphasizes, getting help with tricky questions in tutorials–those are reasons for going to class. If you miss a class, instead of beating yourself up about breaking a Resolution, you’ve shifted the emphasis to getting the information you’re after. You’ll be more likely to make up the tutorial and to attend the next class when your focus is on the reason for attending.

You can apply the same reframing to other Resolutions, whether that involves food, fitness or relationships. Focusing on the purpose of our intentions helps us to prioritize what’s really important to get done, removes needless self-flagellation, and makes it more likely that we’ll actually do more of what needs to get done to serve our real goals.

Then schedule. Keep your reward reminders in view. Endorse for each effort. Pick it up if you fall off track. Just the way you do every other month of the year.

Especially, endorse yourself for getting to class in weather like this. Reward yourself in the evening with that cocoon and cocoa!

Connect with me to plan the term and finetune your academic studentship skills. Be safe and keep warm! [email protected]  

The information in this blog cannot take the place of support from your own mental health professional or community health resources. Reach out to them. And IF YOU ARE IN CRISIS, PLEASE DIAL 911.