Why the “new year, new me” mantra is toxic and holding you back!
As January 1st first rolls round each year, social media feeds everywhere are jam packed full of the seemingly life changing and motivational “new year, new me” posts. Even more so after the year from hell that 2020 brought us! The turn of the new year will be seen as a fresh start and an opportunity to move on with our lives, make changes, seek improvements and try to move out of the debris that has been caused by the year that was “one of those days” on repeat!
But why do we take the time to reflect over the festive season anyway? According to Sarah Pruitt, writer for history.com, resolutions date back some 4000 years to the Babylonians who initially made promises to the gods to repay debt or return borrowed items with the belief that fulfilling these claims would have the gods look favourably upon them in the coming year. This custom was made in March which coincided with the planting of crops. Later in around 46 BC Julius Caesar changed the calendar to establish January 1st as the new beginning of the year. The month of January is said to take its name from the Roman god Janus, a two-faced god who inhabited doorways and arches. Symbolically this represents reflection on the year that has been whilst looking ahead to the future, and Romans made promises to the gods of good conduct for the following year.
Fast forward some 2000 years and this practice continues in modern day society where we make resolutions and promises to change the bits we don’t like about ourselves or things we feel we need to improve on. It is this for this very reason that there is such a very high rate of failure in resolutions. Changing attributes and behaviours about oneself requires a huge amount of effort, determination, and perseverance on a daily basis, much more so than returning a borrowed item to a neighbour! Whilst change in habits, behaviours and lifestyle are all perfectly possible for human beings, I often think we set ourselves up for failure by the way we frame these intentions through the “new year, new me” mantra.
My issue with the statement isn’t so much that it sounds cliché and cheesy (although to be fair it is a bit annoying!), nor the casual nature of which it is thrown around when it is known that at least a third of all new years’ resolutions do not make it into February! My problem with it is the self-denying inference it carries. That “new year, new me” creates the suggestion that you need replacing. That you are faulty. And that by replacing yourself with the “new” version all will be well. Well I challenge that notion. I believe that, although a fresh perspective and clarity of mindset may well help us to grow as individuals and achieve our targets, we need to be treating our “old” flawed selves with compassion and kindness and understand that we did the best we could at that time. This helps us to embrace who we are and it is through this acceptance of ourselves, of who we are, that we can learn to successfully change in the ways we seek.
Matt Haig is an author who I came across last year, who has created many brilliant books but two of my favourites are Reasons To Stay Alive and The Midnight Library. Matt is an exceptional writer with an incredible story and is very active on social media. A favourite quote of mine is:
“I like the messy people. The ones so open and pure they don’t know all the etiquette and codes of life and are out there daring to feel the full terror and wonder of existence and often get a bit broken along the way. I like the teacup with a chip in it. That’s the one with a story.”
It captures human nature perfectly in my opinion. We are messy, as much as we crave to be neat and tidy and “normal”, we are messy. We have good days, disciplined days and we have days where we sit about in our pants eating our body weight in biscuits straight from the tin (at least some people do… I’ve heard *ahem*). As humans we are messy and we get messy. All of us.
Every experience you have had in life has led you to where you are now and it is from this platform you can see and feel in which direction you wish to go. Having the desire and wish to change and develop and improve is excellent and indicative of having a growth mindset which I think should be encouraged and nurtured in everyone. The process of taking the time to look inwardly to identify an area of your life that you wish to improve upon, and accessing the courage it takes to acknowledge and accept responsibility not only for correcting it but to accept that you are the cause of the deficit in the first place needs to be respected and congratulated. But please don’t consider your “old self” as someone who should be discarded for a bright, shiny “new self” who is likely to be viewed through a perfectionistic lens. Because then what? What happens when you inevitably do make a mistake (to err is human after all), or blot the copy book? You replace yourself with another “new you”?
The wonderful thing about humans is our ability to learn from mistakes and reflect on how to avoid this in future. We are elastic beings capable of change and modification in response to how and what we spend our time doing. So set goals and ambitions for 2021, aim to improve and develop yourself and above all strive to grow and become a better version of yourself but embrace who you are, what you know and the mistakes, failures and shortcomings that are a part of you too. Its through these shortcomings that you know what you want to change, and that knowledge is vital to keeping your compass pointing directly towards your goals. By denying all that has come before you are ridding yourself of important tools.
Other tools you are going to want to embrace for success in 2021 are those of self-compassion and kindness. If you have ever read any of the phenomenal work by Brené Brown (Rising Strong) you will see how she demonstrates by showing yourself kindness and compassion it leads to developing both strength and courage. To make, and more importantly sustain, the changes in your life that you are setting out in your new year goals you require all of these attributes. So don’t deny or cancel out the “old you” by swearing hence forth to be a “new you”, love who you are and the shortcomings you have and use those experiences to develop a more courageous, kinder, compassionate you… become a “stronger” version of you.
Happy new year.
