Sedona, AZ
New Year's resolutions are all about personal betterment and they are an opportunity to look forward, plan ahead, and progress. Goals can be as benign as teaching yourself to juggle, but can also be as profound as quitting a harmful vice, changing unhealthy habits, or focusing on improving your self-worth. Regardless of one's intrinsic motivation to tackle a New Year's goal, a resolution is more than just a flashy post about your achievements. It's a journey of self-discovery and personal maturation, which certainly doesn't require the approval of random followers online.
Motivator?! I Barely Know ‘er!
Motivation is a funny thing.
As intangible as smoke and as powerful as an ox, motivation is unique to everyone’s personal experience. Some people are self-motivated by their own desires, while others are motivated entirely by exterior factors such as validation, praise, and other rewards. However, true personal growth doesn’t come from extrinsic factors, it comes from within.
When it comes to New Year’s resolutions, motivation goes a long way for short term goals, but to create lasting, potentially life-changing habits, even the most determined mind will need more than just blind ambition. King Street Chronicle journalist Avery Quake, says that New Year’s resolutions are more complicated than many people believe. “While motivation is an aspect of accomplishing any goal, the ability to maintain enough incentive to follow through with an objective requires a deeper sense of self-understanding.” Beyond one’s ulterior motivations, lies a deeper, more important catalyst that pushes people towards self-improvement: Personal inspiration.
Posts take on a whole new meaning on the internet. Social media, especially, has a way of changing user’s perception of meaningfulness, quantifying each post with silly engagement trackers and cheap UI rewards. Drained of sincere significance, a New Year’s resolution that gets posted online becomes watered down, diminishing under the gaze of the public with its personal value shrinking with every like, comment, and upvote from random followers.
Although it’s fun to occasionally brag about goals or achievements on social media, unsubstantiated feedback erodes the foundation of a deeply personal goal that might have had the potential to build upon skills, values, or intrinsic self-worth. It’s a pity to let a chance for betterment slip away.
Goals Before Trolls
The turning calendar pages of the new year may seem unimportant and trivial to some, but as Smash Mouth once said, “The years start coming, and they don’t stop coming.” With the pervasive pressure of the passing of time, the new year is a reminder that there’s no time like the present to tackle life’s objectives, and therefore, it’s become the perfect opportunity for reflection. For those of us who work well with deadlines and timely milestones, New Year’s Day is a tangible moment to tackle intangible goals. Setting a goal that originates from self-reflection and thoughtfulness is the first step towards an actionable, intrinsically valuable New Year’s resolution.
Whenever someone attempts to make meaningful changes in their lives, there are bound to be a few speed bumps. In fact, according to VeryWellMind psychologist Cynthia Vinney, PhD, 90% of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned after a month. “We need to know our reasons for our goal,” Vinney says. “If we know the reason we're making a particular resolution, we may find there are other routes to achieving it that will be more enjoyable and satisfying for us.” If a person’s original reason for setting a New Year’s resolution is so that they can post about it, once the humble brags aren’t satisfying anymore, neither is the resolution itself.
Via u/some_bull_ish and u/yourtango
Ultimately, personal goals are just that: Personal.
Change is scary, and oftentimes, self-improvement requires drastic changes to be made on a daily basis. In my experience as a habitual goal-setter, folks who hold themselves accountable to their own personal resolutions are more likely to achieve them. Without the fanfare of social media broadcasting and hooplah of extrinsic validation, self-accountability is the only glue holding your resolutions together. Alas, when your future depends on you, there are no more distractions that can derail your progress apart from yourself.
Via Betterment for Betterment’s Sake
Real, positive evolution and self-improvement requires thoughtful strategies, self-understanding, actionable steps, and support. Social media may provide a false sense of communal support through miscellaneous networks and relationships, however, this connection is superficial and maintained through continuous content curation, online updates, and meaningless likes.
New Year’s resolutions have the potential to become something so much more meaningful than a snarky Tweet, a well-edited Reel, or a flattering tagged post on your local gym’s page. When a person is really looking to change themselves and enrich their life for the better, the opinions of strangers doesn’t actually matter.
Ultimately the flame of motivation is sparked by one’s desire for progress, not validation.
So what’s my New Year’s resolution? Wouldn’t you like to know…