2016 will finally be the year I give up on those over the top, unachievable goals that I’ve been conditioned to set for myself since I was a child. I’m not saying goodbye completely, just to those that I know I won’t keep or achieve, because why should I set positive goals for myself if at the end of the year I look back and realise I’ve failed to do them? A positive becomes a negative; each and every year.
When I was a younger, I used to set silly goals that I knew I could achieve because I’d do them in the first few weeks and I’d be New Year’s Res free for 45 weeks of the year. I set them because my parents did, it was the norm, and I wanted to look cool and older than I was at 6 or 7. These resolutions included things such as ‘have a bath’, ‘go to bed’, ‘tell mum and dad I love them’ and ‘play with my friends’. Silly, small but effective because once I’d done them I felt a sense of pride, a sense of achievement and it felt like something to be proud of.
As I got older, things moved away from the silly little goals. As the wave of life carried me into high school, no longer did I feel able to make resolutions that I knew I could keep – I felt like I had to make ones that I knew would challenge me mentally and physically. In my first few years, I set ones like ‘pass my end of year exams’, ‘get XX score in my spelling test’. Ones that were often academically based and required me to study a little bit, but nothing too serious.
It wasn’t until we all grew up a bit more, and started puberty, that the ~real~ resolutions for us started being set. The bar was set high. I wasn’t the thinnest, best looking, most fashionable girl in high school by a long shot and the bullies and boys liked to remind me of that. Therefore, my New Year’s resolutions started to become based around society’s standards, or ones my peers thought were acceptable in order to be accepted.
I was 13/14 and setting NYRs on looking prettier, losing weight, eating less, getting a boyfriend, getting in with a group of girls who were popular so people would like me. It made me miserable but it was the only way I could make myself tolerated more. It took me out of the spotlight to be picked on and pushed other people into it. In those ways it was selfish and unkind because I left other people behind and things got worse for them. I was tolerated on the surface for a while but my NYRs didn’t stop what I wanted them to.
It’s surprising how quickly goals change. It is as quickly as a click of the fingers. Going to bed and waking up the next day. It’s as though a switch is flicked ‘on’ in our heads and is incredibly difficult to turn off. As we get older life is no longer just about us, or our toys and who we’re going to play with in the playground. Now we feel a pressure to take everybody we know and everybody we have the potential to come across, ever, into consideration. Are our clothes good enough? Is our makeup done right? What about our hair – too flat, too curly, is it the wrong colour? Are we shopping in the right places? Are we friends with the right people? Now, the goals that were once for us, the ones that would make us feel like we’ve achieved something, are for other people.
Since I started making those ‘surface’ resolutions, they’ve been similar every year. The main one has been to lose weight. Day after day, week after week, month after month, the same thought whirlwinds around my head as I look in the mirror, or catch sight of my thighs and stomach – “you’re too fat, lose weight.” A thought that I know has been drilled into me from my high school experiences but one that I can’t escape.
This time, I’m using all my efforts to flick that switch from ‘on’ to ‘off’. I’m ditching the resolutions that I know I won’t keep. No “my New Year’s resolution is to go to the gym four times a week” because I know that won’t happen. 2016 is going to be the year I stop thinking “is this okay for other people?” and start asking myself “is this okay for me?” I’m going to work on myself, mentally and physically, and be myself. I’m going to do it primarily for me not solely for others. I’m not anti-NYR, I’m pro putting myself first because I am worth it.
“Life is too short to waste any amount of time on wondering what other people think about you. In the first place, if they had better things going on in their lives, they wouldn’t have the time to sit around and talk about you. What’s important to me is not others’ opinions of me, but what’s important to me is my opinion of myself.” -C. JoyBell C.
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Speak Your Opinions 
I used to make those same kinds of resolutions too and somewhere along the line I stopped. I think it’s great that you’re focusing on yourself for yourself instead of for everybody else. I think you’ll accomplish so much more that way.