Reflection on Resolutions

This New Year's Eve had me thinking about New Year's resolutions.

New Years Resolutions

My friend (hi Noah) and I have an ongoing debate regarding the value of New Years resolutions. He tends to see them as not having that much value because if there are aspects of ourselves that need to be improved we should not wait for the beginning of a new year to improve them. In other words, if you need to lose weight on January 1 then you probably needed to lose weight on July 14th and should have started the process then.

While I actually think this is a valid critique, I believe there is significant value in New Year’s resolutions because the beginning of a new year is a particularly apt time to set about making improvements. New Year’s forces us to deal with the silent reality that faces all humans, but we tend to ignore through distraction: fleeting time. New Year’s is a unique day in that it marks not just the beginning of something new, but the end of something else.

There are really only two days of the year that force this type of reflection upon us: New Year’s and our birthday. While our birthday is unique to us, New Year’s is a collective experience. Groups of people (friends, families, colleagues, etc.) reminisce together about the last year and collectively look forward to the year to come.

With this sort of reflection comes the inescapable recognition that we could have lived the past year better. There was time wasted, shortcomings ignored, and strengths left unimproved. These realizations, while painful, also fuel the desire to live the year to come in an improved manner. In a weird way even our shortcomings of the past year fill us with hope that this year has the potential to be different. We have the exact same number of days, minutes, and seconds as last year but this year we can spend them in such a way that we look back with less regret then right now.

Interestingly, we are focused on this coming year when we make New Year’s resolutions while also taking into account the rest of our lives. In other words, we don’t typically make resolutions with the intention of ending them once the year is over. Even if we do end our resolution at year’s end, the hope is that by doing the resolution we are improving ourselves beyond the year. With New Year’s resolutions, we are playing the long game and considering the type of person we want to be years down the line with the understanding that becoming such a person starts now.

With all that said, there is one caution that is important to mention regarding New Year’s resolutions: they are meant to be a goal worth striving after. This refers to the running gag regarding New Year’s resolutions and how everybody makes one but nobody finishes one. This is a running gag because everybody can relate to it. It speaks to our weaknesses as humans. However, this misses the point of a resolution.

“Resolution” is merely the noun version of “to be resolute.” The Oxford English Dictionary writes about resolute, “Of a person, a person's mind, etc.: that has resolved or is determined to take the specified action, bring about the specified circumstance, etc.” Notice, the OED does not mention failure or success but focuses on determination. A resolution is a determination to pursue and achieve a specifed goal, not the actual achievement or failure.

This is significant because we will almost certainly all “fail” to “achieve” our New Year’s resolutions. However, when the calendar strikes Febraury and we have already failed to achieve whatever goal we set for ourselves, our resolution does not have to fail with it. We can still be determined in the face of our failure and still make progress towards whatever our goal is.

A New Year’s resolution is not a goal but a determination to achieve a goal. You may set a goal of losing 50 pounds in 2022. You may or may not achieve that goal but your real New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. This distinction matters because maybe you fail to achieve your goal and only lose 40 pounds; however, you still achieved your ultimate New Year’s resolution. Goals are vital, but resolutions are where rubber meets the road and real progress is made.

God Bless,

Hunter Burnett