A resolution to be kinder to yourself

Do not fail your New Year's resolutions, rather make a resolution to fail, and to learn from it and grow.

It is New Year today. All over the world people are making resolutions for the new year. And soon all over the world, people will be failing to keep them as well. Why? Why do we go through the effort of making these resolutions every year, and why do we so often give up on them? What is so enjoyable about this game of trying to force ourselves into doing things we probably know we will never do anyway?

I think most people make resolutions because they feel they have to. They are unhappy with themselves about something and feel pressured by their peers or society, or just by themselves, to change. There is no joy in their resolutions, rather, they try to push themselves into doing things which they actually dislike doing – such as eating less, watching less Netflix – just because they feel guilty about doing them.

These kinds of guilt feelings however, are rarely a good foundation for change. This is because they come from a place of self criticism. They come from this constantly nagging voice in our had which tells us we are bad and we should be different, a voice conditioned through society or religion, a voice we have often internalised from perceived criticism of our peers, teachers or parents.

Why is this so unhelpful? You reap what you sow, the saying goes. If you start of telling yourself you are a failure or a mess-up, you will inevitably end up failing. Reacting to these negative voices in your head, just makes them stronger. Putting yourself down, only makes things worse. If you do not believe in yourself, how will you ever find the power to make a real change? If you want change, then it has to come from a different motivation.

So how to change then? Recently there has been a lot of research in psychology about self-compassion. This research shows, that if we want change, we first have to stop being so hard on ourselves. First we have to accept ourselves and shortcomings and have some compassion for our so called negative sides. Second we have to change the way we look at change. Change does not come from bullying ourselves into doing things. Change can only come from a positive attitude. Only when we look at ourselves in a positive way, we will be empowered to actually change.

Therefore, we should not look resolutions as things we ‘should’ do, because we feel we ‘have to’. We should not feel pressured by anyone. Rather, we should see change as a gift we give to ourselves, as an opportunity to grow and live a more healthy and happy life. We have to focus on the good sides of what we are trying to achieve. Look at it in a holistic way, and drop those old school habits of constantly grading ourselves and just hoping we will not fail.

Realise this will take time, and failure. But that is ok, you have a whole year ahead of you. Use it wisely and do not give up after one month. Change does not happen over night. Thinking it will, will inevitably lead to us being disappointed and giving up. Unfortunately school has taught us we should never fail and has made us very afraid of failing. However, only when we have compassion for ourselves, we can accept our failures and see them as a part of a growing and learning process. If you do not fail, you do not learn.

So, when making your New Year’s resolutions this year. Try to come at it with a different attitude. Rather than telling yourself to not do this, or not do that, make the resolution to be kinder towards yourself, to give yourself the time and space to fail and to learn and grow. Do not make a resolution not to fail, rather, make a resolution to fail, and to give yourself time and space to learn from it. Only then will you break the cycle of self-criticism and empower yourself to change.