As we grow up, we arrived at believe that most promises are hollow; that people do whatever they want to, regardless of their word. With time, we consider New Year’s Resolutions like a childish venture; one you would only believe under the delusion of inexperience.
But how rare one thing society offers you a clean slate? A strongly held belief that something ‘new’ is in the offing; that you have a chance to re-do your life. Be it childish, but in the history of time, this is perhaps the only man-made product that isn’t ruining us all.
Jocko Willink, a former Navy SEAL commander, author, and podcast host, has extensively spoken about why people fail to stay with their New Year’s Resolutions. People generally set abstract goals that are larger-than-life. “Become happy”, “Become wealthy”, but they rarely ever list “how”.
The answer to achieving something is taking consistent small steps towards it. If you want to be healthy, then start by reducing your sugar intake one day a week. Go up from there, and then expand. Rome wasn’t built-in a day, and your resolutions won’t work under pixie dust either.
Here is the closest I got to making my new year resolutions realistic:
1. Switch off when angry.
In 2021, I'd a lot of cause to be angry, and that i followed up with several. I’m grateful for many of them, because they helped me fully stand up for myself. But there were a substantial few I could have avoided basically was more careful. Being angry or holding a grudge drains more of my energy than contribute to any positive solution.
So, here’s what I’m likely to do in 2021: When circumstances or people cause me to feel agitated, I’m going to move away for some time. This means switching my phone’s data or power off for an hour at the least, or physically leaving the zone of confrontation. Most of the horrible situations I found myself in, might be prevented by some calm, rational thinking.
2. Say one good thing to somebody, every day.
I am often crippled through the thought of not being verbally grateful enough. I have a Universe full of gratitude for each human being and milestone I have been blessed with. But I should probably say “I really like you”, more often; say “I am grateful for your existence”; say “you made me happy after i needed it the most”; say “you carry a lot light within you”. It is wrong for us to expect others to figure out the workings in our mind. You know best about how you feel, so practice saying it aloud.
So, here’s what I’m likely to do in 2021: I will get good at verbally communicating my gratitude, and never take for granted the fact that everybody automatically gets it.
3. Make my “thank you-s” louder.
For years, I have consciously made myself express gratitude to every shopkeeper, every watchman, every attendant opening the door for me, every anybody who does anything for me. Over time, I have grown more conscious of the surroundings, though. And, not in a good way. You see, my country has a lot of native tongues for English to become the main medium of communication. A couple of un-acknowledged “thank you-s” made me feel like I had been being unnecessary. Gradually, some of them dropped to a whisper sometimes; limited to being merely a self-imposed ritual.
I have thought about switching to my native tongue, if that’s what must be done. But I cannot say “thank you” in Bengali without sounding pretentious. The very fact that most people don’t use that word anymore, makes me feel out of place. At one point, I even believed that switching to Bengali with regard to the shopkeeper would seem condescending.
See what an over-thinking brain can do? It ruins things that are perfectly simple, and don’t require complications you have conveniently created.
So, here’s what I’m likely to do in 2021: I will express gratitude. Loudly. Anywhere. To anybody. As often as I damn well please.
4. Put aside 30 minutes each day to reply to text messages.
Anybody who knows me, knows I am a horrible texter. My capabilities of maintained conversation defy any adjective whatsoever. To become perfectly clear, the truth isn’t that I don’t wish to or appreciate talking with most of them. I just cannot. Or rather, I haven’t been able to.
Being an introvert at heart, texting isn’t my A-game. Where do you turn when you have exhausted your desire to have communication, but cannot cut the discussion midway? You go offline. That’s what I thought. But I’ve only recently realized that every conversation should be brought to a close, and I should not leave people hanging. You will find messages I see in the widget, answer them in my head, and get back to them two months later. That is unhealthy, and downright unfair on my part. If somebody has had time out of their schedule to talk with me, the least I could do is respect it.
So, here’s what I’m going to do in 2021: I will take Half an hour each day to clear my inbox. At the end of 2021, I got into a fix when I realized I had 120 unopened chat boxes. That isn’t going to happen this year. (I also have to get better at answering the phone, but I’ll leave that for 2021.)
5. Ask myself “will it matter?” when I use the excuse of societal opinions as a hindrance to my work.
It required a lot of time and many self-talk sessions before I launched an art-page in my doodles. 100% of it was because I felt completely unworthy. How dare I, being an amateur artist, demand space within the Newsfeed of others? Some weeks, when all I’ve done is share doodles, I’ve noticed my follower-count drop. Maybe they were just here for the jokes and the outrage. But will it really matter?
So, here’s what I’m going to do in 2021: I will ask myself a couple of questions every time I let my self-bashing hamper my work. “Who are you doing this for?” “Is that this how YOU feel about yourself?” “So what if they hate it?” “Do they matter more than your desire to create?”
6. Do one act of self-love, every day.
I have been an advocate of loving yourself for as long as I can remember. How then have I did not succeed at it so miserably? You should understand that a doctrine does not get up on its own. It needs to be imbibed via actions. Otherwise, it’s just a fancy concept you carry like a badge.
In 2021, I let myself be destroyed, and learned to build myself up from the wreckage. Granted, which i would never have risen a step beyond that debris if it hadn’t been for my parents and my friends. Loving yourself is not going to be easy. Sometimes, it is the most difficult thing to do. How do we choose ourselves whenever we have been taught to lay our lives down for others, all through human consciousness? You are taking baby steps. That’s how.
So, here’s what I’m going to do in 2021: Every day, I’m going to consciously do one act of self-love, a minimum of. It could be something as small as remembering to feed myself, or something as big as prioritizing health over work. Now, I understand that after a long term of self-abuse, I’m probably going to forget this clause sometimes. But I also know, that at the end of the year, I’m going to be more healthy than I am right now. One has only to begin.
7. Unfollow and remove toxic people.
Most people don’t realize how much our surroundings influence us. This is why patients are advised to get a “change of air”, sometimes. Re-painting your room to a warmer color can show immediate effects on your mood.
People work exactly the same way. The more negative, or abusive people you put around you, the less happy you turn out to be. Toxic human influence is as bad as injecting an expired drug. It kills you against the inside.
So, here’s what I’m going to do in 2021: Every time I see something that strongly bothers me on my small Newsfeed, I’m going to unfollow the post. When the user continues to bombard my mental space with such negativity, then I will promptly unfollow, unfriend, or block them. There's nothing petty about finding an avenue to peace.
This policy pertains to the three-dimensional world too. Nobody is allowed to ruin my mental health any longer.
8. Make more realistic to-do lists.
Every workaholic will agree when i state that we experience a perverse form of pleasure by pushing ourselves beyond our limits. Even though it is okay to indulge in hyper-goals on the few days, it is an extremely unhealthy routine to put yourself through. I’ve tried to rectify that with my new year resolutions this year.
Every body has different health requirements. It is important to understand what your body needs in order to function. I require a minimum of 8 hours of sleep in order to feel fresh. In 2021, I think I granted myself that luxury on 20 days or less.
So, here’s what I’m likely to do in 2021: I am going to believe that I’m not Hercules, and set myself a to-do list that people can achieve. The best way to do that is to allot time periods to your tasks, leaving significant margins between your slots. Now you know how much can be achieved in 24 hours.
9. Write personally.
The thing about turning your passion projects into jobs, is you get stuck in a commercial bubble. Previously, each time a good idea struck, I’d turn it into a poem, story, or a rant. If you do over 2 years of freelancing, it requires me less than 10 minutes to mold that concept into an audience-specific topic along with a selling strategy. I never remarked that I had completely stopped writing personally.
So, here’s what I’m going to do in 2021: Airplane Poetry Movement has launched a program whereby, the ones who sign up, need to write 100 poems this year. The kind people at APM will issue prompts each week, and mail writing guidelines too. This really is more than one could ever request. I am and will be trying my favorite to stick to this plan. The best part is, even when I don’t make it to a hundred, I will still have written something. Anything is preferable to zero.
10. Create one project I’m happy with, every month.
While browsing through the inter-web, I ran across a listicle that enlisted habits of hard-workers. One tweet read “Don’t half-a$$ anything together with your name on it.” I remember it distinctly like a life-changing moment, because it was then that I realized the gravity of the footprints I leave behind me. Over-working Freelancers always undertake more than they can possibly complete. But we do it anyway. And, sometimes, it compromises on the quality of the product. I have also given years of my life away to organizations I did not care about, and who in turn, cared even less about me.
So, here’s what I’m going to do in 2021: Every month I will create a project I am proud of. It could be an article, a painting, a doodle, or anything new will be able to come up with. And, I will get it done for myself.
Following through with my year resolutions will not be easy, I know. But anything worth having never came easy, made it happen?
Here’s to self-discovery and months of productive healing.
