How was your January, my lovely? How are your resolutions holding up? Did you go dry or become vegan? Did you make it to the gym? Have you started a diet?

I’ve done none of these. I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. With an absolutist mindset, in the past, I’d make bold, sweeping statements that I’d lose six stone by February and then be crushed when obviously I failed.

A few years ago, my New Year’s resolution was to never set New Year resolutions again and I’m pleased to share that I have managed to stick to that one.

Now instead of resolutions, we’re encouraged to set goals, which seem the same to me, just a slightly different shade of torture.

I am not very good with setting goals either, but can be easily seduced. In the past if a goal came with a list, a call to action and some sense of ‘bettering’ myself, I was there, signing myself up on the dotted line. But I’m not convinced they were ever very good for me

That absolutist approach again – I became driven, abandoning everything else in my world in pursuit of the perfect. I’m not going to climb Everest, learn French, take up the bassoon or become a salsa dancer – mostly because I don’t want to, but also because they are impossible due to the limitations of my time, health and finances.

Some might say that’s just making excuses, setting myself up to never fail by simply not trying. Sometimes I wonder if there is something lacking in me. Some lack of puritanical gumption that I don’t feel the need to better myself.

But think for a minute, how radical is that? A woman who doesn’t feel the need to better herself.  Whoever heard of such a thing?

Because that’s what we are meant to do, isn’t it?

Be better, do better. Be thinner, stronger, or more motivated. Improve, upgrade, enhance. Be the very best you can. Share the before-and-after, embrace the pain, and do it anyway.

When I was a young woman I believed it all. I’d swallow motivational memes like they were medicine. I just needed to push, work more, try better not harder, focus on my goals, don’t look in any direction but ahead.

Now I’m a grown woman, all I can think is bollocks to that. (I suspect 2025 may be the year of ‘bollocks to that!)

In the spirit of radical self-acceptance, my goal is to just let myself be. No health plans, no fitness goals, no ‘turning my life around in 30 days’. No lists or memes.

That puritanical heritage still lurks, declaring indolence, sloth and laziness as worse than death, the shame of them surely enough to motivate me into action.

But somehow I’m managing to resist.

In a world where we are meant to strive, I resolve to simply be.

Maybe it’s my wintering, my settling down, with lights dimmed, to read another book? Maybe these dark nights are sucking up all my gumption.

Maybe reading books has turned my pretty head, filling my world with ideas above my station, believing that I am enough just as I am.

Now there’s a resolution I can get behind.

How about you?

Do you love a New Year’s Resolution?

Does a goal help you?

How is it going?

Let me know in the comments.