I gotta say it:
Fuck New Year's Resolutions.
Yep. I said it. Sorry not sorry.
Now, if some of y'all are about it... all the power to ya. Free choice reigns supreme. You do you.
Though, for those who are all about the "New Year's Resolutions..." is it really you doing you... or you doing a collective programmed belief system...?
I don't often post selfies or pics of myself online anymore. But to my own surprise, I felt like it yesterday...
Over the past couple years, I finally started getting consistent with my X3 resistance band workouts. Bought it over 6 years ago, but fucked around for the first few and took a while to actually slow down, get it right, and get consistent. And there's been results.
Every so often, I catch myself in the mirror and question: is that really me? Am I wearing rose-colored glasses, or have I actually gotten these results? Yesterday was one of those days, and for whatever reason, I felt like posting it as an Instagram story. And without even thinking about it, the "fuck New Year's Resolutions" dropped in.
Cuz how many people make them - thinking they're gonna get to the gym, and this year's gonna be different, blah blah blah... only to fall off quick...?
Society has built this whole belief system around NY resolutions that people buy into, acting like the change of a calendar year is gonna somehow supercharge the changing of their life. Yet it rarely does. Afterall, why would it. If someone can't summon the willpower to take xyz actions the whole rest of the year, why do they think they can gaslight themselves into using a collective ritual to substitute and override a baseline lack of commitment...?
Those moments I look in the mirror in awe at the before & after, I know what it took to get from A to B. And it never involved any cultural circle jerk exalting a date as any reason/excuse for change.
And to confess: part of me is hesitant to share any of this. I don't wanna come across as though I've "figured anything out," have "achieved" anything that puts me in some superior position to preach, etc. My process is ongoing. And humility is part of it. Though at the same time, there are points in life where we gotta own what we have accomplished. And there ought to be no shame in speaking what we've discovered to be true.
(I confess: lighting & camera angle do make a big difference - but still, no filters.)
I might be "weird" in the eyes of some who are deeply invested in societal/cultural norms - not conforming to conventions & traditions, rejecting commonly held beliefs, holidays, ways of thinking & being. So be it.
Though when it comes to these points... well sure, things like New Year's resolutions might "work" for some people. And if you make them work for you, great. Yet statistically, when it boils down to the most common - health & fitness "goals" being the top usual contenders - they don't work for most people.
And there's alot of societal/cultural "norms," conventions, traditions, etc. that are not going to work for people the same way they used to.
Us humans are weird, so frequently investing in all sorts of beliefs & protocols, unconsciously delegating authority to ideas, allocating our power according to what & how others dictate is "the way."
This time of year, how many have just gone ahead, automatically thinking about what their New Year's resolutions ought to be... without even really considering why they're doing it in the first place.
Why treat January 1st like some magical portal that has any more potency than any other day to catalyze life changes?
Just because everyone else is doing it? Why are they?
Why act as though a calendar date offers any sort of secret sauce to "getting results?" Why an inherent, unconscious assumption that any other date is less suitable for making commitments & promises to self and/or acting on them consistently?
It just sorta hit me like a ton of bricks as looking into the mirror at my pump mid-workout yesterday: what the fuck is a new gregorian calendar year gonna do for my health/fitness that I'm not already doing? Why even pretend like playing this collective "resolutions" ritual has anything to offer beyond what I've been proving to myself over years with showing up consistently as refining & acting on my values independent of any date?
Nothing.
Sure, for some people, "setting goals" is an essential part of their process of "getting results" - and if using calendar markings assists that process, so be it. My process was different. I didn't have "clear goals." I didn't factor in dates. I kinda just simply intended to do it. And over time as I did it, the consistency was reinforced. And, I began loving the process... and momentum built as a habit, fuelled with that love of the process, love for self as embodied by the commitment to consistency, and the intention to keep consistent. That's it.
No derivative "meaning" or "purpose" assigned to dates. No fucks given about what year it was/is or how anyone else does xyz. No specific aims for muscle mass gain or measured progression in reps/weight. Just consistency.
So yeah, I'll say it again: fuck New Year's resolutions.
While honoring, if you disagree and wanna do 'em, do 'em.
With the challenge: really consider why people place so much value on "new year" as a point of change - as though external timing holds more weight over what they do than the internal world, with whatever it might be that requires the consistency that any "new year's resolution" typically would.
Because when we see the misallocation of energy put into collective belief systems, reel it back in, and put it into the refinement of our own values and the consistency in acting on/from them, every other of the 365 days in any year become just as if not infinitely more potent for changing course in ways most going through the "new year's resolutions" act will never experience.
Or some shit. What the fuck do I know.
Lastly...
Should any of y'all be in the space of considering transformations in the health/fitness domain of your life, I cannot recommend highly enough you get & read this book:
"Weightlighting Is A Waste Of Time" by Dr. John Jaquish
Forget the clickbaity title. Just make the investment of time in the knowledge beyond it.
Trust. I do not make this recommendation lightly.