How to Make New Year’s Resolutions in Uncertain Times
My two favorite times of year are New Year’s and the the start of the school year in August/September. I love the energy of new beginnings and the beautiful potential of blank notebooks, sharp pencils, and pristine day planners. (Come to think of it, it’s possible I’m just really into office supplies.)
Every New Year’s Day, I sit on the couch, usually surrounded by empty champagne flutes and piles of confetti, and prepare to christen my brand new “everything notebook” by filling in the Moleskine planner’s personal information fields and writing out my goals and resolutions. It’s a task best accomplished snuggled under a blanket with quiet music in the background and a cup of coffee in hand. It’s also usually done with a massive headache—did I mention the empty champagne flutes?
2021 started without a headache, but also without confetti and, oddly, without a fresh, unopened planner. With no party to plan in the week leading up to the holiday, I jumped the gun and started prepping my new datebook early.
Those weren’t the only reasons the start of 2021 felt a bit anticlimactic. With the pandemic still raging—at catastrophic levels here in LA—the turning of the calendar page felt less like a fresh start and more like a sad continuation. 2020 was a shock to the senses. Everything we’d planned fell apart in March. All my dreams about what life would be like in Southern California turned into nightmares. Literal nightmares. Early in the pandemic, I had dreams where I would be going about life in a normal way, only to dissolve into a panic attack as I realized I was out in public without a mask, or sharing a meal with strangers, having forgotten about the risk of COVID-19. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Going into 2021, still under a modified lockdown for the foreseeable future, I decided not to make resolutions in the traditional sense. Aside from my word of the year, I barely did any of my usual start-of-year evaluation and goal-setting. I mean…I have no idea if I’ll able to “travel more” in 2021. It might not be possible to “grow my business” given the current economic situation. And who even knows when gyms will actually be open again? I decided to embrace the uncertainty without sacrificing the opportunity to grow and improve. I’m calling 2021 my “year of months.”
It’s an approach to betterment inspired by Matt D’Avella’s 30-day experiments. D’Avella makes YouTube videos about minimalism and habit creation, many of which focus on him adopting a new behavior for a month—things like taking cold showers, journaling, or getting up at 5am—to evaluate its impact on his life. Sometimes, the experiments result in new, long-term habits, and sometimes, they turn out to be not worth the effort and disruption they cause. They’re inspiring either way, because they show a path of continual improvement and the power of focusing on one small (or sometimes, large) change at time.
Focusing on one change at a time is exactly what I plan to do in this “year of months.” I’m taking each month as it comes, but I do have a general idea of the sorts of lifestyle changes I want to focus on. This blog has always been about mindfulness, sustainability, and creativity—topics I chose because they align with my life goals. This year, I’m adding a fourth topic as well, and that’s “magic.” More on that in future posts.
For now, let me belatedly tell you about January’s focus: my morning routine. I wrote about my evening routine several months ago, but mornings are when I’m at my most productive, and, too often, I find myself wasting those precious hours. The first month of a new year is the perfect time for a reset to establish a flow that will carry me through the rest of 2021.
Did you make resolutions for 2021? What habits do you want to focus on in the coming year? Let me know in the comments or, if you prefer, my inbox is always open.
