Yet Another Year, Yet Another Resolution!

So What New (Or Old) Futile Wish Will You Make?

The end of the year is usually one of my favourite periods. With so many festivities and celebrations around us, it feels like a time when most people shed aside their burdens to enjoy with their loved ones (including me). And just like last year, this December 31st, I will go out for dinner with my mum, dad, and brother, where we will rejoice in the conclusion of a rather cumbersome year gone by and raise our glasses with fresh hopes for the new year ahead.

2025 is coming! (source: Giphy)

The one thing I haven’t done in years, though, is make a “New Year’s resolution”. You’ve heard of those New Year’s resolutions, right? Those little promises and challenges people take up for a year, which most forget after a week? Yeah, I’m not a fan of those New Year’s resolutions. As 2024 ends, I’ve been introspecting more than usual, leading me to evaluate why I don’t like New Year’s resolutions. Let’s talk more about this as the issue proceeds.

What Does The Community Think?

As we used to in the past, I asked our community to share their perspectives on New Year’s resolutions via an X Post. And it led to some fascinating insights.

Himanshu Balani strongly supported resolutions as they enabled him to track his goals better, although he emphasized the necessity of strong willpower. Aharna spoke on similar lines, sharing how resolutions allowed her to reflect and quantify her growth at the end of a year. Sreekesh Iyer placed a counter-point, however, calling out a lack of motivation, discipline, and/or desperation for people unwilling to work on their goals before January 1st.

All the perspectives shared in my post seemed pretty reasonable; however, for me, one significant dilemma remained.

My Dilemma With New Year’s Resolutions

Every New Year’s resolution, in my opinion, has one fundamental problem: accountability.

Let’s think of it this way: you have a challenge you want to overcome that you decide not to start working on immediately, you set an arbitrary starting date, and no tracking of efforts or activity is made. This is how most people set their New Year’s resolutions. Sooner or later, most of them simply burn out and let go of these efforts, like the guy in the image below, who makes the resolution to exercise early morning on January 1st but has let go of it by January 7th,

Solving The Accountability Problem

Amid our discussion on the efficacy of New Year’s resolutions, Prajwal Prashanth raised a particularly interesting point on how the “previous year wrapped” held him more accountable than resolutions.

Truthfully speaking, he’s not wrong. Enough people are solving accountability with methods such as the following: (feel free to comment more on this post)

• habit trackers (can be an app or offline)

• vision boards (to better visualize the goals)

• accountability groups (people working on similar challenges, sharing daily/weekly, and encouraging each other)

• public declarations on social media (a little peer pressure helps sometimes xD)

At the end of the day, it boils down to having the discipline to persevere and stick to your goals despite all odds. Unfortunately, that’s not something I can teach yet; I’m still figuring it out. Maybe we don’t have to do that alone?

(If you need an accountability partner, drop a message in our community, and we’ll figure something out)

So What Should I Do Next?

This coming January 1st, I will not set any New Year’s resolutions. I have set some goals, though:

• Decrease consumption of soft drinks (Coca-Cola, Pepsi, etc.) and chips (or crisps)

• Develop a weekly workout schedule and actually stick to it

• Build more side-projects and participating in at least one hackathon

• Learn photo editing and understanding my Fujifilm X-T30 II better

• Read at least four novels (I loved reading as a kid, and I am rebuilding my habit)

• Invest more time in my relationships, be a better friend than I have been

I’m not calling these resolutions because I won’t wait until January 1st to work on them. These aren’t just goals but processes. The work starts now, and it doesn’t stop.

That said, I want to thank you all. This year has had its crests and troughs, with lots of wins and more than a few losses. Throughout all of this, I am really grateful to have had the support of all of you folks who read this newsletter. I really hope to meet more of you soon and wish you all a wonderful 2025.

Signing off 2024,
Aditya Oberai