How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolution
I LOVE a New Year’s resolution. I keep them every year, without any issues. Zero issues.
But that’s because I don’t do it the way everyone else does.
The turn of the new year excites me. First, the opportunity to wear as many sequins as can safely fit on my frame. Top-tier reason. But beyond that, I love resolutions and annual themes and trying harder to be a better person and accidentally writing "2024" on everything through at least mid-February.
At the end of T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets", there is a line that lives in my head rent-free, as the yutes say:
For last year's words belong to last year's language,
And this year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
Whether your year was full of growth, full of grief, or full of glamour, it's settled now. I love the change of the year because you officially have permission to give 2025 your new voice. That new voice can be loud, soft, or--like mine--annoying everyone with information about the 2025 NCAA gymnastics roster changes.
And yes, your new voice can make a New Year’s resolution without becoming an inevitable disappointment to yourself.
People always rag on the idea of resolutions because "no one sticks to them anyways." Uh, and that's a reason not to try something new? Don’t even start with me on that.
Think of it this way:
If you resolve to try more vegetables and you stick with it for three months, that's three months of nutrients, fresh food, and overall better health you gave yourself. It’s three months of a healthier diet that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. Huge success.
If you resolve to work out five days a week and end up sliding to two? I'm sorry we think adding two days a week of exercise is somehow a failure? Two days a week is GREAT. And it’s WAY better than zero.
If you resolve to meditate more often but get distracted a hundred times every time you try? That just means you were able to refocus yourself 99 times in a row. Sounds impressive to me 🤗
Resolutions are a promise to strive towards a goal, not an actual goal.
Be bold. Ignore the people who are too scared to try something new. Ignore the fear of disappointing yourself.
And let me teach you how I do it: Every year, instead of a traditional resolution, I create a new theme. I carry that theme with me for the entire next year.
My 2024 year theme was Be More Present, and it was all about my phone. I left my phone behind more often. I didn’t check it at dinners. I didn’t duck out of a party to go check my texts. If I caught myself at a concert, museum, dance performance, movie, etc. taking out my phone in the middle, I’d say, “Be more present, Mia.” And I’d put it away.
This is how you can. make your resolutions stick. It’s not a black/white yes/no succeed/fail thing.
Resolutions are a promise to strive towards a goal, not an actual goal.
Try a New Year’s Theme instead of a New Year’s Resolution. I’ve had success with "Higher Education,” “Give More,” “Higher Standards,” “Get Faster,” and “Perseverance.” Even when you slip off your theme in some way, like the year I cried every day trying to get our new business open, it’s so easy to quiet your mind and say, “OK, this shit is happening, but I’m gonna Make It Work.” (Thank god that was the theme the year we opened the gym. It was desperately needed.)
So get your sequins ready, get your champagne chilled, and pick out a theme. You won’t believe how big your 2025 is gonna be 🥂🍾
