2024 Loading: Some Realisations Before Resolutions

The vigour and vitality that come with the new year are certainly high but the exhilarating emotion around it has subsided. As we close the first week of 2024 with tenacity and verve, I pat my back for keeping up with the resolutions. Like most of us, I have reset my workout goals, even in the freezing spell I walk an extra mile to gauge fitness. Since the past week, I have started to smile disdainfully at gajar ka halwa. I don’t eat it anymore. For me, it’s a sacrifice of the highest order.

New year is supposed to be a new you. It’s the only beacon of light that we believe would turn things around in our favour. The most commonly made resolutions ever since the evolution of mankind are; exercise, lose weight, read more, eat healthy, quit smoking, quit drinking, quit sugar, get organized, save money, and develop a hobby. If you have not made any of these resolutions, then my dear you should be second-guessing your productive existence in 2024.

The year has just started, so don’t cancel yourself. Research indicates that only 10 percent of people are able to stick to their New Year's resolutions. Most of them give up after one to six weeks.

Why is it difficult to stick to resolutions?

It's okay to be nonplussed about this as intentions are always right and true to heart. Only heaven above us knows how religiously we want to take up resolutions with increased depth and intensity for at least 300 days in the year, why does all of a sudden it goes out of whack? Maybe there is no mechanism of accountability built into them. The question holds an implicit challenge for some wounding realisation to take place.

The enormity of trying to become more is not restricted to the first few weeks of the year so why do we become incapable of moving the tectonic plates of our old existence and old habits? While we are shifting a tiny wee bit – life happens and amid a smattering of self-applause and improvement, the possibility of discontinuing resolutions is rich and various.

The unmendable will persist and it might leave you weary with unexpressed emotion and lack of motivation. 

It’s important to move beyond the guilt of breaking a resolution. As they say, “Resolutions are meant to be broken.” You aren’t gliding aimlessly through the rest of the year. Right? If the year that has just begun looks stale, I apologize. Try not to take any guff. Maybe the change in the date of the calendar was never about resolutions but reminders. Reminders, resolutions or realisations – whatever you might call them operate on a fundamental principle to work on a happier and healthier version of ourselves. Our whole being in no specific order, is compartmentalised into family, work, finance, and health. Small yet significant progress in all these areas will probably give a holistic meaning to the year.

My list of realisations comes in handy

1) Being 100 percent at the moment helps. It makes you more effective. Consistency in efforts will eventually snowball into something big. If you skip days, it makes you less consistent.

2) Connecting with real friends in the real world is therapeutic and journaling has the power to control emotions. Be easy on your self-talk, how you talk to yourself goes a long way so be kind. To add to that, overthinking and over-analysis have never helped anyone.

3) Environment will matter at every stage and phase of life. That’s why choose your environment carefully.

4) Not everything needs to be told or recorded. Learn to be discreet, and enjoy moments without capturing them in the camera.

5) Something as minuscule as reminding yourself to drink water. Eat healthy. Sleep for eight hours. While you are trying to organise life on a daily basis, in your to-do list, eat the biggest frog first and there should not be any place for half-hearted attempts.

6) Apologise when the need arises, it takes the burden off you. Suspend judgements. Try to take life from a different point of view. Comparison is the deadliest thing for self-destruction and delaying decisions when you are in a bad mood.

7) Get a grip on your finances.

8) Health is the only wealth to enjoy. That’s why, exercise. Regulate your lifestyle and your diet.

9) Be friends with your spiritual self. The world is of believers. Believe in the magic of the universe.

Resolutions can be periodically foisted on us but realisations and prompt reminders bring the cusp of profound change. They won’t let us falter. Pride yourself on sniffing it out that consistency in efforts is important, that’s why show up in sneakers to walk an extra mile with the teeth chattering and a layer of thermal inside. Nothing can be taken for granted as everything is connected with everything else.

Views expressed are the author's own.