Ok, so I know New Year’s Resolutions don’t always get a good press. They’re not cool from a mindfulness perspective which has become so fashionable these days. They make you think of tomorrow, rather than today, and mindfulness is all about living in the present. But New Year’s Resolutions are here to stay (like taxes). So why not embrace them, mindfully. Here are my three top tips on making them a list of love.
Firstly, I think ‘resolution’ is probably the wrong word. I looked up the dictionary definition – ‘a firm decision to do, or not do something’. The word firm, and decision are unhelpful – they bring too much pressure. What if we called them ‘New Year’s Suggestions’ instead? I looked up the definition of suggestion too – ‘an idea or plan put forward for consideration.’ Now that sounds better already – doesn’t it?
Secondly, although I love a short list (three being my favourite number), I think 20 is a perfect amount of New Year’s Suggestions. Or if that just feels too much – go with 10. Sometimes long lists are good. They allow for a margin of error. With just a few, you don’t have enough wriggle room. And who doesn’t like to wriggle? (Great word!)
Last year, I wrote a list of 20 New Year’s Suggestions. And when I revisited them recently – I was delighted to see that I’d done 16 on the list. Full disclosure - I did give two entries half points and some things are ongoing but, still, it feels like a win. And who doesn’t want to feel like they’re winning when they get to the end of another year?
One of the things I didn’t do on my list this year is learn to bake sourdough bread with my own starter. I still want to. In fact, I may be suggesting it again for 2024. So, just to be clear, New Year’s Suggestions can make repeat appearances, and some things can be big, some things small. It’s about setting a direction of travel for the next 365 days (in fact, this year’s a ‘leap year’ so we have 366). Which is a long road. Not everything needs to get started or done in January. My advice is write in January / review in June / conclude in December, and then suggest and write again.
Because thirdly, and this is the important one: there is nothing better than a new beginning. New job. New house. New love. New you. And the truth is that a New Year is the one thing we all get without even trying (well, apart from taxes). Great huh? It’s our completely free and thoroughly perfect opportunity to reset. And resetting is an act of joy for me.
I can’t share my 2024 list with you because I haven’t written it yet. I’m heading off on a retreat somewhere hot and fabulous today, specifically to work on it. But I will tell you this: I’ll be ensuring there are several things on it that are there for my pure pleasure (which is not how people generally think of New Year’s Resolutions either because they’re often associated with things that are going to be painful – like giving something up or doing something hard). But when I turned 50 a few years ago, I decided to make this my decade of joy so, for me, it’s an ongoing personal project - which is why I’ve called this Substack ‘Lists of Love’. And I’ll stop now because this is all starting to sound a bit mindful (ah well, it’s still fashionable (just)). So why not write a long list of New Year’s Suggestions to reset and restart. What’s not to love about that?
PS. This is my third Substack post – thank you if you’ve become one of my early subscribers. I’ve decided that for the first few months of this new year (in the lead up to the publication of my new book – Save Me From The Waves - in March), I’m going to send all my subscribers (free and paid) weekly posts. But after that all paid subscribers will receive their lists of love weekly, and free subscribers will receive monthly updates. I hope that sounds like an ok plan.