Why I Didn't Make Any New Year's Resolutions
a defense of stillness
All over my social media accounts these past few days, I’ve seen people making plans for the new year. They’re wrapping up 2022 with a neat little bow and declaring their intentions for 2023. Words of the year, goals, wishes and manifestations—they swirl around in an eddy of excitement and possibility. A current pulling you along in the river of self-improvement.
Not me though. I’m actively swimming against that tide.
I’ve come to realize that the Gregorian new year doesn’t resonate for me. The beginning of winter, when the world feels deep in slumber, just doesn’t feel like a time for newness or bold actions. Winter is for burrowing; a time to draw the season around you like a blanket and nest in its stillness. I want to be like a seed, germinating beneath the ground. Work is happening, even if it’s unseen. It’s this preparation, the internal growth and introspection, that allows for blossoming come springtime.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve begun to pay more attention to earth rhythms. I find that the more I live in tune with the seasons’ energy, the more intuitive and at peace I feel. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the hustle culture, to feel the pressure of shoulds and to-dos in the name of bettering yourself. I know—I’ve been a chronic overachiever for most of my life, often caught up in the desire to do more and be better. My desk is littered with discarded lists, scraps of ambition and arbitrary goals I’ve set for myself over the years.
Too often though, these goals become sticks that we beat ourselves with for any perceived failure. We take something precious (a dream, an idea, a spark of joy) and we turn it into work. So often I’ve become overwhelmed with the goals I’ve set for myself. I revise and revision, thinking that if I just get the wording right, somehow that will make the destination more achievable. The result is that I spend more time making lists, setting goals, and trying to figure out how to achieve them than I do actually doing the thing itself.
I’m trying a different way. I’m not making any goals or resolutions for 2023, except perhaps, to have no goals. There will be no project lists, no words of the year or grand resolutions. I’m granting myself permission to live fluidly and follow my intuition wherever it leads. Right now, that means leaning into the stillness of winter and believing that when the earth wakes up I will be ready for action.
There’s trust in not having goals: a trust in myself. I’m trusting that if something is important enough to me, I will do it regardless of if I declare it or not. That I don’t need arbitrary routines or schedules to follow through on my dreams. Whatever pace I naturally set to pursue them will be the correct one. This approach gives me freedom to evolve and adapt to whatever unpredictable life circumstances may come my way.
I have a practice that at each wiccan sabbat I do a tarot reading. This winter solstice, I drew the Wheel card. As I stared at it in the dim light of my fire and Christmas tree lights, I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. It was like the world was reminding me that everything moves in cycles. Change is natural and there are no true endings. One year bleeds into another in a series of overlapping circles. I find this image particularly soothing now, when there’s pressure to set our sights on new horizons and leave the old behind. Regardless of what goals we set or whether or not we try to force it, the wheel will continue to turn.