Resolutions Redefined: Making 2024 Your Best Year Yet

In our fragile lives, we often get tempted by spurts of dopamine that ensure we pursue the very actions that undo our resolves. Every one of us intends to be better human beings. Many of us realize, during some time of adulthood, that the resolve, actions, and outcomes are not based on our environment or other external factors we feel we can blame.

We then begin working on ourselves. We know it can be done. We believe. Yet, we fail. We feel like giving up.

Somehow, our minds convince us again to pick up the pieces and try. We admonish ourselves for weak willpower and think that unless that gets fixed, nothing will. Research has shown that willpower needs to be replenished when we are working against something that is so ingrained in us, such as a habit.

Habits are small changes. Big changes are mighty, and they will push through anyway. But the small ones, take a lot more effort for most of us. Most often, New Year resolutions as we age are about small changes—drink more water, eat better food, exercise more.

There are a million references on how to make your resolutions stick. I am focusing on something else—why the New Year is significant for the resolution.

The answer to this came when I was going through Daniel Pink’s work called “When?”. Pink makes a case that our minds need a temporal landmark to differentiate how we are different from one day to another. New Year’s Day provides that perfect landmark. It is a proclamation you make to yourself on how you are different. Of course, you don’t need January 1st for this temporal landmark. The first of every month, the first day of the week, the Summer or Winter Solstice, a festival day. Any of these could provide temporal landmarks.

So next time you pooh-pooh someone for having a New Year resolution, think again. It is important for them, and the best you can do is offer support to keep them accountable. While it is trendy now to say, “I have no New Year resolutions,” it might be better to go forth and focus on one habit change that you can remember 2024 for.

-Aditi Radhakrishnan is Principal Consultant, and Coach, supporting organizations and individuals to manage change, growth, and leadership challenges.