Resolve to rest: Giving ourselves permission to just... be

Image @timmossholder

January is a bit of a strange month. People everywhere are trying to recover from all the rest, relaxation, and celebration they enjoyed over the holidays and get back to the business of 'real life.' Hunkering down at school or at work and tackling the herculean task of putting New Year's resolutions into action. There's excitement and a "let's hit the ground running" vibe in the air, coupled with a bit of exhaustion. We're all told that it's a good time to set some goals and get cracking.

But goal setting and stepping into action are two different modes of being, aren't they?

Goal setting requires introspection and reflection, calm and stillness. It is aligned with the slowness of winter, a period of prolonged rest and pondering. It's a process we shouldn't rush, or try and cram into the days following Christmas when our energy is low and our attention is on enjoyment, not change. Some people hastily resolve to drink less alcohol after a night of binge drinking on the 31st, which is how we get Dry January. But those aren't quite the kinds of resolutions we should be making. Resolutions shouldn't be knee-jerk reactions or borrowed templates for change that everyone pledges to. There should be a deep exploration of the why behind them. Other favourites include "lose weight" which is meaningless in its non-descriptiveness. It's just a popular "I should probably do this" choice that requires no real interrogation of the motivation behind it because it's socially sanctioned as something that everyone should want to do. Especially now, in the Ozempic era. The fact that little effort goes into thinking deeply about whether you really want to do something or if you just think you should do something is one of the reasons resolutions are so likely to fail. They're just a form of thought-porn, not properly buttressed with meaning. And this isn't to cast judgment of any kind; this is just the way we've been socialized, doing ourselves an injustice each year as we superficially set goals we can't stick to and doom ourselves to an inevitable failure before the month is out.

For years, I was eager to prove to myself that there wasn't something innately wrong with me so much as maybe I had just been going about it all wrong for a little while. I felt like a failure every February when my resolutions fizzled out. It wasn’t until I took a different approach that I finally found a system that worked for me.

I think the reason that New Year's resolutions tend to fail so spectacularly for so many people year after year is that a) winter is a time of rest and reflection, b) setting goals and putting those goals into action requires two very different types of energy, c) it's not the right season for newness, d) the new year should actually be celebrated in the spring to respect and attune ourselves to the rhythms of the natural world, of which we often seem to forget that we are inextricably a part of.

The holiday season is sort of frantic for a lot of people. The endless shopping and the scurrying around, trying to make plans and arrangements to see people and entertain. The decorations, the baking, the endless amount of things to do and prepare. It's a busy time leading up to a celebratory period that can sometimes feel draining and drawn out. But it makes sense in a way. We celebrate the years past and the people in our lives who bring us comfort and joy, the people we love. Then we end the year with a bang-out party on New Year's Eve, right before the calendar turns over, and we enter into another loop, doing it all again.

And in the middle of the celebrations, as a hangover to the joy we felt during the holiday period, we're expected to set some resolutions for ourselves that govern how we'll behave in the coming year. To become better versions of ourselves.

It's a great time for planning, of course. New Year's falls in Capricorn, the sign that kicks off the winter season and governs time, traditions, endurance, and our ambitions, productivity, and long-term goals. It's a time naturally inclined toward thinking about these sorts of things.

A time to reflect, rest, recharge, rejuvenate the spirit... yes, but not a time for action. If anything, it's the opposite. New Year's is just a few weeks into winter; following the winter solstice and marking the end of the time of Yule, if anything, New Year's kicks off a hibernation period that is just getting started. So what we should be doing, at least in the northern hemisphere anyway, is sinking into the season of rest. Maybe embracing hygge, the Danish cultural tradition of leaning into coziness, comfort, and conviviality. Feeling cozy and lazy and indulging our body's calls for rest and relaxation, enjoying friends and family and sharing a few laughs. We can celebrate the holiday season, of course; that's a cultural landmark that's not likely to change any time soon, and it can be a form of indulgence in and of itself, acknowledging and celebrating the year that passed while welcoming in the new one. But ready, set, action, on day one? Hard pass.

New Year's should be the kick-off to careful self-reflection while we save action for spring. Time to do nothing and reassess what is important to us. But if we want to align ourselves to the energy of the seasons and give ourselves the best chance of creating positive momentum and really hitting the ground running, then spend the first quarter of the new year planning and assessing, and save the "day one" vibes for the spring equinox or April 1.

I think we struggle with this in general because of the cult of productivity that our society has venerated. We don't really have permission to just exist, do we? It's more of a constant drive to produce, to be productive, to contribute something.

But sometimes, it's okay to just be. To just rest. To listen to your body and its calls for comfort, warmth, and inaction. You don't have to wait for permission from anyone to buck the trend and do what feels right for you. Just lean into the feelings that you have, and if those feelings tell you to gear up and get'er done, great. Go for it. You'll have societal norms on your side as everyone around you tries to do the same. But if you're feeling more like winter blah and you're not into it? Listen to that impulse. Rest. Breathe. Relax. There will be time. You have to find the balance, and sometimes, finding that balance means ignoring what everyone else is doing and really tuning in to yourself. This year, give yourself the gift of alignment. Take time to rest, reflect, and plan. When spring comes, you’ll be ready to bloom.