This New Year, Replace Resolutions with Gradual Revolutions
Image by Joshua Kettle/Unsplash
This post will land in your inbox in that weird, limbo-like time between Christmas and New Year. Of course, for some readers you may not celebrate the former and your new year might come at a later date, but I hope these ideas will apply for you too. After the (tofu?) turkey-and-mince-pies-and-way-too-much-of-everything haze has cleared, many people’s thoughts turn to the new year – and the resolutions that seem compulsory as one year slides into another.
If you are a resolution-maker, how does that tend to go for you? I know some people really value this tradition and it seems to work well for them. They resolve to lose 10lb or go to the gym three times a week or get back on those dating apps and actually find love – and those things happen, they follow through and stick to their guns. Resolutions become habits become long-term positive change, which is wonderful.
Far more often, I see people getting all fired up about their January 1st life changes, which they stick to for a bit, until it gets boring/hard/unsuccessful and they quit. So they lose 5lb and then put on 10lb. Or they buy an expensive 12-month gym membership which goes unused for 11 of those months. Or they drag themselves back to the apps, have a few crap dates and then get (more or less) comfortable with being single again.
This year, let’s try something different. Instead of resolutions that don’t stick, how about creating revolutions that are, as the name suggests, genuinely life-changing. Here are three principles that I think will help you make some real, long-lasting changes.
Real revolutions take time and effort. Something I often see in my consulting room is that people are fizzing with good intentions and energy, especially at the beginning of therapy. As I often tell people, pain is a great motivator – if you are suffering with, say, acute anxiety and panic attacks, you will be highly motivated to do anything possible to get better. I think it’s often like that with new year’s resolutions, because we resolve to change the things that are creating suffering – being overweight and feeling bad about that; being single and lonely; disliking our body and feeling like we should measure up to some ideal of beauty or strength we see in our Instagram feed.
These things do, understandably, create suffering, so we’re super-motivated for change. But we have been sold a false, impossible-to-achieve vision of change, probably on social media again, that if you just buy the right product or find the right life hack, change can be quick, transformational and dopamine-boostingly satisfying. That’s not how change works. Genuine revolutions – changes that reduce the suffering in your life, while increasing happiness and contentment – take time. They are a process, not a Shazam! moment of instant improvement.
That’s why we talk about a yoga practice, or a meditation practice, because for these powerful, potentially transformative experiences to work, you have to practice them, day after day after day. Change is incremental, especially genuine, bone-deep, long-lasting change. And it requires effort and determination – change can be hard, so we need to work at it. But, crucially, it is also achievable, if we’re patient and put the work in (perhaps with some skilful guidance from a coach, therapist or mentor along the way).
Focus on changing one thing, not 10. Another thing I see in my – lovely, well-meaning – clients is that they try to work on 10 things at once. So in addition to starting therapy they start meditating for the first time, explore yoga, try some tapping practice they saw on YouTube, sign up with a business coach, decide to get sober, find a new relationship, apartment and job… It’s exhausting just writing all that! And, again, this is all coming from a good place (and a hard-working, well-meaning part, viewed through an IFS lens) but it’s just too much all at once.
The same can be true with resolutions, where we decide to join the gym, lose weight, stop worrying so much, be better parents, give up caffeine (in Dry January!), heal our gut microbiome, start that exciting side hustle, go vegan, find a body-sculpting PT… Again, phew! I suggest working on a maximum of three things and, ideally, just one. You could make a list of the 10 things you want to change, in order of priority, then commit to the top three by this time next year. And put all your heart, soul, energy, finances and willpower into the most important one.
That way you are far more likely to see results, which in turn will inspire you to stick with it. Honestly, I think the 10-things-at-once approach can be an avoidance strategy, because some part of you knows it’s doomed to fail and so change – which can be uncomfortable for many parts of you – is kicked into the long grass and never actually happens. It takes more courage to focus on one thing and follow through with it, because that means accepting the change that will inevitably follow.
Embrace failure as part of the process. One of the things that can knock us off course, if we make resolutions or attempt any other kind of meaningful change, is when things go awry or don’t work in some way. Let’s take the gym example – maybe you go a few times, over-train and get an annoying shoulder injury, which makes it hard to follow the workout programme you were enjoying. It’s so easy to lose the habit of working out and then, when the injury has healed, find it a real struggle to get back to the gym, so you just write the whole thing off.
In that case, it’s much more helpful to think, OK, this is a setback, but it’s just a bump in a long road. I can switch to walking/bike rides instead, until the injury heals and I can get back to my workout programme. Part of this thinking is a mindset shift away from, I must never fail, because that feels awful, to Anything important is usually hard, with setbacks and obstacles along the way. Failing doesn’t mean giving up, just skilfully changing course to achieve my ultimate goal.
There are countless stories of inventors, politicians, sporting heroes and social-justice movements overcoming obstacle after obstacle, showing grit and determination, refusing to be knocked off course and eventually achieving great things. Try to embody some of that determination as you pursue your revolutions and you will go far.
I hope that helps – and, as the year draws to a close, I would like to thank you all for your kindness, support and lovely feedback this year. I’m also grateful for everyone who has purchased something from my non-profit store, which has helped me offer free or low-cost therapy and other resources to those who need them. My life’s purpose is to help people heal from childhood trauma, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for your help with that.
I appreciate every single one of you and know that, in these days of scattered attentions and digital brain-scrambling, reading these posts and coming with me on this journey towards health and healing is a big commitment. I am so grateful for that and for all of you – thank you and wishing you all the love, happiness and serenity you so deserve in 2026.
Love,
Dan ❤️
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