Consider a ‘Theme’ Instead of a ‘Resolution’ In 2024

My longest-running New Year’s Eve tradition is reading “Welcome to Midnight,” a blog post by Jamie Tworkowski, the founder of mental-health nonprofit To Write Love on Her Arms. This was my twelfth year revisiting those 375 words on an evening that tends to provoke a lot of questions and anxieties for me, and possibly for you.

When I first read the blog post in 2011, I was in high school, so my worries were very different from the ones I have now, but the feeling is mostly the same. The pressure of creating a new me for the new year weighs on me, even though I’m fully aware that’s not how self-improvement works. As Tworkowski writes:

Wouldn’t it be nice if change took just a moment?
Wouldn’t it be nice if it were that easy?
Midnight and we’re new. Midnight and the past erased. Midnight and we’re free.

It’s not that easy, of course. And because of that, the framing of any New Year’s resolution is extremely important. 

When I was receiving intensive outpatient mental healthcare, our case managers strongly discouraged all streak-based tracking. Counting days since engaging in a problematic behavior is a significant part of the twelve-step recovery process, so this felt unintuitive, but many clinicians see this approach as high risk, high reward at best. Streak-based approaches to self-improvement are built on the dopamine hit that comes with seeing that number go up, and an attachment to that reward as motivation to continue with your plan to start or stop a behavior. The problem is that losing the streak results in emotional distress for many people, which can lead to continuing to break the commitment you made. In her memoir, writer and former child star Jennette McCurdy references letting “slips become slides” in the context of eating disorders. After returning to problematic behaviors after a period free of them (“relapsing”), it’s very easy to continue doing so in order to cope with the disappointment and self-judgment that comes with the loss of the streak. In the context of streaks around doing something new, how common is it to miss one day in the gym or on Duolingo and never go back?

Change doesn’t happen in a day, and in many ways, the streak-counting format expects exactly that. Starting today, I’ll become someone whose values, priorities, and habits will fundamentally change, such that I do this new thing every single day in perpetuity.

So what do you do instead?

In 6.5 minutes, educator and YouTuber CPG Grey presents an alternative: Choosing a theme for this year. Rather than committing to doing a very specific thing a specific number of times, he suggests that you commit to prioritizing a specific activity or facet of well-being this year. Maybe this is the year of “health” or the year of “reading.” If a lack of movement is one of the key health issues in your life, you may decide that you want to go to the gym every day. But if you miss a day, you haven’t failed and you don’t have to feel bad about it. And if you get Long COVID, develop a heart condition, and suddenly can’t do strenuous exercise safely, you can shift what health means. Maybe you’ll be diligent in following your doctor's directions and in the process, slowly build up to being able to go on your first hike in years, even if it’s at a pace that you’d previously considered embarrassing.

Yeah, that’s kinda specific. Here’s a picture from my hike in New Hampshire’s White Mountains in July:

This hike represented a key moment in my never-ending journey with Long COVID and the many contradicting health issues I’ve developed. More frequent and intense physical activity is helpful for the neurological issues, but when the cardiopulmonary problems spiked in January 2023, that suddenly didn’t seem safe anymore. I couldn’t have kept up with a resolution to be in the gym two or three times a week—something I was doing at the end of 2022 as part of physical therapy—but I could find other creative ways to be active and push myself without risking a medical incident. That’s the beauty of a theme. You don’t need to set up a bunch of new plans or habits to have your year of health.

In the video, Grey recommends simply keeping your theme in mind when making choices in your day-to-day life. During your year of health, you may decide to order for pick-up instead of having it delivered because the 1.5-mile round-trip walk builds in some necessary movement after working from home. During a year of reading, you may read a book on the train instead of scrolling through Instagram. You don’t need to set up a bunch of quantitative goals around miles walked or books read, you simply need to bring this frame into all the small decisions that make up your habits and lifestyle. 

There are a handful of situations where you may really need to make radical change in a day. Many of them are tied to mental health — a substance use problem tied to a lifestyle problem tied to a mental health problem tied to childhood trauma, for example. If this whole mess has reached a level of severity that threatens your continued existence, maybe you should try to address all four things at once. That’s what higher levels of care are for. Changing your life in a day requires near-constant support, such as a  residential or partial-hospitalization treatment program. The constant accountability and limited access to temptations and triggers make that more feasible. Most people will never need this level of care, though. Even if 50 minutes of general talk therapy each week isn’t cutting it, there are many options in between that and partial hospitalization or inpatient treatment. 

Without these supports, committing to changing everything in a day most likely sets you up to fail. And even in the case of huge and complex issues like addiction, there are still options to proceed at a more gradual pace. Taking a more paced approach is perfectly valid, and in most cases, simply superior.

As we enter 2024 it’s great to set goals, but it’s worth considering whether these goals set you up for success. Sure, this newsletter is called, “Your Life, Better,” but one of the best ways to improve your quality of life is by reconsidering the standards you hold yourself to, and if they’re fair.