How to Write Kinder and More Effective Resolutions

I am not generally a fan of New Year’s Resolutions.

Setting goals can be productive and healthy, but only if done well and with true self care in mind. Resolutions that are driven by societal pressure and vague like “lose weight, eat better, exercise more” are just setting yourself up for disappointment and self-loathing.

I am a certified coach for a professional goal setting method known as Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). The idea is to set quantifiable goals with a set timeline that will directly help you achieve a measurable objective. Many gurus of this technique advocate adopting it in your personal as well as professional life.

I, however, am not a corporate succubus determined to drain the joy from your life in service to the insatiable god of productivity. Instead, I’m here to advocate a gentler approach to your New Year’s resolutions, should you choose to adopt any.

Resolutions for the Chronically Ill

The approach of the new year is naturally a time to reflect on the past year and imagine what’s in store for the next. For those with chronic illness (or any flavor of tragedy or malady), this can be an experience in despair.

Imagine you are sitting in the darkness. You can feel the damp cold of a rocky surface beneath you. You remember tumbling into a hole, getting banged up on the way down. Everything hurts, but at least you’re not mortally wounded.

You look up but there’s no light. You could start climbing but you don’t know how far you have to go or how arduous the journey. And if you slip? You’re not sure you’ve actually hit the bottom yet.

If this sounds familiar, I am sorry, and also you’re not alone. It’s ok to say that everything is terrible and cry about it for a while. We can cry together. But, not to be too saccharine, hope is powerful.

To paraphrase Emily Dickinson, hope is the thing with feathers, that never stops- at all.

If having new year’s resolutions will keep your hope singing, I would like to help you write some effective, supportive resolutions that will bring you joy, relief, comfort, or satisfaction.

What do you want to do?

This seems like a big question, but really it’s a bunch of smaller questions that apply to a larger system (you, as a whole). Feel free to start anywhere. If you don’t already have something in mind, this is a great topic for a brainstorming exercise. Or, browse this excellent compilation from NPR.

Try not to limit yourself. Be creative! What you want can be big or small. Do you want to apply for disability? Play with your cats more? Get a diagnosis for XYZ symptoms? Start learning a new language? Take the Christmas tree down before Easter this year? Stop your intense negative self talk? Explore your sexuality?

How do you want to do it?

Once you have the what, you can move on to the how. There are multiple paths and strategies to any goal. Deciding how you want to achieve something is important because it moves a vague goal that encourages self-judgement and failure (“eat better”) to something affirming and actionable (“set up an appointment with a dietician” or “try out some new recipes.”)

You may find you’re not sure how to go about doing something. If it makes sense, your “how” can then be “Research how to do X.” If you’re still stuck and not sure what exactly you want to do, asking why can help give clarity.

Why do you want to do it?

This is an important question that gets skipped often in resolution writing. It’s so important, I was tempted to list it first, but that would imply this process is linear. It isn’t.

You can start from any one of these headings and work your way in a cycle, or jump around. Everyone’s thought process works differently, but don’t skip this one.

Why do you want to eat better?

Do you have high cholesterol? A dietary sensitivity you haven’t nailed down yet? Do you just want a more balanced diet to hopefully improve overall health? What does “better” mean for you?

If you find your why’s are coming from a place of shame (because I’m fat, because I’m boring, because I feel unloveable), I invite you to shift your focus. If you want to lose weight because you are ashamed of your body, I can promise you from personal experience that losing weight won’t resolve that feeling.

If your why is shame, and you are ready to tackle it, perhaps this can become your new goal. To be kinder to yourself, to explore the root of your shame, or to allow yourself joys you had denied yourself out of that shame.

This can lead you to how’s like find a therapist, read a book on anxiety, start journaling, wear that strapless dress, etc.

Explore, adapt, forgive

When you know what, how, and why, write them down. There’s plenty of evidence that writing goals down makes you more likely to achieve them, whether due to some stronger sense of accountability or just a psychological trick of making them seem more real.

More importantly, I want you to write them down so you can revisit them from time to time. Are they still right for you? Are they helping?

Maybe you tried an approach that didn’t work out. Cross it out and try something else. Maybe you had a new diagnosis pop up which is taking over your life. You can scrap everything you had and write a new one for what you need right now.

Maybe now it’s just “text a friend to ask for help with the dishes.” Maybe that seems too minor to be called a resolution, but I don’t care. I just want you to do things that are helpful that you may not have done otherwise.

Asking yourself what you want and why can be an uncomfortable experience, and this process will be unique to everyone. Try it, and let me know how it goes.

Parting Thoughts

Here are a few last pieces of advice I have which are cliched for a reason.

• Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough, or even just extant.
• Failure is always an option. No one is grading this test.
• Building new habits won’t happen easily, and you must give yourself grace when you miss a step.

Especially if you are chronically ill, just existing takes an enormous amount of energy. New Year’s Eve can bring dread as easily as it can bring hope. If you choose to make some resolutions to make your life even a little bit better, I hope that this guide helps some. But if you have too much to handle already and the idea of something new is exhausting, I understand, and I wish everyone joy and comfort and less pain in 2023.